Utah's State Crustacean, the Brine Shrimp

Well, it had to happen eventually. After all, what State could operate without the proper actions taken?

Our 2023 legislature has done the right thing at last. A massive problem has been identified, discussed and now corrected, hopefully in time to ward off approaching danger.  

Utah finally has its very own state crustacean. I mean, how did we make it through all this time since statehood without the Brine Shrimp as our state crustacean, really? How many really important things has Utah missed out on by not having a state crustacean in the last 127 years?  It is comforting to know our elected legislators have come to our rescue and taken care of this very important piece of business. You know we can trust them with anything now, because they have taken the time and energy to alleviate this deficiency in our standings among the other 49 states.

So, our gallant legislators are off to solve another of Utah's problems, with the same can-do attitude and attention to detail deployed on the State Crustacean issue. I'm so glad they are looking out for our best interests. These guys (and gals, ok) can do no wrong! I have visions of state representative Judy Weeks Rohner (R-West Valley City) and state senator John D Johnson (R-Ogden) suited up in armor, riding their war horses into the heat of the west desert looking to slay any problem foolhardy enough to enter Utah's dominion. 

When you go knighting around, as our legislature does, looking for injustices and issues needing solving, why the problems just leap up at you like a rattlesnake! 

The very first problem our legislators stumbled upon that needed a solution is the sales tax on food. (Ok, we really had to get the high school transgender thing taken care of first, but stay with the story here, please). After all, Senator Johnson has a PhD in Economics; he used his great expensive education, training and skills to conclude that the sales tax on food was a regressive tax that really hurt lower income people. So he and Representative Rohner put forth a bill to eliminate the state sales tax on food! Now, this would be a pretty popular move on the Utah Legislators part, as everybody buys food at one point or another. This issue could stand on its on merits and everybody that buys food would applaud the courageous actions by our legislators. It's a win-win-win! 

Never ones to let a good deal go unpunished, the Utah Legislators looked around for another problem to slay and lo and behold, right in front of them, right in our state constitution in fact, there it was: the Holy Grail for the Utah Legislature. The very brave and talented state senator, Daniel McCay (R-Salt Lake County) proposed a Senate Joint Resolution that would allow the legislators to breath a great sigh of relief.  

You see, by the Constitution of the great State of Utah, all of the monies collected as income tax revenue have to be spent on K-12 and higher education, and children and individuals with a disability. Our legislators have been bothered by this little detail for many, many years; and although many efforts to change this part of the state  constitution have been put forward, none have succeeded yet.    

Now they had found just to weapon to make those holdout voters agree with the enlightened legislators and take that pesky rule off the books. If they tied the elimination of the sales tax on food to a constitutional amendment that would remove the lock on income taxes going to schools, think of the great things they could accomplish with all that money! And who wouldn't want to eliminate the sales tax on food? Why, can you even imagine how that sounds-"I want to pay sales tax on food so our students can continue to be educated with state tax funds." That's not a campaign slogan I want to paint on my horse and buggy. 

So, this win will be a biggie for the legislature. By tying the elimination of the food sales tax to doing away with that pesky line in the state constitution that controls the use of state income taxes, they will have managed to further reduce the money they send to public schools, and make themselves look like nice people for doing away with the food sales tax. Now they will have more money to use as offsets for tax cuts to rich donors, and pet projects like a gondola. 

If we the voters vote against the constitutional amendment, we will continue to have a regressive tax on food that targets the lower income population. If we vote yes on the amendment, we will have given the legislature permission to starve public education. Either way, it will feel like we are on the wrong end of a jousting lance.

We, the taxpayers, get the shaft no matter what. Why do we keep insisting on electing Republicans? 

Thanks for reading; as always, your comments are welcome and appreciated. Just click on the word "comments" in the white box below. 

R. M. "Bob" Hartman

 

Taxes and Education in Utah, Again. Or, Say it ain’t so, Governor Herbert

"Cash-strapped Utah" has an income problem; that is, it needs more money (what's new) to continue supporting such deserving programs as keeping the gray wolf out of the state or moving the prison from potentially lucrative real estate to a swamp. It seems our sales tax base is eroding, for reasons the government did not say. Perhaps Utah citizens are buying more products online, and thereby not paying sales tax, or perhaps those citizens are cutting their personal spending because wages are not rising as fast as the cost of goods. But, the reasons for the downturn in sales tax revenue are not the subject of this muse. No, I'm looking at what Utah is proposing to do about the decreased revenue. 

The first item that comes to our legislature's collective mind, whenever money is concerned, seems to be how can we cut what we spend on education. Our legislature seems to have forgotten, or better said, have never read Thomas Jefferson (he's one of those Founding Fathers we love so much here in the Beehive state) on the subject of Education: 

The tax which will be paid for [the] purpose [of education] is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance. --Thomas Jefferson to George Wythe, 1786.

