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Show UTA doesn't represent all The Utah Taxpayers Association has declared war. At least that's the impression left by Mr. Jack A. Olsen as he left a recent meeting of the Alpine Board of Education declaring, "If you want war with the Utah Taxpayers Association, you've got it." Mr. Olson and his organization spend a lot of time fighting increasing taxes, usually through a newsletter, through news releases and through meetings where he captures the ear of the press. The Utah Taxpayers Association publishes annual comparisons of Utah's taxes and takes stands for its members on several issues. Some of their information is quite useful. Other information in-formation is tailored to meet the needs of the association. For example, during the recent voted leeway, the Utah Taxpayers Association came out strongly against the leeway, bolstering it's oppostion with some facts and some fallacies that taken together made a strong case against the tax increase. Like most special interest groups, the Utah Taxpayers Tax-payers Association tends to bend its facts to meet its needs - and Mr. Olson conceded at the Board of Education meeting that not all of the statements the association used to defeat the leeway election were true. The organization also assumes a watchdog role supposedly for all of the taxpayers of the state of Utah. However, the group is largely made up of the major companies who end up paying most of the taxes in the state. The names of those companies are not public information, Mr. Olson told the Alpine Board of Education. And this is the problem. As a special interest group, the Utah Taxpayers Association is looking out for its members, rather than all of the taxpayers as the organization's name would imply. When Mr. Olson comes to an Alpine School Board meeting and complains about the district's mill levy, his interests are not necessarily in maintaining any given standard of education -simply in keeping taxes low. Very few of his organization's members have children in the Alpine School District, nor do they care about the level of education. And that makes the Utah Taxpayers Association a particularly poor spokesman for patrons of the Alpine School District. We need to cut waste in government spending. We need to keep taxes as low as possible. But it should be : those who spend and benefit from the tax dollars who make the decision regarding them rather than special interest groups with no stake in how that money will be spent. Not groups like the Utah Taxpayers Association that are interested in keeping taxes low no matter what the cost will be to our communities. |