Comments about ‘States lead out on fiscal, economic change’

'Washington' and several of the states are like the gang that couldn't shoot straight.

I am grateful that Utah leaders are highly competent in managing the states finances, we are not in debt to the gills.

There is room for improvement though, Utah is rich in natural resources and we have among the LOWEST mineral severance taxes. Given our continual struggle to adequately finance education, this ought not be the case. What is wrong with being having an AVERAGE severance tax on minerals?

Speaking of education, I have personally tried to get my school district to once again have math on the AP track where students are not handed facts in geometry, but where everything is proven and students are the ones doing the proofs. I have asked them to lead students to have the opportunity do highly challenging problems, and not stop at lower medium level problems which they now do. Math has devolved since I went to public school and I can see the difference.

School district officials have ignored my requests. Being a union supporter I used to not be in favor of vouchers. I have changed my mind. Power needs to return to parents.

cjb: Here is another take on the geometry: Maybe the teachers are not capable of explaining the proofs. When our sons were in trigonometry, the teacher was incapable of explaining many of the concepts. It was our sons who started explaining to the other students when the teachers couldn't. Our sons failed the class because they did not do the homework. They understood the concepts. Made good grades on the exams. There is something wrong with the school system in America. This happened in two different states with two different sons.

Today, our sons would be in charter schools or we would home school.

I am actually for raising the retirement age slowly in order to keep retirement programs and pensions sustainable. I'm not for most of the 'right to work' legislation that seems to tell me as an employer that I can now do wrong things to my employees that I wouldn't have gotten away with before.