We invite our readers to join the discussion of these and other issues as they are addressed in the newspaper's editorials, guest columns and in The Public Forum during 2005.
As we knocked ideas around for the list, we were struck by how Utah's internal population growth drives many of these issues. Utah's birthrate is 50 percent higher than the nation as a whole, and nearly 25 percent higher than Texas, the second-highest state. While it is not the place of government - or anyone else, for that matter - to tell parents how to plan their families, Utahns should consider how rapid population growth creates greater demand for public services and for limited natural resources.
Growth is neither all good nor all bad. It's a mixed bag. But those classical Greeks were on to something when they counseled moderation in all things.
Education: Utah's underfunded education system continues to work its way through a demographic bubble, a population boomlet that is sending tens of thousands of new students into the school system over a 10-year period. What changed over the past year is the state's economy, which has recovered to the point that it has injected significant new revenues into the state treasury.
This will relieve some budget pressure on schools, enough that teachers will get significant raises for the first time in several years. But the larger issue of chronic underfunding, identified as critical by the governor's task force on education a couple of years ago, remains unresolved.
The Legislature has failed to vote up or down on the Jones-Mascaro bill, the best plan put forward so far to boost education funding by phasing out state income-tax exemptions for more than two per household and adjusting tax brackets. Olene Walker's tax-reform proposal also deserves to be debated. Though it is more comprehensive, it is designed to be revenue neutral.
The state was in the process of grappling with another item from the task force - higher standards - when the federal No Child Left Behind Act created an unnecessary distraction last year.
Going forward, the state should set aside another of the task-force recommendations - tuition tax credits - that at best would reduce public school enrollments only marginally and at worst would erode support for public education.
Environment: The years-long battle over a proposal to store highly radioactive spent reactor fuel rods on the Skull Valley reservation of the Goshutes will go critical this year, as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will rule on a license. The state's best argument against this scheme, that it is not safe to park casks of deadly waste on concrete pads beneath the flight path of armed military jets flying to and from the Utah Test and Training Range, should be enough to stop the plan, if logic prevails.
At the same time, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and the Legislature should act once and for all to ban class B and C low-level nuclear waste for storage at Envirocare's facility and elsewhere.
The current drought coupled with population growth will continue to stress water resources, but Utahns should look to conservation before they consider damming the Bear River or launching other pricey development schemes.
The wilderness debate remains unresolved.
Transportation: This is the one new category on the list, because the Legislature is determined to make it a high priority. Without doubt, there is a pressing need to rebuild I-15 in Utah County and complete Legacy Highway through southern Davis County. And that's just the top of the highway projects list.
Fortunately, there seems to be policy consensus that highway and mass transit construction must go forward in tandem. Several task forces and government groups also agree that a hike in the gasoline tax and vehicle registration fees must be implemented to raise new revenues. The gasoline tax also should become a percentage sales tax (rather than cents per gallon) so that it raises more money with inflation.
However, Legislators should think twice about the notion that greater portions of general sales tax revenues should be diverted to transportation from other government operations. Given the chronic needs for education, to say nothing of health care and other social services, an overly aggressive diversion to roads would be a mistake.
Livable cities: Though the $150 million Open Space initiative failed at the polls, it is just one of several stories that indicate continued public concern with sprawl development and land use. Another example is the fight in several communities over big-box retailers. City incorporations in Salt Lake County, including the latest one in Cottonwood Heights, also are driven in part by battles over zoning, billboards and parks.
Envision Utah has developed tools to help communities plan more livable cities, a process that is a complex soup of transportation, land-use, economic development and tax issues that challenges Utahns as they try to preserve quality of life.
Health care: Bill and Hillary Clinton's failed effort at comprehensive health-insurance reform continues to haunt Americans. The piecemeal approach that resulted from their failure is not working, either.
Witness rising costs and the inability of many Americans to obtain health insurance. In Utah, the most obvious stress points are the rising state budget for Medicaid (the federal/state program for low-income people), the malpractice insurance crisis and its corollary, the recent battle over mandatory arbitration.
