MEMO TO UTAH LEGISLATURE: ONLY FOOLING ITSELF

When a business produces too many products that no one wants to buy, of course that business should lose money.

However, when organizations attract more people in need, not less ---

when those people find themselves in a crisis, when the organizations’ staffs work hard to meet the needs of more people –

then those organizations should get more funding — not less.

I find the Utah legislature’s new budget as shameful a piece of legislation as I have encountered in all my years in Utah. The legislators set up rumors that it might have to cut budgets by 15 percent. When they cut the budget by “only” about 9 percent, they could pretend they had done well.

The legislature is fooling no one but itself. The legislature behaved badly in 2009. It cut budgets in a year of crisis when people needed more help -- not less.

Concerning Utah education in general and Utah Valley University in particular, I remind the Utah Legislature that teachers and education staffs did not cause Utah’s revenues to fall short.

This note is my way of putting the legislature on notice:

One: In 2010, it will have to find better ways of financing the needs of Utahns in a crisis.

Two: It should lobby with all its might to get as much federal economic stimulus money as humanly possible to lobby.