Keynote Speakers:
Jon Huntsman, Jr., Governor of Utah
Mark Patterson, MatlinPatterson
Governor Huntsman gave the opening remarks and essential gave a shorter version of his "State of the State" address that he gave the night before. To be more complete and get his precise words, here are some relevant extracts from his exact text from the "State of the State" address (and here is some feedback on his proposals).
With the eyes of the world on our economic accomplishments, now is the time to build on this success, create more high-paying jobs, and thereby provide greater economic freedom for our citizens.
It is important to send a signal about our commitment to long-term competitiveness. One important way we can become more competitive is to reform our antiquated tax code.
First, we need a personal income tax system that is simpler, flatter, and fairer. We need to provide one of the lowest income tax rates in the West--and one that leaves more money in the pockets of taxpayers.
The income tax funds public education. We must therefore commit to long-term growth and sustainability such that our schools are adequately funded. I emphatically urge that legislators approve a flatter personal income tax rate that would lower the percentage an individual pays from seven percent to five percent. It is the wise thing to do and now is the time to act.
The time is also right to take a look at another onerous tax. Speaker Greg Curtis and I were recently discussing the history of the sales tax in this State. We agree that there was a chapter opened in our State's tax history seventy-three years ago that now needs to be closed.
During the early 1930s Utah's fiscal house was in chaos. Half of all property owners could not pay their property taxes. Families were devastated as numerous farms, homes and businesses were forced into foreclosure. The State was facing bankruptcy. In desperation, the Legislature gave Governor Henry Blood the authority to impose a tax on the one thing people had to purchase in order to survive: food. Taxing food was a drastic measure adopted as a temporary fix for a very different time.
Like so many "temporary" public-policy fixes, the initial reason for adopting this measure has come and gone but the tax has remained. Seven decades later, it continues to burden our most vulnerable citizens.
I have good news tonight. The Great Depression is long gone, and our State is in strong fiscal shape.
By making modest adjustments to our allocation of existing revenue streams--for example, by increasing the share of sales-tax revenue retained by local governments, by collecting sales tax already due our State from online purchases, by using anticipated new revenue from economic growth, and by tapping into funds I have already set aside in my budget--we can provide Utahns immediate relief at the checkout counter. Now is the time and this is the session to remove the sales tax on food!
Our State can be both competitive and compassionate as we revise our tax code to be more family friendly and fiscally responsible. Reforming the tax code, however, is not enough to secure our long-term economic prosperity.
Securing our long-term prosperity will require both a strong commitment to education and a focus on innovation to make certain the next generation can achieve their dreams here in Utah.
In the early 1970s Governor Calvin Rampton and Utah Legislators, including Senator Mike Dmitrich, established Research Park near the University of Utah. This revolutionary concept coupled the great ideas from researchers and academics with the keen commercial sense of entrepreneurs and skilled workers from our State.
The result of this coupling was groundbreaking. This "research-plus-business" combination led to the establishment of world-class businesses like Evans & Sutherland, NPS Pharmaceuticals, and Myriad Genetics. It also led to critically important research in cancer treatment, diabetes, genetics, as well as the robotic arm just to name a few. It was a risk that has paid great dividends for Utahns, and for humankind.
Today it is time to invest in the next generation of world-renown Utah innovation and ideas. As Winston Churchill said, "the empires of the future are the empires of the mind." We now have the opportunity once again to be bold and visionary as we move toward the next generation of knowledge-based, high-paying jobs. Utah can lead the nation in areas where we have comparative research advantages.
USTAR--the Utah Science, Technology, and Research Initiative--will capitalize on the unique resources of our State, such as the Utah Population Database, Genomics, Informatics, Personalized Medicine, and the talented faculty and students at the University of Utah and Utah State University. We will be uniquely positioned to produce the next generation of both life-saving discoveries and award-winning researchers if we will take this crucial step forward.
This session, I ask you to pass the legislation sponsored by Senator Al Mansell and Representative David Clark to make USTAR a brilliant reality!
Second, we must focus on education. It is important to take the necessary steps to ensure that our education system matches the individual dreams and abilities of each child. As the parents of six children, Mary Kaye and I know that each child approaches the classroom differently.
