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In today's UPD:

Fiscal Responsibility Pays Off

Utah’s economy is not immune from the national and international forces that are turning economies sluggish all over the world. Nevertheless, Utah government should be able to navigate the slowdown in reasonably good shape without significant reductions in basic services.

The reason is that Utah’s governors and legislators have been fiscally prudent, avoiding the temptation to be profligate even in good times when money has been plentiful. Despite a slowing economy, Utah has a $600 million-plus budget surplus, and the state’s needs are being met reasonably well. Instead of spending every dime of tax revenue on on-going programs, legislators have spent surplus dollars on one-time projects like transportation, have filled up rainy day funds, and have reduced taxes. With the exception of education and mandated programs like Medicaid, Utah government has grown very little.

Contrast that with the situation in New Jersey, as reported in a Wall Street Journal editorial. Despite having the nation’s second highest overall tax burden, New Jersey faces a “serious structural financial problem,” in the words of its governor, Jon Corzine. The state is $32 billion in debt, and faces additional debt of $81 billion in unfunded pensions and health benefits for retirees. To begin to pay off the debt, Corzine wants to borrow $38 billion and pay off the bonds by dramatically increasing tolls on the state’s major roads and highways.

Utah citizens can thank their lawmakers and governors for wise fiscal discipline, resulting in Utah being consistently ranked as one of the nation’s best-managed states.

4 Comments:

 Anonymous said...

State transportation expenditures may be "one-time" from a year-to-year budget balancing perspective, but they are not one-time expenditures from a long-term structural perspective.

We cannot, on the one hand, talk about the billions of dollars in future transportation projects and then on the other hand talk about transportation as one-time expenditures, at least not in the long-term.

2/26/2008 8:09 AM  

 Anonymous said...

State government growth has been tremendous, unless you exclude education, Medicaid, AND TRANSPORTATION.

Of course, that's more than half of the state budget right there that you are excluding.

2/26/2008 8:12 AM  

 Derek said...

The premise of this article is pretty ridiculous. If the budget for FY 2008 that the governor recommended goes through there will have been an increase in government spending of over 20 percent since FY 2006. Further, it will be an increase of over 35 percent since FY 2004. Yet, somehow this article maintains that "Utah government has grown very little?"

Yes, this article excludes public education and Medicaid before making that statement. But that is the equivalent of saying "if we exclude big-growth government programs, Utah government has grown very little."

If we follow this line of thinking, then every family in Utah must be getting wealthier and every child must be getting a great education. I mean, if we exclude all families who are losing money and every child who is dropping out of school and flunking out, etc. then every family in Utah is getting wealthier and every child is getting a great education, right?

While deluded self-justification may make us feel good about ourselves and allow us to pat ourselves on the back over our accomplishments, it does little to help Utah. What's worse, it leads to "more of the same" from Utah's leaders. And when "the same" is bad, getting more of it is worse.

2/26/2008 4:07 PM  

 Debt Free said...

Nice to see that government can apply basic debt reduction practices to keep a surplus.

3/09/2008 7:44 PM  

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