I am shocked and saddened by the recent statements made by two members of the Republican Caucus of the Utah Senate.

By now, you may have seen the Senate Majority Leader, Scot Jenkins, outburst on the outlandish thought of exempting military personnel from having to pay property taxes while serving on active duty (click here for post and video).

Well, on Thursday, the trend continued. Senator Casey Anderson (R-Cedar City, District 28), while discussing HB 263, stood up before the chamber and claimed, in short, that military families should do one of two things: have a spouse quit their job and suffer financial hardship due do a forced relocation,  or break up a family because a spouse needs to stay behind to earn money at their present job while their military family member moves due to deployment.  The worst possible solution, in Anderson’s eyes, apparently, is that the state will have to cough up roughly $85,000 a year to cover unemployment benefits while the relocated spouse looks for work near their partners new base (for those of you doing the math, that is a show stopping three cents per year per Utah resident).

Don’t believe me? Lets take a look at the tape:

Boy, that doesn’t look good…eeee. Almost looks like you care more about your rabid anti-tax stance that you wouldn’t know a good bill if it punched you in the face. I mean, the idea of paying three cents more is so gawdawful that you are willing to either split up families or force them to suffer because, whelp, they knew what they were getting into when they signed up to serve.

This kind of fanaticism makes me sick. Far too often dogmatic lawmakers such as Anderson can’t see the forest for the trees. This same type of thinking creates lawmakers who will shoot down a revolutionary school education funding program because they perceive it as a tax hike, but make them more than eager to pass laws that will cost the state millions in lawsuits that will undoubtedly be overturned – all because we want to prove a point to the nasty federal guv’ment.

I hope that voters see these people for what they really are, dangerous to our state. At the very least, I hope Republicans are able to reign this kind of crap in because, frankly, they have gone way too far.

P.S. To contact Sen. Anderson, Click Here or call 435-263-5854

We as a society love to say how much we support our troops, but it is rare that policy makers actually step up to the plate and say “thank you, we are going to make your life a little bit easier because you have decided to protect our nation.”

That is why I applaud Senator Luz Robles’ (D – Salt Lake, District 1) SB 116, Armed Forces Property Tax Exemption.  As you might have guessed by the bills title, the law, if passed, would exempt active duty military personnel from having to pay property taxes while they are actually out fighting for our freedoms.

Robles is also running a Joint Resolution (SJR 8) is also advancing through the legislature to add the property tax exemption to our state constitution, directly allowing the people to vote on the matter.

As a nation, we ask much of our service personnel, and give so little back.  Take, for example, the lack of a ticker-tape parade for our nations vets in New York when they returned home from Iraq…but that city was more than eager to roll out the red carpet for the winners of a football game.

We as a society don’t want to think about our troops because it forces us to think about why we are fighting wars, or why people fly planes into buildings, or why foreign policy is so hit or miss, or why gay people can hold a gun, or why women are just as capable as a man at something – so it is much easier to pretend that they don’t exist, or if they do; they only exist on the margins.

But they do exist, and oftentimes military service presents both opportunity and struggle – sometimes it also presents the ultimate sacrifice.

Robles is trying to make it just a little bit easier for service men and women to make it while they are serving our nation and her interests (however flawed they may be in peoples eyes). Many people may have many different opinions on the various wars we have been waging, but not very many people are out there blaming the troops for the situation they are fighting around.

By exempting our service men and women from property taxes, we as citizens (by way of state law) are saying “thank you – we’ll pick up the tab while you are out, don’t worry about it.”  This bill is a small way we can help those who make a huge sacrifice.

To contact Sen. Robles, Click Here or call 801-550-6434

Impact: 1

Need: 1

Overall: 4

Questions about the rating system? Click Here

To view other bills in the 2012 Bills to Watch series, Click Here

P.S. I would be remiss if I didn’t include the rant Majority Leader Scott Jenkins (R-Plain City, District 20) had against this bill; he felt that troops have received enough and that we shouldn’t give them any more benefits. I am sure his constituents (many of whom undoubtedly work at Hill Air Force Base) feel about this information.  If you would like to contact Sen. Jenkins, you can email him at sjenkins@le.utah.gov or call 801-731-5120

P.P.S. Senator Jenkins should know that the fiscal impact for the average Utah Resident would be $1.03 per home owner and $7.68 per million dollar business.

P.P.P.S. Did you hear the part at the end where Senator Jenkins says that he doesn’t even want to pay his own taxes? Starting to connect the dots now?

