From Deseret News archives:
Government loves to roll in our dough
According to Mike Jerman of the Utah Taxpayers Association, at the current rate of growth, state government will have $673 million in surplus funds by the end of the next fiscal year, which includes $229 million in one-time revenues from the current fiscal year and $444 million in ongoing revenues for the upcoming year.
Recently, we learned Salt Lake County has some $200 million in "surplus revenues," or, as I like to call it, "my kids' college fund."
Who made these guys a savings account? Silly us, we thought they were taxing us only enough to run the government circus each year but apparently not. You have to wonder if it's a good idea to collect more than a half-billion dollars in extra money when Utah has the seventh-heaviest tax burden in the nation (up from ninth a few years ago)?
They have so much cash floating around that they don't know what to do with it all. Fix up the roads? Upgrade the Salt Palace? Buy a few more SUVs for the county fleet? Build a soccer stadium?
Legislators must be crying tears of joy — and drying them with $20 bills.
Utah and Salt Lake County's combined surplus exceeds the gross national product of Cayman Islands and Monaco.
Money is flowing into the government like water out of the canyons. They've got so much extra dough that in February, when the government coffers were ringing like a slot machine, the state Legislature decided to reopen the budget to find ways to spend the surplus in the current fiscal year. After 2 1/2 months, they have taken in another $87 million in surplus above what they had in February.
If Utah were a stock, everyone in Utah would be Larry Miller.
Experts note, correctly, that some of the surplus money was collected in anticipation of major building projects (libraries, roads, etc.), so they could be built without having to borrow money. Fine, but the vast majority of the money that government is collecting is more than it needs (hence, the term "surplus").
When government has extra money, it tends to find ways to use it and becomes bigger and fatter. Like most people you know, it never returns to its original size. The state has become a fat, sweaty hog eating at the trough, needing more and more feed. In 1996, the state budget was $4.9 billion. In 2006, it will be $8.8 billion.
In Utah, the state government has delegated authority to collect taxes to cities, counties, special districts and school boards, which is why they all come to you with their hands out, each with its own agenda, unaware of what the other entities are doing.
"They can all increase your taxes, and they do it an eighth or sixteenth of a percent at a time so nobody notices, but it all adds up," says conservative state Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper. "It's just a smidge here and a smidge there, but everybody's doing it because everyone has your credit card. Imagine if all your kids ran around town with your credit card."
About that refund you're anticipating: Dream on. That hasn't happened since 1988, when then-Gov. Norm Bangerter was in political trouble and running for re-election. A better idea:
"Now that the economy's ramping up, it's time to start thinking about tax cuts," says Jerman. "If you make (tax) increases during the bad times and don't make cuts during the good times, you get a huge increase in government spending."
So we noticed.
Doug Robinson's column runs on Tuesdays. E-mail drob@desnews.com.
