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Blog Watch
Prolific Rep. John Dougall writes about the Legacy Parkway settlement, cutting spending to pay for Katrina damages, the Broadband Cities Conference, and pork in the highway bill. Rep. Steve Urquhart tells the federal government to stop spending our children’s and grandchildren’s money.
Washington Watch
Love Their Own Voices
A Chicago Tribune editorial about the Judge Roberts hearings says Sen. Orrin Hatch and other Judiciary Committee members love the sound of their own voices. “On one day, The Washington Post tallied, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, talked for 12 of the allotted 15 minutes - and left Roberts three. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., used 15 of his 20 minutes, giving the nominee five…”
Bennett: Nuke Waste Plan Makes No Sense
Sen. Bob Bennett said in a floor speech Tuesday that a single nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain no longer makes sense, “and we need to move in a different direction.” Sen. Orrin Hatch weighed in as well, saying his amendment to the Energy bill would have put a stop to the Skull Valley site and opened the door to a study of alternatives, such as reprocessing, storing nuclear waste onsite, and storing the waste at existing DOE sites. Hatch said he will introduce the amendment as a stand alone bill this week.
Hatch: Ombudsman for Private Property Rights
Reuters reports on a plan by Sen. Hatch to establish a federal ombudsman to protect private property rights against government seizure for economic development (in light of the recent Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. New London). Here is Hatch’s prepared statement.
Matheson: Navajos, Shoshone Get Grant
Rep. Jim Matheson has announced
a $225,000 grant for the Navajo and Shoshone financial development entities from the Treasury Department's Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, which helps native Americans invest in their local communities. The grants must be matched dollar-for-dollar with private sector funding. Recipients are the Aneth Community Development Corporation, in Montezuma Creek, and the Intermountain Tribal Alliance in Salt Lake City.
ATK Thiokol a Long-Term NASA Partner
NASA’s decision to use a shuttle-derived launch system built by Utah’s ATK Thiokol for future flights to the International Space Station, the moon and Mars, brought the applause of Utah’s Congressional delegation. “Utah has been a leader in space technology development for decades. The latest decision by NASA to use ATK’s launch system in future space explorations is further evidence of this,” said Sen. Bob Bennett. Rep. Jim Matheson said “...the ATK team is a critical part of NASA's future success."
John Fund to Speak at EdEx Conference
Education Excellence Utah is planning a conference on the impact of parental choice on public education and society on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. in the Hilton Hotel, 255 South West Temple. Keynote address will be by Wall Street Journal Columnist John Fund. Breakfast is $10 per person. RSVP by Oct. 14 to Jessica at 801.532.1448, jhoff@xmission.com. For more information, contact EdEx Executive Director M. Royce Van Tassell, 532-1448.
Reader Response
UPD Item Contained "Offensive Political Spin"
From Kerry Carpenter: Your Tuesday article (from the Utah Taxpayers Association) regarding retirement benefits for public employees contains a comment that is rife with offensive political spin: “With the exception of retirement costs for some older employees, 100% of the cost of the retirement system is funded by taxpayers.”
While the comment is essentially true, it appears designed to suggest that public employees – unlike employees in the private sector – contribute nothing to their own retirement plans, instead sucking at the teat of the overburdened taxpayer for this “generous benefit.” What it fails to acknowledge is the fact that, in that public employees’ compensation is entirely dependent upon appropriations of tax dollars by legislators, public employees have no other source of income from which to make contributions to their retirement programs. The comment – and the underlying attitude it exemplifies – fails to recognize that many public employees were asked (by the legislature) and agreed for several years to forego pay raises in lieu of preserving retirement benefits. Consequently, many public employees’ compensation now lags by 10% - 15% or more behind comparable workers in the private sector. In addition, the legislature has recently enacted bills which threaten to retract those promises made to public employees in the past (e.g., HB159 [2003], HB179 [2004] and, especially HB213 [2005]).
As an employee of the state of Utah and an active member of the Republican Party in Utah, the evident disdain for faithful and hard-working public employees is troubling and makes loyalty to the state party a challenging proposition.
Leadership Tip
Optimism Trickles Down
From "Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee (See Amazon).
"Of all the aspects of business, superior customer care -- that holy grail of any service industry -- is perhaps affected most by mood contagion, and therefore by the open-loop aspect of the brain. Customer service jobs are notoriously stressful, with high emotions flowing freely, not just from customers to the front lines but also from workers to customers. From a business viewpoint, of course, bad moods in people who serve customers are bad news. First, rudeness is contagious, creating dissatisfied, even angry, customers -- quite apart from whether or not a particular service matter was handled well. Second, grumpy workers serve customers poorly, with sometimes devastating results: Cardiac care units where the nurses' general mood was 'depressed' had a death rate among patients four times higher than on comparable units.
"By contrast, upbeat moods at the front lines benefit a business. If customers find interactions with a counterperson enjoyable, they start to think of the store as a 'nice place' to shop. That means not only more repeat visits, but also good word-of-mouth advertising. Moreover, when service people feel upbeat, they do more to please customers: In a study of 32 stores in a U.S. retail chain, outlets with positive salespeople showed the best sales results.
"But just what does that finding have to do with leadership? In all of those retail outlets, it was the store manager who created the emotional climate that drove salespeople's moods -- and ultimately, sales -- in the right direction. When the managers themselves were peppy, confident, and optimistic, their moods rubbed off on the staff." |
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