After reading up on HB 263, Unemployment Benefits for Military Spouse as proposed by Representative Lynn Hemingway (D – Salt Lake City, District 40), I was shocked to find out we needed a bill like this in the first place.

Being the spouse of a serviceman or woman is a difficult one, often times meaning that you have to move from town to town on very short notice. This, naturally, means that servicemember spouses have to choose between staying at a job or staying with their partner. More often than not, the family member will quit their job so that they can continue to be with their loved-one, forcing people to quit their jobs.

Now, by “quit their job” it does not mean that they were disgruntled, or stopping an upcoming firing, no – I am sure most people would love to stay in one spot and build a career.  But our nation has called on these families to make a large sacrifice, and it is not one that families can simply opt-out of.

However, when a family leaves Utah to go off to some other base, that family is simply up a creek without a paddle. Not only do you loose the income from the job you have been working at, but you loose all access to the rightful unemployment insurance you have been paying into while you are here.

To add insult to injury, Utah is only one of ten states in the nation that does not extend this basic courtesy to the families of the men and women who fight for our country.

Thankfully, Rep. Hemingway has decided to take on this oversight by proposing HB 263 so that Utah can extend unemployment benefits to those  who would rather not quit their jobs, but have a higher duty to the nation. When you do find a new job, your unemployment benefits end, just as they would had you stayed in the state.

And, here is the best part. It is estimated that the benefits we will have to pay out in a given year are roughly $85,000. Yes, you read that right – not $850,000, but $85,000. Yes, for the cost of a nice car, the citizens of the State of Utah can say thank you to those who serve and the families that support them.

This is a no-brainer folks. I hope this bill passes with flying colors.

To contact Rep. Hemingway, Click Here or call 801-231-2153

Impact: 1

Need: 4

Overall: 4

Questions about the rating system? Click Here

To view other bills in the 2012 Bills to Watch series, Click Here

Freshman Senator Casey Anderson (R-Cedar City, District 28), who has not even been in office long enough to make a baby, feels that he is ready to fundamentally change our taxation system by making it more difficult to increase taxes.

Yes, SJR 6, Joint Resolution Amending State Taxing Authority, is some good ol’ fashion red meat that Anderson is naively putting up to appease those who put him into office.  The resolution smacks of adorable campaign promises that would be horrible if actually turned into policy.

One read will tell you why I think this way – basically the resolution would require that any bill that increases taxes or fees would require a two-thirds vote (as opposed to the current majority required).

Now, if you stop to think about this, a policy change such as this could decimate our budget because a minority could hold the states budget hostage while demands are met. Don’t believe me? Look at what the Tea-party was able to accomplish this past year…and they didn’t even have this rule in place while driving the economy off a cliff.  In theory, 25 House members or 10 Senators could prevent Utah from having a balanced budget.

Yes, a fringe caucus could cause our schools to shut down, our roads to remain un-repaired, and our public parks to shut down…even, (dare I say it?), Democrats could muck up the works if they could actually muster up enough representatives.

This bill does not prevent “out of control government spending” (something, by the way, I doubt anyone would say about Utah – ever). All it does is appease a far right, out of touch, section of the population while putting our state in an unnecessarily harmful situation.

To contact Sen. Anderson, Click Here or call 435-263-5854

Impact: 5

Need: 0

Overall: -4

Questions about the rating system? Click Here

To view other bills in the 2012 Bills to Watch series, Click Here

This month I have the to suffer the joy that is renewing my car registration. The fee is a stone cold $170 to legally drive on Utah’s roads for another year. I will, of course, pay this fee, along with any sort of costs to test my cars safety and emission standards because I rather enjoy not being pulled over for expired tags.

There is a part of me, however, that wants to have a little fun.

You see, during the last legislative session, Representative Brad Galvez (R – West Haven- District 6) successfuly pushed through HB 317, a bill that makes gold and silver legal tender in Utah. I am just thinking how great it would be to walk up to the DMV with a little more than a tenth of an ounce of gold in order to pay my dues.

Of course, there are a few problems.  First and foremost, you have to pay with gold or silver that was minted by the federal government and the money would only be worth the face value, not the value of the gold or silver that actually resided within the coin.  So I would need to buy 8 $20 “common” gold coins at $1,650 a pop, and one $10 coin at $816 – sadly, as much as I would like to prove a point, I don’t know if I could justify spending $4,000 more than I actually dropped to buy the car just to renew it for another 12 months.

The other hitch is that the law says that I can’t force the poor soul at the DMV to actually accept my gold as payment – though, if they clerk were smart, they would gladly accept it and swap it out with the $20 in their pocket – in the eyes of the state they are equal.

