Budget Burdens Undulate

Good afternoon, citizens of the sloped valleys; I am parked on the rear bench of a Range Rover, the wheelspin silent, as the Governor’s Office of Budget and Planning peacefully shrinks revenue while cloaking its inefficiency in safety‑orange barrels of rhetoric. Gov. Spencer Cox, with Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson dangling a briefcase of tax‑evasion promises, announces a quixotic $25 million lift for the downtown homeless campus, while the Utah Legislature, flanked by UDOT officials, mutters about SR‑224 and SR‑130 traffic counts that have never been approved. The fiscal tightening drips over the old town entryway—U.S. 40, the toll‑free corridor that never sees any park‑and‑ride signs, and the muddy side of US‑89 where heavy trucks still momentarily think they can circumvent parking permits. This cobalt‑maroon budget strategy is as impermeable as a counterfeit asphal‑tate slab of bureaucratic obfuscation. The only way to escape the brick‑blotted snarls is to avoid the center‑city roundabout altogether: take the Richardson Flat bus and turn west on 22nd oblique.