Utahns support taxes for Olympic facilities

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Christian Center of Park City

A sizable majority of Utahns support spending tax dollars to maintain and improve the state’s Olympic facilities, according to a new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll.

Seventy percent of Utahns approve of their taxes being used for the former 2002 Winter Games venues, an expenditure that could end up exceeding more than $140 million, while just 29% disapprove and 2% don’t know.

The willingness to fund facilities is a boost to Salt Lake City’s bid, which faces competition for a Winter Games from Sapporo, Japan; Vancouver, Canada; and cities in Sweden, Switzerland and, as of earlier this summer, France.

Fraser Bullock, president and CEO of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games pointed out, however, that the bid committee has not sought tax dollars. The more than $2.2 billion budget for hosting another Olympics does not include any local or state money, instead relying largely on the sale of sponsorships, broadcast rights and tickets.

The poll was conducted Aug. 7-14 of 803 registered Utah voters by Dan Jones and Associates for the Deseret News and the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.46 percentage points.

Why Sen. Mike Lee wants Glenn Beck to run for president

Utah Sen. Mike Lee has repeatedly asked Glenn Beck to run for president, the talk show host said last week. At first, it was unclear just how serious the request actually was.

“(Lee) said ‘I’m not saying you should run for president because I think you could win,'" Beck told Steve Deace of BlazeTV. "'Somebody needs to articulate where we are and what we face and who we have always been and need to remember who we are.’ He said, ‘We need a storyteller.'”

But Beck went on to say, “I think we have that now,” noting the performances of Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy in the GOP debate the night before in Milwaukee. He’s also been giving air time to the current GOP front-runner, Donald Trump.

Lee confirmed to Deseret News that he’s been urging Beck to run — for even longer than Beck indicated.

“I’ve been talking to Glenn about that since the day I met him more than 13 years ago. I have long appreciated his trust in the American system of government,” he said in a statement.

Read more about other talk show hosts who have been urged to run for office.

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Photo of the Week

The sun rises on the Kirtland Temple in Kirtland, Ohio, on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2023. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

See more photos from Elder David A. Bednar's tour of Kirtland historic sites.