So, alas, I guess I won’t show up to the DMV with nine ounces of gold after all.

“But wait,” you say, “you mean to tell me that the legislature took up valuable time debating a bill that structurally does nothing more than prove an absurd point but gets nothing done?”

Yes, I am afraid to burst your bubble on that one.

Representative Galvez, along with 18 far right cosponsors, knowingly spent the states resources on a bill that would do NOTHING, other than prove a point that we don’t need the gov’ment telln’ us what ta’ do!

*Sigh* I guess I will just have to settle with using a gold card instead.

With Congress planning on staying in session during the holiday to discuss changing the debt ceiling, I have to continually pound my head against a wall when I hear that Republicans absolutely refuse to move on raising taxes.

Now, I get it; Republicans don’t want to look weak against a president they can not stand, and they sure don’t want to be seen as tax raisers, but it is time to put bickering aside and actually start talking about real solutions to solving the debt and deficit crisis.

We often hear from Republicans that government should be run by a business – although with the implosion of Wall Street, they have started to back away from this comparison and have started to say that government’s budget should be run like a family budget.  Either way, they seem to think that the only way that either of these institutions work is by cutting spending, not by making investments and looking for more revenue.

To be sure, in the short term both businesses and families have to cut back on some of the more luxurious items they may have in their budget. But at some point businesses and families can’t cut anymore and still be around – for a company, at some point they have to shutter the doors, and for a family they will need to, at some point, end up on the streets. With the debt ceiling debate, we are coming dangerously close to creating the same situation with our government.

We have all been through lean times, and many of us have probably worked for companies that had to make difficult decisions – but we often prevail. Why? Because after we have cut as much as we are able, we start to find ways to generate more revenue for ourselves. Businesses may cut prices, merge with a more successful company, or create a new product or service that brings in more money; families with budget shortfalls may have adults who gain more skills, becoming more employable, or take on a second job.  In short, we find ways to get more cash.

So why, Republicans, can’t we do the same for government? If you truly feel that government should be run under these types of models, but your money where your mouth is.

Aside from the far right Tea Party, few feel that any more cuts can reasonably be made – no one wants to loose their social security, and many don’t see military budget cuts as an option – so where does that leave us?

Yup, ya need to raise taxes.

Step one would be getting rid of the Bush tax cuts and bring things back into line with pre-2001 tax rates (remember when Clinton handed Bush a surplus? Well this is part of the reason). But even this plan wont work. During the booming 50′s under Republican Eisenhower, the top rate was a whopping 91% , under Nixon it was 70%, even Reagan set the bar to 50%. In other words, Republicans were not afraid to raise taxes on the most wealthy (and we are talking the top 1% here).

During this entire time the deficit never topped $4 trillion – still high, but paltry when compared to today’s $14.4 trillion.

We need to generate more revenue, and the money is out there. High tax rates for the upper, upper class have existed during grand economic growth, and the “trickle down” Republicans are so fond of spouting surly should have produced something during the 30 years it has been advocated for. Indeed, as I alluded to before, when Clinton raised the tax rate to nearly 40%, our economy didn’t suffer, indeed it was boom times and we had a budget surplus.

Should we make cuts? Yes, that is part of sound policy. But we also need to bring in more money through taxation to ensure our books are balanced. By not moving on tax cuts, Republicans are playing a dangerous game – one that we can not afford to lose.

It should come as no surprise that debates are raging here and across the nation about government spending. Often, conservative law makers point to social programs as the greatest sin against the taxpayer, but we have started to reach a point where reasonable cuts can no longer be made. With Republicans refusing to budge on raising taxes (well, in most cases), we start to see the true colors of their party. One particular quote in particular bothered me…from none other than Representative Carl Wimmer:

Though I agree with the idea that forced charity isn’t charity at all, I fundamentally disagree that this means we should make such aid voluntary.  The cutting of this would mean that the severely poor would have no heating, no water, no electricity, no phone, and no real means to advance themselves because they are to concerned with simply surviving.

It has been said that you can judge a society based on how they treat the lowest members of that society, and what Representative Wimmer, and conservatives of his ilk, seem to be saying with statements such as this is that our society should not inherently value the life of the lowest classes who struggle just to get by. Don’t we, as human beings, have the common decency to prevent people from freezing to death if we have the means to do so?

