While state employees will get raises, maybe they could pay greater health-care co-pays or find other savings in the generous health-care plan, he said.

Still speaking in support of his large tax cut, Valentine said considering state finances, a much-discussed plan to give low-income Utahns a $75-per-person income tax credit in lieu of any food tax cut may well be a "goodness of fit," an economic term meaning that solution best meets adopted goals. "The $75 tax credit may be where we end up," he said.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who ran a campaign partly on repealing the food tax, says he will come out with a specific proposal on the food tax before the task force's final meeting Nov. 28.

"We are crunching the numbers right now," says Huntsman deputy chief of staff Mike Mower. Huntsman could back one of the three food tax proposals now being discussed — Valentine's, Curtis' or the $75 income tax credit — or he could have one of his own, Mower said.

The task force has been meeting two or three times a month since spring. It traveled the state in October holding public hearings. Dozens of different tax proposals have been discussed.

But there also has been the feeling that a lot of tax debate has been going on behind the scenes between Huntsman and GOP legislative leaders.

Hinting that legislative leaders have been too closed in discussing some tax reform ideas, Valentine said: "Frankly this tax debate has up to now been in these (legislative) offices. It should all be out in the public. Tax reform is like squeezing warm Jell-O — you squeeze and you don't know where the Jell-O will come out" between your fingers.

Curtis' plan would remove the whole sales tax — both state and local — from unprepared food. To make up most of the lost money, he proposes raising the state sales tax on non-food items by 0.5 percentage points and the local-option sales tax by 0.1 percentage points.

Thus, the base sales tax on non-food items would go from 5.75 percent to 6.35 percent.

The Utah Taxpayers Association, a group mainly supported by businesses, says that would be the "largest tax hike on Utah business" in years — around $60 million in total. That's because businesses don't buy much unprepared food but pay sales tax on all kinds of non-food purchases.

Curtis disputes the association's $60 million figure. "I don't think it would be anywhere near that much," he said.

But even if it were, Curtis said the GOP-controlled Legislature "has been very, very good to business" over the past decade or so. "We've given them a number of tax breaks, including the manufacturer's (sales tax) exemption."