Author Archives: ptmadmin

Should we raise taxes to provide more money for our public school system? Utah has one of the lowest per pupil spending rates in the nation, if not the lowest at times, and yet we seem to do pretty well with what we have. In fact, we seem to do rather exceptionally with what resources we invest. Our per-pupil spending might be low but the overall investment in education is the largest part of our state budget, by far.

But would more money make a difference? The backers of the new funding initiative, Our Schools Now, say more money would make a huge difference and have proposed an increase to the state income tax – in Utah, all income tax goes to education. The Our Schools Now plan “calls for a 7/8 of 1 percent (.008) increase to the personal income tax, which [they predict] would total $750 million; [it would] provide each Utah school with roughly $1000 [more] per enrolled student; and, [it would] require all funding to be spent in ways that increase student learning.” read more

Just over 30 years ago, 36 insurance companies stopped writing policies in Washington, D.C. The issue was AIDS and the D.C. City Council voted to prohibit HIV testing of insurance applicants. At the time, insurance companies testing for the AIDS virus were deemed discriminatory to homosexuals. The three-dozen insurance companies argued that to not screen for the disease was not only bad business practice but defeated the whole idea of the insurance market.

Insurance is all about managing risk. Actuaries are paid a lot of money to determine risk and decide whether or not an applicant should be covered. The insured pay premiums to the insurance company based on their health status. For every negative health factor premiums are increased. If you smoke, you’ll pay higher insurance premiums than a non-smoker. This is why those insurance companies quit writing policies in Washington, D.C. 30 years ago when they were prohibited from testing for HIV. When an insurance company cannot manage its risk, it quits being an insurance company. read more

What represents American culture today is dramatically different than the American culture of my childhood. Of course things change over time. Styles, music, art, technologies are all subject to change at any given moment. But I’m speaking of fundamental changes to American culture – the kind of changes that alter our future.

One fundamental change to American culture began in 1967 when no-fault divorce was first enacted. About that same time, the War on Poverty fundamentally affected family formation in many poor communities. Contraception and abortion decisions by the United State Supreme Court fundamentally changed most ideas about human dignity and sexuality. And the recent redefinition of marriage already has changed the worldview of many younger Americans. read more

My disdain for Donald Trump is no secret. That Utah gave Trump his lowest vote count among red states was a proud moment for me. And, as a Latter-day Saint, I was very pleased to see so many of us vote for someone else. While many establishment Latter-day Saints are slowly, if not begrudgingly, looking on the bright side of a Trump presidency, I’m not one of them. None of my critical views about Donald Trump have changed. But, recently, I’ve been forced to reflect on the extent of my disdain and these reflections cut deeply about the meaning of my conservatism. read more

The hot story this week is the presidential decree establishing the Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah. With a swipe of his pen, President Obama set aside over one million acres of Utah wilderness as land too sacred, too historical, too intergenerational and too pristine to be left in the control of anyone and anything short of the all-seeing and all-powerful federal government.

Utah conservatives are up in arms. They say President Obama abused the Antiquities Act (he did). They say his timing in doing so as he leaves office feels politically motivated (it does). They say he ignored the broader interests of Utah and the nation (clearly he did). And they say they will do everything in their power to undo what has been done (and clearly they will try). read more

On the political right, the free market is the holy grail of prosperity. And rightly so. Market-based economies have lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system devised by man. After all, that is the purpose of any moral economic order: human happiness.

Sometimes the political right forgets that end game. Sometimes the political right sees the means as end and forgets that, like all other human systems, the market economy has its own ecology comprised on many components that ensure its success. Honest observers understand that free markets have their weaknesses. They do well to encourage work and private property. But free markets do poorly for people who find it hard to work or simply cannot possibly compete for a variety of reasons. read more

Prior to this year’s presidential election, four times in our history has a candidate become president without winning the popular vote. In 1824, John Quincy Adams lost both the popular vote and the electoral vote to Andrew Jackson. But Jackson fell short of the electoral votes needed that year to claim the presidency. That election fell to the House of Representatives to decide and it chose Adams. I’ll come back to this example in a minute.

In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes won the electoral vote, by one vote, but lost the popular vote by a quarter million votes to Samuel J. Tilden. In 1888, Benjamin Harrison won the electoral vote over Grover Cleveland to claim the presidency but lost the popular vote. And, in 2000, you might recall that George W. Bush became president while losing the popular vote to Al Gore. Of course, now we have the 2016 election as well. As of this date, Hillary Clinton is almost three million popular votes ahead of Donald Trump who won the electoral vote to become president. read more

When it comes to taxes I am definitely prejudiced. I can’t stand them. In fact, I cannot remember a tax increase on a state or local ballot that I have voted for. This past election there was another tax increase on the ballot and, without even thinking about it, I voted against it. It’s not that I refused to think about it. It’s just that I already had thought about it years ago and decided to vote against any and every tax increase.

Maybe moving from an employee to an independent contractor re-lit my anti-tax fervor. All of my business income is taxed as personal income, not unlike nearly every small business. I thought paying $40,000 in taxes was a lot until the TurboTax counter spun up another $40,000 last year. Eighty thousand dollars in taxes! I still almost choke on those words. Maybe rich people are used to those kinds of numbers and have figured out ways to shelter income and avoid paying (I’m thinking Donald Trump). But I’m a regular guy and my heart tells me that regular people shouldn’t have to pay those kinds of taxes. read more