While GOP leaders may have had an inkling of Huntsman's popularity when they decided about halfway through the session not to push a controversial bill that, some believed, would have weakened the governor's budget-setting powers, Republicans and Democrats alike who want to challenge Huntsman in the near future may want to beware.

Part of Huntsman's popularity, ironically, might come because of one matter that he lost in the session.

Huntsman wanted legislators to pass a bill that would have, in two years, begun a phase-out of the state's current 5 percent corporate income tax.

It was an unpopular measure, both in the public's eye (a pre-legislative poll by Jones for the newspaper and TV station showed that more than 60 percent of Utahns opposed repeal) and among legislators, too.

The House gutted the repeal bill, with 21 Republicans joining the 19 Democrats in voting it down.

Even though the Senate passed a similar bill, as the session rushed to a close Huntsman and GOP leaders decided not to try to force the bill through this year. Repealing the corporate income tax — which would cost public schools at least $200 million when all of the tax came off in 2012 — will instead become part of a massive tax reform task force study over the next nine months.

Thus, Huntsman is not in a position of giving businesses, many of them not headquartered in Utah, but who do business here, a tax break this year against the public's desires.

Instead, lawmakers agreed with Huntsman to pass a law giving Utah businesses two ways to calculate their income taxes, and thus saving businesses a combined $7 million in income tax. It was the only tax break given by the 2005 Legislature.

One reason so many Utahns may feel good about lawmakers' and Huntsman's work is that the state was awash in record tax revenues. Programs grew by an average 9 percent in the just-adopted budget, and all critical programs, like public and higher education, got more funds.

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com