News flash: Gov.-elect Jon Huntsman Jr. says he'll turn down his $4,600 cost-of-living raise.

This, on the heels of Congressman Jim Matheson announcing in TV ads during his recent re-election campaign that he will not be accepting his congressional pay raise of about 3 percent.

And these guys insist they know what it's like to be the rest of us.

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Turn down a pay raise? Are they crazy! What in the name of Karl Malone is going on here?

What a country. Political candidates spend six months taking thousands if not millions of dollars in campaign contributions so they can win office, and then kick back their relative pittance of a cost-of-living raise so in the next election they can use it as an example of their selflessness and make it easier to solicit more contributions.

There is really no other explanation for turning back the money. Being rich has nothing to do it. How do you think rich people get rich?

And if one's objectives are truly altruistic, you don't make it public. You take your raise and buy a $4,600 pencil out of a blind man's cup. Nobody knows who did it, not even the blind guy.

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There's also the ongoing problem of not paying politicians enough in the first place.

Even with the 4.5 percent raise recently authorized for Utah's chief executive, Utah's governor makes $106,200 a year. That's more than the average American's yearly salary, true, but we're talking about the leader of the state.

Lots of people make more money than the governor. Some business CEOs make $106,200 — a week. University presidents routinely make more than the governor. So do certain plumbers and real estate agents. Basketball coaches, even fired basketball coaches, make a lot more. TV anchors would put their general manager in a headlock if their salary was a paltry $106,200.

The average major league baseball player in this country makes $2.5 million — or roughly 25 times what Utah's governor makes — and the ballplayers get winters off.

Congressmen and senators don't do much better than the governor. Rank-and-file legislators in Washington make $158,100 annually (speaker of the House gets $203,000, majority leader of the Senate gets $175,600). And out of that, they need to keep up two residences, one in their home state, the other in D.C.

The president of the United States, by the way, makes $400,000 annually. We doubled the presidential salary four years ago when we gave Bill Clinton a $200,000 raise — a nice gesture, but it's still exactly $3 million less than the mandatory $3.4 million that goes to the first-round draft pick in the NBA, who is usually 19 years old.

The point, of course, is that politics doesn't begin to compete with private enterprise when it comes to income, which means that we continually run the risk of losing our best leaders to other endeavors. Who knows who might be running our states and our country if our top political salaries weren't about the same as the manager of an insurance office?

Too often, other fields lure the best of the best with offers they can't refuse, leaving mostly rich people entering the political race who can afford to run and who don't really need the job.

By turning down raises that, at least incrementally, improve the situation, that problem is only perpetuated.

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Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.