| Show House Notes By REPRESENTATIVE VANCE V-ANCE W. W AAGARD A very pleasant surprise to tome tome tome me has been the amount of rural influence in this reapportioned House of Representatives While the majority of the men are from the Wasatch front there are enough farmers or stockmen among them and city men who were reared on farms that rural Utah still stin carries weight A good test of this came on the voton vote vot on the bill to repeal the Oleo- Oleo tax which pretty well developed into a rural vs urban issue The bill lost by bya a narrow margin Actually those of us opposed to the repeal acted almost entirely entirely entirely en en- on the premise that the state cannot lose the nearly two million dollars revenue from this tax If it is lost here it will have to be made up somewhere somewhere somewhere some some- where else The only source that the state can always fall fallback fallback fallback back upon is the much-abused much property tax The tax on oleomargarine oleomargarine oleomargarine oleo oleo- margarine which was once designed designed designed de de- de- de signed to protect the dairy in industry industry industry in- in has become a revenue measure to which everyone con con- tributes The sponsor of the oleo bill served notice that he will try to call the bill back so there is a possibility that by the time this column is published the bill may have been revived The Legislature interprets last falls fall's election as a mandate from the people that spending be cut and taxes be held where they are The appropriations subcommittees subcommittees subcommittees are laboring to do just that by meeting with the many state agencies and institutions inspecting their facilities and going over their requested budgets budgets budgets bud bud- gets with them It is a whale of ofa a job lob and there is very little time in which to do it As you look at some of the budget requests requests requests re re- re- re quests it is almost staggering staggering- in fact it turns you a little ill I While the economy is growing at a rate of 10 per cent our state agencies want budget increases in increases increases in- in creases of 30 per cent or more Many of these requests are more than one-hundred one fifty per cent of what they were in 1963 The universal cry is that our agencies agencies agencies agen agen- cies must have the money to get matching federal aid This aid which is OUR money or borrowed money in the first place is held out to us as bait with strings attached and that thatis is precisely how the government maintains a strangle hold on the states It is pleasantly surprising too as I meet businessmen educators educators educators tors farmers laborers who come to express interest in a certain certain certain tain bill how many of them come from Sanpete Even though you may have never seen them before and Im I'm sure you have all experienced this it makes you have almost a feeling of kinship toward each other |