Of course, a fair debate is to ask how far we should take this type of public assistance. Indeed, if we were to take this particular aid argument to its logical end, homelessness, and indeed poverty itself, would be eliminated from the state, with the public paying to ensure that everyone has a basic level of quality of life. As nice as this may be, at the current moment it is both politically and economically impossible.

But we the people, through the power of representative government, did decide to create what amounts to a communal charity when Utah Code 54-7-13.6 was voted on by the legislature and signed by the governor. We as a community collectively decided that the extra money we have to pay on a utility bill is worth it to ensure the poorest of the poor are able to have a certain level of comfort in their lives.

My tax dollars frequently go towards things that I, on my own, would not want to pay for. I am not a fan of having to pay for the inevitable lawsuits that occur after any particular lawmaker passes a message bill…but I pay them. I do not enjoy my hard earned cash going towards building roads that lead to sprawl…but I still turn in my check. Likewise, I am sure Representative Wimmer does not enjoy paying to assist the poor if he has not done so under his own free will. I get that, I really do, but taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society. 100 percent of my funds could go to whatever I want, but the problem is I would live in a society that had the infrastructure of Somalia and, most likely, a similar form of government.

But when do proposed budget cuts stop being dire and start to just be mean?

Well, I know, for example that on my last power bill, this particular program cost me 11 cents a month – that is .003 cents a day or  the amount I earn in less than one sixtieth of a second at work. Meanwhile, it would take over 400 people to power my home if I were on a such an income assistance program – an entire neighborhood would be needed to help one person in it make it another month. But that is a tax that I pay on my power bill and the cost of saying that, as a society, I think it is more important that people have power than to have an extra 11 cents in my pocket at the end of the month.

But what Wimmer is suggesting is that the average Utahan simply can not spare 11 cents, or 20, or even 50 whole cents on bills that go up as the size, and presumably the price (along with the income needed for a mortgage), of a house goes up? If this isn’t the case, than he has to be suggesting that it is preferable to have people – women, children, babies, live ice cold homes in the winter and sweltering hot apartments in the summer is because the inherent idea of forcing people to pay any amount of money to another is reprehensible.

And I dare say that is where the mean factor comes in.

Some conservatives would rather battle the theoretical harm caused by even the slightest tax rather than recognize the real heartache the lack of such programs cause to real people. They seem happy to steal from the poor to give to the rich because it just doesn’t seem very nice to force the rich to do something they don’t want to do.

By being dogmatic in saying that we should never raise taxes, many conservatives remove half of governments ability to balance a budget and provide for the people. Family budgets don’t work this way – if you have cut everything as much as you can, no cable, no internet, no phone, no entertainment, poor food quality, you don’t say to yourself “whelp, I guess there is nothing left to do” when you still have bills to pay, no – you find another source of income, you don’t say “well, I guess I will sell my clothes because it costs me to maintain them.” At some point you simply can not cut anymore.

When you are a government, you have to consider the same possibility and look to increase your income, not just decrease your costs. It is mean to force those already struggling to get by to take a further cut because we refuse to accept that sometimes we need to maintain or increase a tax.

I will admit that it is important to find a balance between social programs and hyper taxation; but at some point, budget cuts stop being about cutting the fat, and start to be about being selfish and isolated from the realities of the world.

In the end policy makers and the public have to accept that we simply can not have it both ways. We can have many programs and a high tax rate, few to no programs and a low tax rate, or moderate programs with moderate tax rates – what we can’t have is low tax rates with a moderate or high amount of programs. If the public wants to have programs, it must be willing to pay for it, and if policy makers wish to have a program, they must ensure that it is funded.

I find it funny that, during these tough economic times and severe budget cuts, that Republicans still refuse to raise taxes. Thank goodness Senator Stuart Adams (R – Layton, District 22) is willing to make the hard decisions, and tax the lower and middle class.

By proposing SB 270 – Modifications to Sales and Use Tax, Adams is making it harder to buy potatoes, but easier to purchase fur coats.  Enjoy your once a week steak dinner? Well the cost for it just went up, but don’t worry, that Porsche you were looking at will come down by a few thousand. But, don’t worry, the price of Jimmy Dean chocolate chip Pancakes and Sausage (ON A STICK!) will remain unchanged.

The bill would raise the food tax on yucky “foods” that have the nerve to from the ground, or directly eat the things that come from the ground. Yes, Utah foods such as wheat, beans, potatoes, onions and corn, cherries, beef, eggs, and yes, the lauded Sugar Beet, will see an almost 3% tax increase, while the tax on other goods, such as 3D flat screen TV’s, granite counter tops, and the materials to turn that cluttered two car garage into a three car dream-scape, will go down by .3%.

