People who identified education, social services and infrastructure as areas that could use more funding “maybe have a better sense of what our needs are,” she said.Īlong partisan lines, support for a tax cut was substantially higher among Republicans at 31% than Democrats at 3%. “Anyone who feels like their tax liability is too heavy living in this state should definitely get around more.” “Our overall tax rates, relative to other states, are extremely low,” Stewart said. “Whether it’s early childhood education spending, or spending in the K-6 system, in my mind, we’re really shortchanging ourselves when we don’t prioritize those expenses,” she said.Įducation spending is “investing literally in people who will then be your citizens, your workers and your caregivers in future generations,” said Stewart.Īs for tax liability, Utahns do not shoulder the same tax burden as residents of many other states, she said. Julie Stewart, associate professor in Westminster College’s Honor College, said levels of education funding go hand-in-hand with the well-being of a population. Seventeen percent of those polled selected infrastructure funding while just 12% identified social services. The poll results suggest allocating funds to infrastructure ranked above appropriating more to social services. If we need to use tax policy, we advocate that we look at vehicles such as the child tax credit and earned income tax credit to help those most in need,” he said. Lawmakers need to appropriate sufficient resources to ensure Utah children get “world-class education and health care as well as special support for children most in need. Recently the Utah State Tax Commission and the Utah Foundation both published research showing that taxes in Utah are the lowest that they have been in 30 to 50 years following repeated rounds of tax cutting,” Hickey said. We are opposed to a tax cut at a time when we as a state have so many unmet needs. “We believe that continued investment in education including pre-K and optional enhanced kindergarten are a wise use of surplus funds. Moe Hickey, CEO of the child advocacy organization Voices for Utah Children, said it was good news that slightly more than one-third of the people polled favored more investment in education above other priorities.
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