Matthew Weinstein: Why Is Utah cutting budgets when we have ample reserves?

This past week, the Legislature’s Appropriations Subcommittees spent many hours diligently poring over budgets to carry out a directive from legislative leadership to recommend FY21 base budget cuts of 2%, 5% and 10%. These cuts, which add up to either $143 million, $360 million or $723 million, are in addition to $650 million to $1 billion of cuts that the Legislature’s Executive Appropriations Committee has said it intends to make from the FY21 budget additions enacted by the Legis