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Operative budget word: cut
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I have questions, to satisfy my curiosity, if anyone can tell me the answers:
What will cause the expected decrease in tax revenues? Is it just less income tax because there are less jobs in Utah at the moment?
Is it due to an expected reduction in pay for the employed?
Is it a reduction in spending by wary shoppers and thus reduced sales tax receipts?
My last question is:
Will their be a reduction in State income tax rates?
In Sales Tax rates?
The questions are genuine, not cynical. Can anyone tell me?
When the economy slows, there are fewer people buying fewer things, resulting in a decrease in sales tax revenue.
With the high gas prices, people drove less, buying less gas, resulting in a decrease in gas tax revenue.
Property taxes are based on assessed value of real property. With home values stalling out and in some cases decreasing, property tax values are down. Many municipalities were counting on additional growth and put that expected revenue into their budgets. The budget is a forecast of what's expected to come in, not a spending of moneys already in place.
Corporate taxes have also decreased as company profits have decreased (again, due to people not spending as much money).
Income taxes have not met projections due both to layoffs (companies unable to employ as many people as before) and to companies giving smaller pay increases than was expected. Again, the budget's based on projections. Incomes were expected to rise; likewise, income tax revenues were expected to rise.
It may be time to re-evaluate some of the state's programs and policies. In times like this, everyone needs to learn to make cuts and sacrifices.
This COULD be an excellent time to clean out some of the "dead wood" at the state.
It seems ironic to me that in this same article, Huntsman is trying to make mortgages more available to more people, but if they cut at the state level like I think they will, it will be the lower wage earners that will be out of a job.
I used to work at the state and I know how they operate, so state employees REALLY SHOULD contact their state legislator to make sure THEY get heard, and not just their dept. heads!
Unless this new increase for coach Anderson is coming from source that does not involve tax dollars. A second point of note; today if your football team can't win and make money the entire athletics department is at risk. If that even matters during times like this. So I am having a conversation with myself! Sorry everyone.
It is times like this I am glad I vote and can place confidence "some at least" in my representatives.
RE: Solution you are an idiot!!!!
QUOTE
This is priceless! I didn't notice it the first time.
Is this a case of robbing the poor (working people) because of their 'fine sanctuary'? What a gifted writer.
The state can change taxes all it wants, the funds won't be coming from me, but from the working class.
Perhaps all these so called upper class citizens need to come down and struggle like the rest of us.
Thanks Governor, I appreciate the job you are doing!
Then let's look at all the areas of government handouts to special interests and how all-pervasive government has become. The claim of one poster seems extreme when he talks about government being communist, but I myself have found satisfaction in the generalisation:
working class = democrat
middle class = republican
government class = communist
This simplification makes a point.
If government would take a bold step and stop financing school sports, orchestras etc and let them get on with teaching academics, and leave us in charge of leisure activities, a great advance would be made in the household budgets of the people.
Government interference in all aspects of our lives is a bad habit that governments all over the country, all over the Western world, have gotten into. We would be more true to our freedom-based traditions and roots to reverse this aping of socialist and communist nations.
Governer Huntsman has made the same mistake, except he has to balance the budget, unlike the feds. So state employees take it in the shorts. I quit state employment primarily because of Huntsman's tax cuts, knowing that in years of scarcity, I would take it in the shorts. Huntsman should have used the surplus to give teachers bonuses during surplus years to address the teacher shortage, and in years of scarcity, stop the bonuses and have a balanced budget without a budget crisis.
I'll also not take the merit pay this year. (Even though I probably do merit some extra pay, I'm just happy to have a job).
I just hope they don't cut the budget so much that I end up with 40 kids in my classroom.
This much I'm sure, that if a program can be cut, it should have never been there to begin with much less being Constitutionally justified. Too many of these government workers are tax collectors disguised as public servants. Make no mistake about it. They are no friend of the People and they don't fix roads. They plunder the earned resources from those who create jobs and produce a valuable product or service while risking everything they have to bring it to market.
I have personally witnessed on numerous occasions their evil and destructive programs that serve only to plunder unsuspecting businesses so that they can justify their existence, their retirement pay and benefits. If these are the people who will be cut, then I say with a loud rejoicing voice GOOD RIDDANCE and don't come back! Their families should have to experience the same long term pain and misery that they inflict on many small business owners.
Free at last!
When will all of this end?? We are already 12 months into the recession with no end in sight. I can easily see this thing going for another 2 years and maybe longer at which case it would be the worst downturn since the great depression. America will NEVER be the same after this. Like a company that has gone bankrupt, America will be a lesser country for many years to come. I think the day of paying athletes these crazy salaries has to be over as well. I remember the 1983 recession and this is MUCH worse. Back then there was light at the end of tunnel. i see NO LIGHT here. I see nothing that will end this misery. I think it time to just stop reading the news.
Contact your legislator, and make your feelings known.
Public employees are not your enemies.
Teacher honestly, you need to learn how to through a good old fashioned strike.
Just keep on taking it!!!
To say that there is no proposed tax increase but we will be asked to pay more for fees is misleading.
Many of us would love to work for the govt if it didn't mean a 50-80% pay cut. Those working in those jobs already know that they could get a job in the private sector and make a lot more, so I assume that money isn't much of a motivation for them anyway, so cutting it further shouldn't drive them away.
I'm sure they'll be a lot of talk about this issue before the legislative session starts and I'm sure the legislators will be under a lot of pressure from all directions to make cuts fair and/or to use more of the "rainy day" fund. I suspect it will be much worse next year!
Snow gets over 70 percent of their funding from the state, unlike the U or USU (they get grants, fellowships, named chairs and so forth for a lot), so an 8 percent cut really hammered them. They don't get the protections k-12 gets, so they are another state agency. My dad will probably lose his job along with his department mates in Summer 2009, as they shut down programs. Somehow, I don't see k-12 education very highly, as they have their union protected workforce.
So if you can't get merit pay...nobody should. Would it be better if nobody merited their pay?
"Merit pay was allotted to bonuses for math and science teachers only. I'm not sorry they won't get paid more than the rest of us next year. "
Every district was given the opportunity to write a proposal for merit pay money. It wasn't for math and science teachers only. It was for EVERYONE.
Your math and science teacher whining was a whole different ball game.
Ignorance is not bliss.
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