There is one thing you can say about Utah voters when it comes to their opinions of the federal government: They don’t like it much. In any way, any manner.
A new UtahPolicy.com/Y2 Analytics survey finds:
— 82 percent of voters believe the federal government should be very limited, only running those things that cannot be run at the state and local level.
— 71 percent disagree with the statement that the federal government gives you a better return on their tax dollars than do the state and local governments.
— 79 percent trust their state and local governments more than they do the federal government.
— 88 percent say politicians at the federal level are more corrupt than are state and local politicians.
Considering all this data, it is rather amazing that Utah voters keep sending back to Congress the very people they appear not to trust with their tax dollars.
And run the federal government in ways voters don’t like.
Of course, the difference is that Utah voters tend to like their own federal representatives while distrusting the federal representatives elected from other states.
Kind of “My guy is OK, but your guy stinks.”
There are partisan leanings on these issues, of course.
For example:
— 80 percent of “strong” Republicans disagree that the federal government gives a better return on tax dollars than the Utah state and local governments. Only 20 percent of Republicans think the federal government does a better job.
Well, the state government is run by Republicans.
— Among “strong” Democrats, only 53 percent think the state government does better with your tax dollars. And that’s because the state government here is run by Republicans, not members of their own party.
— 91 percent of “strong” Republicans say federal politicians are more corrupt than state government. Again, the state government is run by their own party.
— However, even though the Utah government is run by Republicans, 77 percent of “strong” Democrats still say local and state politicians are less corrupt than federal officials are.
So the “strong” Democrats trust their state and local government more than they trust the federal politicians — after all, the local guys are still Utahns, and thus less likely to be corrupt than those federal people from other states.
Other recent poll stories about the Y2 runs along these same themes: Federal government is bad, Utah state and local governments are good.
The guys we elected, even our federal guys, are better than the guys elected by other states.
By and large, the new polling shows, overall Utahns trust their state and local governments, like their locally- and state-elected officials.
