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Salt Lake Crawler
Glen Warchol
I've been a newspaperman for nearly three decades and have done hard time at United Press International; small dailies and nasty alternative newspapers, including the Observer in Dallas. In some bizarre convulsion of fate, I joined a few other twisted gentiles at the Deseret News for a few years. Along the way, I reproduced twice. I live in Salt Lake's historic refinery district with my current wife Mary Brown Malouf, another journalist. Now, I'm on a new adventure on the Internet-where the best things in life are (mostly) free.
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Published on Aug 19, 2010 05:25PM
Some Utah legislators want to explore privatizing Utah's most successful experiment in socialism: the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. They figure they could sell parts of the state's monopoly on booze for $22 million toward plugging the gaping hole in the budget.

Most of Utah's conservative Legislature is philosophically in tune with privatization, except for one major hitch. Being for the most part Mormons, the Lege likes control. Especially over other peoples' fun. State privatization board chairman Randy Simmons explains:



“My guess is there would be push-back from the LDS Church if you tried to completely privatize, including the wholesale side because of the belief that you can somehow reduce consumption if the state’s controlling part of that.”


But why is the DABC the only part of government ripe for privatization? Surely private industry could create a process for drivers licenses and vehicle registration that is at least as insanely frustrating as the state's.

And how about the Legislature itself? Why isn't it privatized so seats and lawmakers could be sold to the highest bidder.

Oh, I forgot, that was completed some time ago.

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