But several lobbyists would probably need to seek graveyard-shift convenience store jobs to make up the income they would lose.

Such an initiative would make moot the ongoing legislative fight between the banks and the credit unions. The two combatants have employed close to a dozen full-time lobbyists to grape-juice and dine legislators and convince them that some credit unions ought to be taxed on their so-called profits or they should not be taxed because of their nonprofit status, depending on who is signing the lobbyists' paychecks.

The combined fees paid out to the lobbyists by credit unions and banks well exceed $300,000 a year - about $200,000 paid by the banks or related institutions and about $100,000 by the credit unions.

And the upcoming legislative session's bank-credit union battle promises to be as raucous, expensive and time-consuming as the 2003 session when, according to House Minority Whip Brad King, D-Price, the House spent six hours on floor debate over a bill that attempted to impose a tax on larger credit unions. That compares to 36 minutes spent on floor debate over health and human services issues.

According to Senate Minority Leader Mike Dmitrich, D-Price, the Senate spent a similar ratio of time on the floor debating the credit union tax bill compared to health and human services issues.

More than any other issue, this one demonstrates how certain lobbyists - notably Paul Rogers and his partners in Tetris Group, Cap and Sue Ferry and Rob Jolley (on the banks' side) and Spencer Stokes, Nancy Sechrist and Craig Moody (on the credit unions' side) can control the agenda in the Legislature and steer attention toward one issue at the expense of education, health care and other pressing matters.

That's because the lobbyists have the resources through their clients to help politicians get elected and re-elected to the Legislature.

Two lawmakers who will be instrumental in what happens with bank-backed legislation in 2005 were generously aided in their campaign by bank groups.

Rep. Jeff Alexander, R-Provo, co-chairman of the Legislature's Financial Services Task Force that recently prepared a resolution asking Congress to allow states to apply sales tax to federally chartered credit unions, received $7,500 in campaign contributions from banks this year. Alexander had no opponent.

The other co-chairman, Sen. Dan Eastman, R-Bountiful, received $5,500 in campaign contributions from banks.

The resolution will be the main bone of contention at the Legislature this year since most of the larger Utah credit unions gave up their state charters in favor of federal charters after the attempt two years ago to slap the larger institutions with the same income tax assessments as banks pay.

Both sides do have legitimate arguments and the lobbyists they employ honestly earn their fees by researching and arguing the issues.

But this particular issue has taken up so much time in legislative debate and in the mass media, where both sides have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising, that the citizenry is just about sated.

A state school board member recently cut off a representative of Citizens for Sound Tax Policy, a bank-funded organization, when she began her presentation to the board by stating a sales tax on credit unions would provide more money for schools.

Her argument might be sound, but the board member said he simply was sick of the issue.

In short, here are the sides:

The banks cite a trend toward consolidation of membership and assets in just a few large credit unions since Utah regulators significantly eased geographical and other restrictions for credit union membership in 1987.

America First now commands 36 percent of all credit union business in Utah, with assets of $2.8 billion. Mountain America commands 17 percent with assets of $1.3 billion. Bank advocates say they just want sales tax imposed on the portion of the assets that are not returned to members.

Credit union advocates counter that regulators require a 10 percent reserve fund to protect members' funds and the only way the nonprofit organizations can grow is through new deposits and loans to members. For-profit banks can grow simply by selling stock.

That's a woefully inadequate and brief summary of the debate. But you can be sure that you will be hearing much more about it during the two months of legislative ground war and dizzying media blitzes.