1- Budget shortfalls will not result in rolling back tax cuts that benefitted the wealthy, but will create additional fees that are regressive in nature.
2- Downturns in the economy will result in budget shortfalls that will cause the legislature to layoff state employees, therefore exacerbating Utah's jobless rate and create a further downfall in Utah's economy.
3- The downturn in the underlying assets behind Utah's retirement programs will result in the legislature pushing the idea of converting Utah's retirement system to a "defined contribution" system and away from a "defined benefit" program. The fact that the underlying stock values are low, the conversion will occur that minimizes costs to the state, but decimates Utah's state employees.
4- Sen. Nuttars will try to use the apparatus of the state to promote his narrow, myopic view of the world and will create just enough embarrassment among the Republican caucus that they will only pass half of Nuttar's agenda.
5- Sen. Howard Stephenson, Sen. Curtis Bramble and Rep. John Dougall will create a privatization initiative that lines the pockets of the company they co-found under government contracts.
6-Some do-gooder Democrat will sponsor some ethics legislation and will face eternal ostracism for suggesting that ethics are a problem for their esteemed colleagues.
7- New tax exemptions for businesses will be proposed while services for disabled orphans and veterans will be appropriately slashed in order to make prudent fiscal policy-making decisions and to balance the budget.
8- Gayle Swastika and her phone tree will warn all Republican legislators, that failure to support Sen. Nuttar's agenda will result in some right-wing whack job challenging them in their next convention/primary election. Repubs will pass 50% of Sen. Nuttar's agenda.
9- Republican legislators will pass resolutions demanding that all Americans become as pure and truly American as Utahns truly are. They will pat themselves on the back for their steadfastness against the forces of evil. Non-mormons, liberals, atheists and anyone with an IQ above 80 will develop severe nausea.
10- Democrats will go along with the most obnoxious Republican initiatives because they know that their failure to do so will result in their lack of electability and/or the revokation of their temple recommends.
I welcome the predictions of others.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
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4 comments:
That about covers it. All that's left to do is sit back and watch the fun.
Obi wan,
Is there a particular order to your predictions and if so, what is the order?
David, some of these are a little tongue in cheek, with just enough reality thrown in to hopefully make them relevant. I'll leave the prioritizing to the legislators themselves.
My running commentary:
1- Budget shortfalls will not result in rolling back tax cuts that benefitted the wealthy, but will create additional fees that are regressive in nature.
(The US has some of the highest marginal tax rates in the industrialized world. Knowing quite a lot on this topic as an academic and practitioner, the proper analysis isn't whether we have a tax code now that allegedly includes "tax cuts which benefited the wealthy" vs. the previous tax code, in some static analysis which pretends that the previous tax code was in some way optimal. The proper analysis is what should the tax code do and what shouldn't it do. The first principles to agree on are whether the tax code collects revenue for goverment functions without damaging the economy or inducing undesirable behavior. These principles need to be applied even before we start worrying about other goals like fairness, simplicity, understandability and enforacability. Our current tax code fails all of these tests, so before we obsess on the degree of progressivity, we need to make sure that the tax code first meets its other basic principles.)
2- Downturns in the economy will result in budget shortfalls that will cause the legislature to layoff state employees, therefore exacerbating Utah's jobless rate and create a further downfall in Utah's economy.
(Well, yes, that's how recessions work.)
3- The downturn in the underlying assets behind Utah's retirement programs will result in the legislature pushing the idea of converting Utah's retirement system to a "defined contribution" system and away from a "defined benefit" program. The fact that the underlying stock values are low, the conversion will occur that minimizes costs to the state, but decimates Utah's state employees.
(Hmmm. My wife is a state employee and only has a defined contribution plan.)
4- Sen. Nuttars will try to use the apparatus of the state to promote his narrow, myopic view of the world and will create just enough embarrassment among the Republican caucus that they will only pass half of Nuttar's agenda.
(The capacity of the Utah GOP to immitate the keystone cops is infinite.)
5- Sen. Howard Stephenson, Sen. Curtis Bramble and Rep. John Dougall will create a privatization initiative that lines the pockets of the company they co-found under government contracts.
(Don't confuse graft for market principles.)
6-Some do-gooder Democrat will sponsor some ethics legislation and will face eternal ostracism for suggesting that ethics are a problem for their esteemed colleagues.
(Will he call the Governor of Illinois for ideas?)
7- New tax exemptions for businesses will be proposed while services for disabled orphans and veterans will be appropriately slashed in order to make prudent fiscal policy-making decisions and to balance the budget.
(I thought higher spending for schools resulting in zero improvement in performance was much preferable.)
8- Gayle Swastika and her phone tree will warn all Republican legislators, that failure to support Sen. Nuttar's agenda will result in some right-wing whack job challenging them in their next convention/primary election. Repubs will pass 50% of Sen. Nuttar's agenda.
(How about more liberal wack jobs will allow more illegal aliens into the US and Utah lowering the standard of living for low income US citizens that they purport to represent? Tell me if you need me to explain how this works.)
9- Republican legislators will pass resolutions demanding that all Americans become as pure and truly American as Utahns truly are. They will pat themselves on the back for their steadfastness against the forces of evil. Non-mormons, liberals, atheists and anyone with an IQ above 80 will develop severe nausea.
(How about Obama will adopt more and more of the policies he ran against realizing that in fact there are indeed some dangerous people in the world?)
10- Democrats will go along with the most obnoxious Republican initiatives because they know that their failure to do so will result in their lack of electability and/or the revokation of their temple recommends.
(I will leave this area to your expertise as a former Mormon. I do not have the damaging identity.)
I welcome the predictions of others.
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