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Show Utah's young population increases state's taxes j; By KATHLEEN WILSON J "I signed my tax forms recently and I was mad at myself too, o I made it unanimous!" Governor Bangerter said recently while speaking to the retired Utah Amoco Amo-co employees in their Bountiful meeting.' Speaking about the tax increase and about plans for the future, the Governor defended his decisions while expressing optimism. He admitted our taxes are higher because be-cause we have more children to educate than other states. Utah is 48th in per capita income because children don't produce income. However, Utah is 25th in worker income, right in the middle of the country in terms of earnings per worker. Nationally, there are 31 students per 100 working age people. Utah has 45 children per 100 working-age working-age people. If Utah had the average aver-age number of students, the state could reduce the education budget by one-third. Since 1980, Utah has experienced a 23 percent increase in student population while the nation na-tion has experienced a 10 percent decrease. The tax limitation initiatives initia-tives would be okay if Utah had fewer children to educate. The tax surplus may end up being a 15 percent credit toward 1988 returns, but Bangerter said, "We must be careful to plan for the future as well." Pointing to successes during his administration, he is proud of new research and technology companies com-panies that have been a result of university connections. The removal re-moval of 60 percent of business O CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Young increase Utah taxes CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 regulations will encourage more. State contractors currently receive ten percent of contracts for goods ; and services at Hill Air Force ' Base. Bangerter wouuld like to see in-state contractors keep 50 percent per-cent of HAFB business. Tourism was up 16 percent in 1987. The controversial lake pumps were described as a long-term investment in-vestment as well as a short-term solution to the lake problem. Recently Re-cently the railroad and freeways were flooded again; the pumps are still needed today. Over the long term, the pumps are built to last for 100 years of intermittent use, for 30 years of continuous use. They could serve future flood situations as well as current problems. The retirees were understandably understand-ably interested in the subject of state tax on retirement income. The governor said that during salary sal-ary negotiations many years ago, before he was in the legislature, state employees accepted exemption exemp-tion from state retirement tax in lieu of a pay raise. It is not fair for : only state workers to receive this benefit, but the state doesn't want . to lose faith with state workers by changing in mid-stream. "We shoufd be optimistic about the future of Utah and foresighted enough to remember that education educa-tion of children to be producers not only consumers, is our most important impor-tant goal," concluded Bangerter. |