These are classic discussions published back in September 2008
Divorce American Style
Alec Baldwin has written a book on divorce. In an interview, he stated, “The longer you hold out for what should be the right of every parent, the more expensive and painful the process becomes.” Not commenting on any particulars regarding Baldwin’s divorce, his observation is correct.
Dr. Helen notes, “But it makes me think that if Baldwin had such problems with the system with all his fame and money, what chance does the average joe have?” The answer: not much chance.
I serve on the Board of the Southern Utah Community Legal Clinic, and I volunteer time to low-income people who come in for help. That experience ratifies what I already knew: family law is in dire need of reform. People’s supposed rights are trampled routinely on the basis of money.
Most Utahns and Americans cannot afford a lawyer — and never will be able to. Why, then, if we claim to care about justice, do... (read more)
Live Blogging: Special Budgetary Session
The Utah Legislature is meeting to cut the state budget, so that expenditures will match declining revenues. Because this affects people and programs that people count on, this is a difficult task. But it is a necessary task. (Also, very unfortunately, in my opinion, we’re also addressing exemptions to high school performance testing requirements.).
I’ll live blog the progress of the session.
September 25, 2008
I met this morning with House Republican leadership at 7 a.m.
At 8 a.m., I met with the Education Interim Committee (audio here), to consider Sen. Stephenson’s Student Achievement Testing Exceptions. Brad Last and I were the only “no” votes. To me, this is not a special session issue. It requires more discussion/consideration in a general session. Because this should be a budgetary session, I won’t clog up this post discussing the bill. I’ll discuss it in the post below.
12:30 p.m. – Legislative leadership has been meeting with the Governor, to set a general pathway for deliberations to proceed.... (read more)
UPASS Exemptions
The Education Interim Committee met this morning, to consider Sen. Stephenson’s Student Achievement Testing Exceptions. Rep. Brad Last and I were the only “no” votes. To me, this is not a special session issue. It requires more discussion/consideration in a general session. If problems exist with Utah Performance Assessment System for Students (“UPASS” – the test that high school students have to pass, to demonstrate that they learned the things they should have), then let’s comprehensively address those problems.
I really like Sen. Stephenson’s push to move toward online assessments; if done properly, online assessments with adapting testing could be much better than what we currently do. Also, I have great respect for the Sevier County School District, which is pushing for the exemption. Motives here are pure; people are looking for ways to do things better. But, this bill is too general.
Though not the intent, it effectively would do away with UPASS. ... (read more)
How Your Government Works (Or, At Least, How It Should)
As a member of the Health and Human Services Sub-Appropriations Committee, I just now received an email from Lisa Michelle Church, Director of Human Services.
Director Church believes in her programs. She is dedicated to providing excellent services to Utahns who need help. Running an efficient Department and seeing great need for and benefit from the services her Department provides, I’d imagine she doesn’t want to cut a dime. But, representative of the quality we aspire to in Utah government, she professionally addresses the task at hand of matching expenditures to revenues. I want to share her points — exactly how she shared them with me. Though this came out too late for tomorrow’s papers, I have little doubt that it would be covered as anything other than a doom and gloom litany of all the vital services that are about to fly out the window. Of course, Director Church does not present it as... (read more)
Scarcity as a Policy Planning Tool
I’ve heard people say that $4/gallon gas is good and that we should do something to make sure gas prices don’t “slip too low.”
Scarcity regularly is the preferred planning tool of elitists. They can still get whatever is scarce, but others will have to change their ways. This has the added bonus for elitists that they won’t have to mingle with commoners when they get it, because commoners will no longer be in line.
A mature political dialogue benefits from options. But, some who know that their preferred options will lose in the democratic process, prefer to have their choices elevated to the top by default — through scarcity, high cost, or regulatory fiat.
High-cost gasoline clearly will encourage exploration of alternatives. Exploration of energy alternatives is a great thing for many, many reasons. Americans are embracing that reality. But, the advocates of scarcity need to realize that scarcity and high costs also will encourage some... (read more)
Utah’s Budget
Governor Huntsman has called the Utah Legislature into a special session this Thursday, to pare the State budget to match the economy. Every February, based on economic projections, the Legislature creates a budget for the next July-June fiscal year. When we budget, we use conservative projections, to try to undershoot the revenues that we actually bring in later; that is why Utah typically runs a “surplus” – meaning that actual revenues simply exceed the amount that we conservatively projected and appropriated. We typically spend those surpluses on one-time expenditures (e.g., books, roads, buildings, pilot projects).
This year, though, we overshot actual revenues by $300 million – so far. (Before anyone gets too partisan about it, though, it should be noted that we project our revenues on a non-partisan basis and, then, adopt those revenue projections on a bipartisan basis.).
Here we are, 3 months into the fiscal year, and we’re telling agencies that they will get less... (read more)
Thank You, Gov. Huntsman
Gov. Jon Huntsman has called the Legislature into a special session, to address projected shortfalls in Utah’s 2008-09 budget. That is the kind of leadership Utah needs right now.
Only the Legislature can set/modify agency budgets. Outside of the annual 45-day general session, however, only the Governor can call the Legislature into session to do that. In the fall of 2001, the economy was headed south. The Legislature wanted to address the budget, but Gov. Leavitt would not call us in. Instead, he incorrectly opined that the downturn was V-shaped (quick down/quick up). The several-month delay getting into session and adjusting the budget meant that deficits had to be absorbed over fewer months in the fiscal year (5 months, instead of 9), thereby making the cuts steeper. (If we need to cut the budget by X, that amount is easier to swallow the longer period over which it can be spread).
Though national and international... (read more)
The Bailout