Blog Posts - Jay Evensen

Don't let Amendment G take you by surprise

9/16/2020

When voters get their ballots in the mail next month, they will face, among many other things, Amendment G, which asks whether to change Utah’s constitution to expand the use of income and intangible property taxes “to include supporting children and supporting people with a disability.”
The phrasing is important because the word “education,” is nowhere to be found.
For that matter, neither are the words “tax reform.”
And yet, Amendment G is all about both those things.

An Eiffel Tower in Draper? Why not think big?

9/15/2020

Would you pay for something like an Eiffel Tower or a Space Needle in Draper?
What if it were planned in such a way that it became an international tourist attraction and still didn’t clog the freeway near the Point of the Mountain?
I know, I know — and what if pigs could fly, right? Well, maybe not pigs, but how about cars?
Whatever you may think about members of the Point of the Mountain Development Commission, who are trying to steer the fate of the Utah State Prison site once that facility closes in 2022, you cannot accuse them of not thinking big.
In fact, as they told the Deseret News/KSL editorial board last week, their big worry is they won’t think big enough.

This is why the pandemic hasn't permanently changed spending habits

9/9/2020

In 1965, journalist Edward Mowery lamented how credit card debt was bankrupting Americans.
“It’s fashionable today to owe for the TV set, oil burner, car, mink coat and trips around the world,” he wrote in a syndicated newspaper op-ed. “And the ‘live-it-up’ atmosphere saturates the nation.”
This 55-year-old statement is not just a curious oddity from a bygone era when Americans, still overwhelmingly using cash for most purchases, had no idea what was coming. No, it illustrates how long American culture has been, bit by bit, learning to rely on plastic for the movement of goods and services.

Why are we stupid? The answer is blowing in the wind

9/8/2020

Nearly 60 years ago, Bob Dylan had a hit song that told us “the answer … is blowing in the wind.”
Anyone contemplating those lyrics Tuesday along the Wasatch Front, with trees and limbs flying through the air, power outages and school closures, might have wondered what the question was, and who could we punish for asking it?

Want Sundays off? Here's why you might be told no

9/8/2020

I was 15 when I landed my first job bagging groceries at a supermarket in my hometown of Phoenix. The year was 1974, and soon after the first day, I told my supervisor I would need to have Sundays off, for religious reasons.
He clearly wasn’t happy. He mumbled some words that, at my age, movie theaters weren’t allowed to let me hear, but he complied.
I didn’t know it then, but if the supervisor had refused, I could have taken the company to court under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which Congress had passed only two years before. It required bosses to accommodate religious practices, such as Sabbath observance, unless doing so would provide “undue hardship.”

Here's why governments weren't prepared for pandemic

9/1/2020

I rarely get the chance to say I told you so, but it feels distinctly unfulfilling this time.
Exactly two years ago this week, I wondered in this column why the United States was so unprepared for a pandemic. I wasn’t trying to foretell the future, although I did note that pandemics are a relevant fact of life that had, at that point, skipped a few generations. No, I was prompted by the 100th anniversary of the Spanish Flu epidemic, which also started in September.

It's 2020: Where is my self-driving car?

8/31/2020

A few weeks ago in Arizona, a Tesla, reportedly on autopilot, smacked into an emergency vehicle that was parked on the side of an interstate while an officer was investigating another accident.
Which got me thinking, where is my self-driving car?

Those school buses don't mean everything is normal again

8/25/2020

My morning bike ride — one of the more positive behavioral traditions I’ve adopted since working at home — has been complicated this week by school buses and well-dressed children toting books under their arms.
I don’t mind. It’s the kind of warm and tender scene I haven’t had enough of during the past five months — a gentle sign that the world is returning to normal.
Except that it’s not.

Mail-in voting can be as safe as any other method

8/19/2020

As the rhetoric heats up over election fraud and voting by mail, it’s important to remember this number: 3,143.
That’s how many counties, and county equivalents (boroughs, independent cities, etc.) exist in this country. You might be concerned that Washington is usurping local control in myriad ways, but national elections remain about as local as they can be.
Each of those counties conducts elections under its own rules — many of these are set by their states, but counties often retain control over certain elements of how votes are collected and tallied.
That’s a beautiful thing.

A competitive congressional race is a rare thing

8/19/2020

If you live in Utah’s fourth congressional district, consider yourself lucky. You live in the rarest of political territories -- a competitive district.
You might say you’ve gone retro.
Back in the 19th century, the U.S. House of Representatives saw a 45% turnover each election, on average. On 15 different occasions back then, more than half of the House was new after an election, according to Josh Huder, a senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University.

weebly statistics

weebly reliable statistics

weebly statistics