Tax cuts for what?

I just went onto the Republican website to give input on their 2012 legislative issues questionnaire. One of the questions asked how I felt about the Republican plan to drop the income rate from 5 percent to 3.8 percent, with no explanation of how such a cut in the income tax would affect funding for Utah's public education, higher education, Medicaid, etc.

Without such an explanation, my guess is that most people in Utah filling out the questionnaire would say that the cut in taxes is a great idea; but if the question included a statement explaining that such a cut would reduce funding for the listed items by $50-100 million a year, my guess is that most people in Utah would say it is not a good idea.

The question is, why did the GOP send out the questionnaire without such an explanation? My guess is that they wanted to be able to say that the majority of respondents favored a tax decrease so the Republican-dominated Legislature could justify continuing cutting financial support of public education.

Fred Ash

Sandy