Will Utah voters increase their taxes this November?
Growth brings some revenue with it — more jobs and better pay yields more income and sales tax revenue. But there’s never enough. We don’t have a broad consensus that our current revenue and taxation mix is just right. Some think we need more revenue, much more; others think we need to cut taxes; still others think our revenue and tax balance is about right.
After the
Medicaid
Around 100,000 healthy
Even those who earn between 100 percent and 138 percent of the poverty level, and therefore qualify for federally subsidized health insurance on the federal exchange, often can’t afford their modest share of premiums, deductibles and copays. Expansion of Medicaid will help this group do just that.
The legislature has considered full Medicaid expansion and didn’t pass it.
A well-funded group has stepped into the breach and gathered enough signatures to put this issue on the ballot. Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government will pay states that fully expand Medicaid 90 percent of the costs. Instead of Utah’s typical 30 percent share, the state would only pay 10 percent of the expansion cost.
To pay for the state’s share, sponsors included in their initiative a modest increase in sales tax — from 4.7 percent to 4.85 percent. Should this proposition pass,
Watch this one. It will be a telling vote.
Our Schools Now
Perhaps a more dramatic story is the movement started by some of Utah’s most influential citizens called Our Schools Now. This initiative was gathering signatures to get a qualify a proposition for the November ballot to increase education funding by
To test public sentiment, the legislature placed on November’s ballot a nonbinding question whether the state should increase our gas tax by
While
Utahns have always been committed to increasing education funding, provided it goes to the classroom.
Again, two important ballot questions will ask voters to approve tax hikes to expand Medicaid and public education funding. What will
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