I also think it is bold for Senator Adams to point out the poor have to eat, so we should do all we can to squeeze 2.7% more blood out of the turnip that is the working men and women in this state by callously pointing out that this bill would stabilize our tax base. It is also good to know that, even though such stabilization he will make it more difficult for people to eat, lowering the sales tax will make us more attractive to outsiders.

I am sure people will have the common courtesy to simply starve to death rather than further taxing programs such as food stamps to just get by, and that people on the fringe now won’t take government assistance to keep food on the table when this tax affects the one area of spending they can’t regulate with ease.  No, they should just know that, when they are ready, they can buy that  xbox 360 just a little bit sooner – you know, after they pick up a third job to pay the bills.

But don’t worry, this bill harms Senator Adams too. After all, when he drives down from the foothills of Layton (a neighborhood where the average  income, adjusted for inflation, is $93,600, and  home prices average $315,000 before the bubble burst) to go to the store, he will have to pay more for his food as well – thank goodness his pool table will be a little cheaper.

Bravo Senator Adams, way to solve the problem, and all you have to do is harm the majority of Utah’s citizens and help the richest in the state to do it.

Urgency Score

Click here to contact Senator Adams.

We all know the price of college is not getting any lower, and the burden for these costs are often placed on students who’s caloric intake on any given week consists of ramen noodles and whatever was left over from when they crashed the underwater basket-weaving clubs meeting in hopes of getting a sweet, sweet slice of free pizza as advertised on a flyer. I too remember those days, and let me tell you, every little bit helps.

That is why I was pleased to see Senator Karen Mayne’s (D –  Salt Lake, District 5) SB 69 – Sales and Use Tax Exemption for Textbooks for Higher Education. As you might suspect, the bill would remove the sales tax on textbooks when they are bought from a company who’s sales come primarily from textbooks – sorry Barnes and Noble, ya don’t make the cut on this one.

Now, because we are not taking in tax revenue, this bill is going to cost the state some $100,000, meaning that the average savings per student is going to be around $10 – but this number can be deceiving. This bill benefits those who stay in college and pursue a degree, if only because, as you go further in your education, books become more specialized; as they become more specialized, fewer are printed. Now if you open your economics text book (see what I did there?) you will see that as supply goes down, price can go up – even if demand is going down.

Every year I went after my degree, the price of books rose by around $100-125. By my senior year I was paying $700 for text books per semester. I can only imagine what someone pursuing a masters or doctorate must pay – if you are dropping $1500 on books every four months, an extra $150 in your pocket every year is much appreciated I am sure.

Is there a cost to the state? Yes. But by making an education a little more financially feasible, we are ensuring that we have a well educated workforce that will attract and sustain higher-end businesses in our state. This may be a loss now, but it should pay large dividends in the future.

Urgency Score:

Click here to contact Senator Mayne.

You know what I love most in my lawmaking? Bald faced hypocrisy. That is why I am so glad Representative Wayne Harper (R – West Jordan, District 43) is proposing HB 226 – Local Government Fee Authority. I mean, it just smacks of double standards, and it makes no attempt to pretend it doesn’t.

Remember a short while back when Salt Lake County slapped what amounted to a tax on those in the unincorporated portion of the valley to ensure that they could pay cops to be on the street and firemen to show up when a house is burning down? If you don’t, you probably did not have to pay. Needless to say the tax was unpopular, but it is what the county government felt had to be done to ensure that these services were provided.

Now I am not here to debate the validity of the service fee, rather I am here to ask why Representative Harper (along with many of his Republican friends) is so willing to interfere when the internal matters of county government when they themselves cry and moan about federal interference of internal matters regarding the state?

The bill itself would eliminate the tax and make it illegal for any county with a population of 31,000 people or more to impose such a tax, thereby severely restricting the ability for that county government to govern.

Why can’t Representative Harper trust that the democratic process might actually work on this one? If enough people disagree with the tax, they will vote people in at the county level who vow to eliminate such a tax. But that’s just it – it is the place for the residents of the county to make such a decision, not 104 legislators who may or may not have an understanding (or even an vested interest) in what the county does.

Again, many faux-conservatives complain about state’s rights, but a true conservative would also ask the question of county, city, and neighborhood rights. Does the legislature have the right to restrict the action of a county simply because they don’t like the idea of taxation…ever…for anything? I say no. Let the county do what the county will do, and let the voters decide though our representative democracy if it is the best course of action.

Urgency Score:

Click here to contact Representative Harper.