Back in 1930, voters in Utah agreed, and passed a constitutional amendment:
“All revenue from taxes on intangible property or from a tax on income shall be used to support the systems of public education and higher education as defined in Article X, Section 2.” (Utah State Constitution, Article XIII, Section 5(5))

There you have it, in black and white. The citizens of Utah voted to pay for education by committing all the state income tax to education. Perhaps, back in 1930, there was no need to offer incentives to draw business to our state; perhaps they didn’t need to incentivize extractive industries, perhaps they didn’t need to make our real estate moguls more money, or perhaps there were no gray wolves threatening them. (OK, enough with the wolves.)

Anyway, the citizens made it known they wanted public K-12 education for everybody. Were they looking ahead, to a time when a high school education would become necessary for any job? We don’t know what drove them to make this decision, to tax themselves for the purpose of education, but in hindsight, it was a good decision.

Fast forward to December 2019. Our best-managed state, as Governor Herbert likes to remind us, is looking at ways to increase revenue, without upsetting big business, the wealthy, real estate kings and, most importantly, campaign donors. Now the legislature has public school funding in its target-finding laser sights. There is a very serious proposal from the Legislature’s Task Force on Tax Reform that would “amend” Article XIII, Section 5 (5) and allow income tax receipts to be re-directed to the general fund, thereby reducing the amount of money available to public education.

For many years, Utah has been a leader in the race to the bottom of per-pupil spending. The good news, Utah has found a race it can win, consistently. The bad news, Utah students suffer. And, it could be argued, the state will suffer long-term, when the residents cannot compete for good paying jobs due to lack of educational development. Or perhaps those companies won’t move to Utah because we will have a functionally illiterate workforce.

Let’s be perfectly clear on how well Utah has run this race. Our per-pupil spending is the lowest in the nation. Utah spends $6,953 per pupil; the national average is $11,762 per pupil. That’s right, our best managed state is at the bottom of the class, we rank as number 51 out of 51. Isn’t that something to be proud of? WE’RE NUMBER (5)1!

It can’t be said that the Utah Legislature hasn’t tried before to cut education costs, those high-minded people tried for an educational voucher system, so you could send Sally and Johnny to a school that teaches what you want your children to hear, as opposed to fact-based “liberal” education. The voters said no thank you and defeated that program. Now Utah is hot and heavy into the charter school fiasco, whereby “schools” that lack in credentials, with teachers that don’t have the proper education, can have a go at spending state tax dollars-and then fail to be acceptable schools. Look at Treeside Charter School in Provo, or American International School of Utah. Both have failed, and the financial loss will, in the end, cost Utah more millions. The students are the ones that really lose in this ill-planned assault on education, however. Perhaps our legislature could learn more from Mr. Jefferson:

Education is here placed among the articles of public care, not that it would be proposed to take its ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which manages so much better all the concerns to which it is equal; but a public institution can alone supply those sciences which, though rarely called for, are yet necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country, and some of them to its preservation. --Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806.

Now, to be fair, the task force has included some other measures that are also repugnant, in my opinion. They want to increase the sales tax on food (after all, everybody needs food), and they want to increase the per-child deduction on the fore-mentioned income tax. A double whammy hit on the less fortunate, to be sure. Low-income residents will see the grocery bill rise (due to the sales tax increase), and then they have to wait for a “credit” on their income tax to offset the higher weekly food bill. Those families with children will pay less income tax-that’s right, those that have more children in school will pay less to educate them.

So, what can be done? If this sloppy, poorly-thought-out plan makes it through a special session of the legislature (very likely), and a ballot measure comes forward to amend the state constitution to allow the diversion of income tax money away from schools, vote against it! And perhaps more importantly, let your legislative representatives know how you feel about education!

Our children’s education, and the future of our state’s economy, are worth more to me than moving the prison, or funding extractive industries.

Well, those are my thoughts on this chapter of education funding in Utah. Thanks for reading; your thoughts and comments are, as always, welcome.

R.M. “Bob” Hartman

Contemplation

Sunday, June 18, 2017, 5:08 AM, MDT. I woke early this morning to the sound of coyotes, singing good night to the moon and good morning to the sun. A simple act, one they have repeated since time immemorial.

Living as I do in suburbia, it is an unusual alarm clock for me; one that brings a needed reminder that life does not always follow our manmade rhythms of nine-to-five. Perhaps, more importantly, it reminds me that my life form and style is only one of a multitude on this planet that we call Earth, the planet we call home.  

Putting on the coffee, I step outside and open my ears, eyes, and mind to nature. Perhaps you would call this a spiritual moment, a period of meditation; for there is no sense of myself now. I am immersed and engaged, yet invisible, in the landscape that surrounds me. There is nothing I need attend to right now, nothing that requires my action or presence. Instead, my attention is caught by the jackrabbits, nibbling on the prairie grasses as they eye the sky for airborne predators. Fortunately, not the drones that catch our attention on the 6 PM news, but eagles and hawks soaring on thermals as they also search for breakfast. Meadowlarks and a host of other birds, whose calls I do not recognize as easily, chip their wakeup calls and greetings; a lizard scamper past the fire pit, and swallows a small, evidently tasty bug. Well, at least he thinks it is tasty!