Last year our State took a significant step forward in recognizing those differences when we enacted the Carson Smith Special Needs Bill. We must also provide our educators, like Principal Carolyn Ingles and her faculty here at Washington Elementary, greater resources to meet the unprecedented needs of our growing student population. That is why I have proposed a 5.5 percent increase in the amount of money we provide for each student.
During the holidays, I had the wonderful opportunity to have my whole family living under the same roof again. I have often quipped that, while not a professional educator myself, I have been running my own clinical trials at home with children now in elementary, middle, high school, and college--each with unique personalities and abilities.
We recognize that today's youth will, on average, hold several jobs during the course of their careers, unlike earlier generations. This is a profound change in the training they will need as they prepare for the marketplace. While we cannot predict the job opportunities that our kids might encounter in the future, we can clearly make sure that they are prepared for a lifetime of learning.
The best way to accomplish this objective is to ensure that they develop a passion for knowledge. This passion must develop in a student's career, and it must reflect the increasingly important role that teachers will play in providing the necessary environment in which their students learn.
We have the need, we now have the resources, and it is time to act to make certain that Utah students are receiving a world-class education--one that will make them competitive with students from California to Connecticut and from Beijing to Brussels, and one that will help fuel their passions to ensure a generation of life-long learners.
Of course, increased funding alone is not enough to make certain that our children will thrive in the classroom. A particular group of our students are struggling with the fundamentals of literacy and numeracy. If we do not help them in their early years, they will struggle to survive academically and many will fall through the cracks and end up short of their true potential. We can provide more for them now, and by so doing help eliminate any learning achievement gaps in their future.
That is why I propose a seven million dollar voluntary, all-day kindergarten program in our Title I schools like Washington Elementary here in Bountiful. Our students who desire extra assistance need it early in their academic careers. Test scores of kindergarten students at Parkview and Bennion Elementary in Salt Lake City, where all-day programs are available, tell a story of success. Our goal is simple: We want to encourage all of our students to become lifelong learners.
Good teachers are critical to turning this goal into a reality. In recognition of that fact, I am seeking funding to enhance teacher training and incentives in the areas of math and science during the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. Just as students in early grades need to master reading, children who are preparing to enter junior high school need to master the basic fundamentals of math and science. This is not all. We must carefully expand on the success of our many public charter schools.
All parents and educators must be willing to challenge our students with a more robust and rigorous curriculum. Building intellectual infrastructure by way of brainpower--whether at the elementary, secondary, or higher education level--is as crucial to our State's success as building roads, bridges, and dams. If we fail our children, we have failed our future.
Third, we need a transportation system that meets our commitment to having the best quality of life in America. Our legislative hosts here in Bountiful, Senator Dan Eastman and Representative Sheryl Allen--working together with many others who are with us tonight--recently helped us reach across a divide and finally resolve a longstanding impasse.
There were many who said it could not, would not, be done; however, thanks to many of you, traffic will soon flow on the Legacy Parkway!
Building the Legacy Parkway is but one small part of our overall transportation plan. We must continue to invest in roads and rails so that our quality of life is not unduly limited by the amount of time we spend stuck in traffic. We must preserve routes for future roads, plan for public-private partnerships, and enhance the use of High Occupancy Vehicle lanes for hybrid or environmentally friendly vehicles.
In short, we cannot have sustained economic prosperity without an adequate transportation system. As the fifth fastest-growing State in the nation, we are adding the population equivalent of one City of Ogden per year. We cannot afford to stand back and watch traffic gridlock increase.
Just like education, when it comes to funding transportation, we must begin to pay now or we will all pay dearly in the future. My budget calls for unprecedented increases in transportation funding. When it comes to improving old roads and investing in new ones, the time is now!
Prior to being elected as Governor, I was involved in running a business where I learned some very valuable lessons. For example, when times were good, there was often a temptation to spend the profit on things that did not necessarily benefit the company. The prudent course was always to reinvest a large portion of the profit back into the basic infrastructure that produced the company's products. This is known as "maintenance capital."
We are now in a position to help catch up on some "deferred maintenance" in our State and invest maintenance capital in vital areas such as education, transportation and reformation of our Elvis-era tax system.
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