Frugal Matheson walks to own beat

"There's a story in our family that when my father was less than 10 years old, his father put him on the bus in Salt Lake to send him down to Parowan for the summer to work on one of the family farms, he gave dad a dollar. And when he came back in the fall, he still had that dollar in his pocket.

"I certainly grew up in a household that taught you live within your means. You take a conservative approach to your economic well-being."

Matheson is now the father of two boys, with older son Wil now 7.

Although Wil doesn't get on the Internet alone, Matheson observes that "the average age that a child is exposed to pornography in the Internet is age 11. And as far as age groups, the largest number of people who see pornography on the Internet are children between the age of 12 and 17.

"These numbers are alarming. As a parent I worry."

Next to pornography, Matheson doesn't like youngsters playing violent and sexually explicit video games that are clearly adult in nature but marketed to a younger audience.

Matheson has introduced several bills on the issues.

One would require age-verification to enter X-rated adult Internet sites.

"We can do this. There is even off-the-shelf software to do it now, used for Internet tobacco sales," he said. "You would ask for ID from someone buying an adult video in a brick-and-mortar store. You should do it on the Internet."

His bill would place a 25-percent tax on adult Internet material sales to fund Web site law enforcement. The bill hasn't gone anywhere, with Matheson saying some congressmen don't want to vote for a tax increase on anything, anytime.

His other bill will would require an ID check before you could buy mature and adult video games. He doesn't deal with content of the games. "That is a First Amendment free-speech issue. I just use the current rating system that the industry already uses on all games and says minors can't buy" the violent and sex-oriented games.

Matheson, who held a double-digit lead over Republican state legislator LaVar Christensen in a late-September Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll, says after he believes he's done what he has said he would do.

"After six years I think people know that those are promises I've kept. And I'm pretty proud of that actually."

---

E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com