Kathleen has joined me now, and we sip our coffee, talking quietly. We discuss how the landscape to the west of us, which was so brilliantly outlined last night by the setting sun, has a palette of greens, blues, browns and reds becoming visible to the eye as the sun illuminates the landscape, a landscape defined eons ago by ice and geologic shifts. We trace where water, a resource so precious to all life-forms, is still present beneath the ground, making itself known to us by the presence of trees; pathways of life, if you will.

Howie, our yellow lab/greyhound companion, came out of the trailer with Kathleen and is now cautiously exploring these surroundings, he is an urban dog; therefore, the scents and sounds available are unusual to him. He carefully extends his exploration of our campsite, going a little further with each trek, carefully eyeing his surroundings and keeping a watchful eye on us. He is, after all, our self-appointed protector!

My tranquility is momentarily disturbed as I reflect on the current attempts, not only in Utah but in most western states, to “take back” lands owned and managed by the federal government and put them under state control. Utah, and other states west of the Mississippi river, contain large portions of land ceded to the U.S. government in our respective state constitutions. These lands are now locked in the sights of state legislators as potential revenue sources; they could, the argument goes, be “privatized” and thereby generate short-term revenues to state budgets; budgets strapped by the on-going demand for government services. Legislators feel the need to increase revenues, and, cowards that they are, remain fearful that any attempts to raise taxes on those that demand services would be detrimental to their re-election. Does this movement affect me personally? You can bet the farm on that, I am camped on BLM land at this moment.

However, I push those thoughts out of my mind for now; Kathleen and I came here to enjoy ourselves; I can deal with this nasty subject at a later date and time.

This trip has been a weekend-long period of meditation for me, a period of reflection. I have experienced many changes and upheavals in my life over the past several weeks, and needed time to think and talk about these changes and how they have affected me, and those people near and dear to me. These changes were inevitable, and in retrospect, necessary for my continuance as a person; change, however, is often painful and difficult. Some of you are aware of these changes, and for your love and support, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

In particular, I cannot find the words to thank you enough, Kathleen. You are my life-long companion, and even through these events of late, you have supported and loved me, as difficult as these events and changes been for both of us. I am eagerly anticipating our new adventures and escapades as life continues to unfold.  (Poorly worded, but it’s the best I can do!)

Thank you for reading; your comments, as always, are appreciated.

 R.M. “Bob Hartman

Public Lands in Utah, Yes or No?

According to the Constitution of The State of Utah, Article III, Section 2:

“[Right to public domain disclaimed. Taxation of lands. Exemptions.] Second:--The people inhabiting this State do affirm and declare that they will forever disclaim all right and title to the unapropriated (sic) public lands lying within the boundaries hereof, and to all lands lying within said limits owned or held by any Indian or Indian tribes. And that until the title thereto shall have been extinguished by the United States, the same shall be and remain subject to the disposition of the United States. . .”

This Constitution was ratified in 1896, and Utah became a state. The Constitution of The State of Utah is the law of our land. Utah disclaimed all right and title to the unapropriated (sic) public lands.

So why, you might ask, did the (Utah) Commission for the Stewardship of Public Lands pay $640,000 to Davillier Law Firm of New Orleans to analyze the legality of suing the Federal Government to allow Utah to take over all the public lands? (Salt Lake Tribune, February 2, 2016) And why won’t the legal team give the complete report to all members of the Commission, which consists of five republicans and two democrats? (Part of this report has been made available to the member of the commission and the public, it only outlines the “positive” effects of this proposed lawsuit.) Neither of the Democrats (Senators Debakis and Briscoe) have been allowed to review the entire report. Why not? What is the legal team afraid of? A conflict of interest on behalf of the law firm, or the chairman, perhaps? Or, more telling, that the State of Utah would lose this battle in court?

The head of the Davillier legal team has said Davillier is protected by client-attorney privilege and can only release the information to the chairman of the Commission, David P. Hinkins, or to others upon approval of Chairman Hinkins. What is the chairman afraid of?

Hold on just a taxpayer-fleecing minute. The entire commission voted to hire the legal team, not just the chairman. The entire commission should be entitled to the complete report, as should the voters of Utah! To withhold this information is to deny the commission, and the voters of Utah, the information they need to make an informed decision. We, the taxpayers, of Utah, paid for this report, and I for one want to read it, in its entirety, without redactions.

I also want to know who is going to benefit from the takeover of public lands in Utah. Will it be land developers, the extraction industries, the cattlemen, or the hospitality industry? What about hunting, hiking, camping, fishing, and off road enthusiasts, or antiquities thieves?

Is this just one more ploy of the American Lands Council, headed by Utah state representative Ken Ivory, to fleece the Utah taxpayers; to deny our children and grandchildren the right to enjoy all the outdoor vistas and experiences that Utah offers?

I fear it is. Please feel free to post your comments or thoughts.

Thank you, Senator Debakis and Robert Gehkre of the Tribune, for making this issue public.

Retrieved February 2, 2016, from : http://www.archives.state.ut.us/research/exhibits/Statehood/1896text.htm