Fred C. Cox for Utah: 2024

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Fred Cox, champion for lowering taxes, needs your support

Fred Cox, champion for lowering taxes, needs your support

I am proud to have led the effort to end a proposed increase in taxes on food and other services. The Utah Legislature passed a massive 177% tax hike on groceries, forcing a typical family of four to pay about $387 more each year for food.

We were able to gather more than 170,000 signatures for the Utah 2019 Tax Referendum, enough to persuade the governor and legislature to repeal the tax.

I am a professional architect and I have also been honored to serve as a state representative for four years, working on behalf of 1/3 of West Valley City citizens. Here are some of the key issues I will fight for to protect you and your family if I am elected again to House District 30:

Put more money in classrooms by reducing the cost of school buildings.
Defend the U.S. Constitution by protecting the rights of Utah and the people from overreaching federal interference.
Grow the economy by reducing burdensome regulations on businesses

We can't continue to let the government take over our lives. I am the Utah Republican Convention winner and I am backed by the party. The other candidate in the primary is on the ballot though signature gathering. Please come to one of my Town Hall meetings and help me understand the issues that are important to you.

Here’s where and you can join me:

Saturday, May 11, 2024, 1pm to 2:30pm, Hunter Library Meeting Room, 4740 W 4100 S, West Valley City, UT 84120

Saturday, May 25, 2024, 1pm to 2:30pm, West Valley Library Meeting Room, 2880 W 3650 S, West Valley City, UT 84119

Saturday, June 1, 2024, 11am to 12:30pm, Hunter Library Meeting Room, 4740 W 4100 S, West Valley City, UT 84120

Tuesday, May 7, 2024

Fred C Cox for House District 30 - Fighting Tax Increases

At the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, I was the original sponsor (1 of 5) for the Utah 2019 Tax referendum. Working with voters throughout the state, both liberal, conservative, and everything in between, and as volunteers, we were able to gather over 170,000 signatures in 29 counties, exceeding the 116,000 required signatures in 15 counties. Because of the success of our team, the Legislature and the Governor repealed 2019 SB 2001, instead of facing the backlash of the voters that fall.

Remember we had identified 5 major items in the bill that had people ticked.

Major Problems with 2019 SB 2001:

First, if you raise the cost of vehicle fuel, by increasing the state fuel tax by 35%, a family driving around town has less money to go to the store to buy food. These added fuel costs will drive up the cost of goods at the register as well.

Second, raising the cost of food by raising the sales tax on food by a 177% Utah tax increase, means the family has less money to buy food. The State paying this family back later, doesn’t help. Why should a family making it without the government be pushed into requiring help?

Third, by reducing the amount of money going to public and secondary education by $680 Million, while promising public education will not be hurt, means they are either going to change the Utah Constitution or the legislature is going to make sure our property taxes go up, either directly such as 2015 SB 97 and 2018 HB 293 or indirectly by making the local school boards raise our property tax and those boards getting the blame.

Fourth, the bill sets up changing the funding of roads by removing the constitutional required funding from transportation related taxes, including transportation related sales tax, and replacing it with highway user fees and a road usage charge program.

Fifth, Adding to the increase of services with sales tax, which can drive service type businesses out of the state or at least out of business.

Also Remember we invited the left and right and everyone in between to unite to stop the bill, 2019 SB 2001. There was one initial rule, respect. We need this group to keep pressure on the legislature and governor so they don't create 2019 SB 2001 again, as a whole or in pieces. That is what United us and still does.

If any of these items come back in any form, they will be repealed by the voters. Food Tax, Fuel Tax, Education funding, Transportation funding, Services. No New Taxes. If they think this was just the food tax, they are wrong

Saturday, April 20, 2024

Town Hall Meetings in May and June 2024

I have scheduled the following town hall meetings to learn what issues are important to you.

Saturday, May 11, 2024, 1pm to 2:30pm, Hunter Library Meeting Room, 4740 W 4100 S, West Valley City, UT 84120

Saturday, May 25, 2024, 1pm to 2:30pm, West Valley Library Meeting Room, 2880 W 3650 S, West Valley City, UT 84119

Saturday, June 1, 2024, 11am to 12:30pm, Hunter Library Meeting Room, 4740 W 4100 S, West Valley City, UT 84120

Fred C. Cox, 2024 Candidate for Utah House District 30,
"I believe we must stand up and be heard or watch our constitutionally protected rights disappear. We can't continue to let government take over our lives".

That was the reason I ran for office when my State Representative, Ron Bigelow, stepped down to help the Governor at the end of 2010, and it is still so today.

I had the opportunity to serve in the Utah House of Representatives in 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2016. During that time, I had a reputation of being willing to speak up and to fight for and vote for what I believed was right, no matter the opposition.

I also had the reputation of reading though all of the bills I would vote on, and after the 2016 session a comedy song joked that I might have known other legislators' bills better than they did. During my service, I had one of the best floor attendance records of anyone in the House, with the exception of one rare House Judiciary Standing Committee meeting called during floor time where I missed 12 votes in 2015. They were the only ones I missed that year. I wanted to be in the chamber during debates and voting so I could hear both sides of an issue and see if a bill was ready or needed to be amended or voted down. "Motion to Amend" was something I said more than once. I always voted for or against the bill no matter who the sponsor was or what party they belonged to.

I am the Convention Winner and I am backed by the party. The other candidate in the primary is on the ballot though signatures.

Please come to one of my Town Hall meetings and help me understand the issues that are important to you. Thank You to the many that came to my past Town Hall meetings.

I ask for your vote.
Fred C. Cox

fred@fredcox4utah.com

https://www.fredcox4utah.com/

Fred C Cox for Utah House District 30 - Protecting your rights

We had a great chance to talk at the Salt Lake County Meet the Candidate Night, just west of our district.

One of the delegates, said he was undecided. I have been thinking since then of what to say to him. I have a few things I want to tell him and you.

I have and will work with the legislative committees to improve and block bills. I will continue to be involved. I will continue to be transparent.

In 2011, working with others in the House Judiciary Committee, I blocked an attempt by the Utah Attorney General to further amend our 4th amendment rights.

That didn't stop there and hasn't since.

I recently started to dust off my youtube channel. There isn't a lot there right now, but there is a very interesting video of a Utah House of Representatives floor debate from 2016.

https://youtu.be/XMl8ibPSuX8?si=uWBGJgU53sCpvK86

I was asked to run the bill by a couple in our district with an adult child in 2014. When I was elected in a hotly contested general election in 2014, I had the drafting attorneys for the legislature start working on the bill. In 2015 I was able to make a few changes to the law re: Adult Guardianship

In 2016 I was able to make changes to the law. This shows the debate. The parents had asked others in the legislature to run a bill. One was an attorney. Those were not able to help or they were not willing to help.

There are still major issues with the information provided to parents, and many of the links on the state website are still wrong.

More work on this issue is needed.

https://www.utcourts.gov/en/self-help/case-categories/gc/guardianship.html

I ask for your vote so I can continue to work on this issue and other issues important to those living in our district and also the state.

Vote for Fred Cox

Fred reads though and votes on bills based on what the bill says and would do.

This independence concerns a few “powerful” groups who are afraid of that and are already spending tens of thousands of dollars in this race.

Why would these groups be concerned re: Fred C. Cox

1. The 2019 Tax Referendum.

https://www.abc4.com/news/former-state-representative-leads-referendum-against-tax-reform-bill-passed-in-thursday-special-session/

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/1/21/21075525/tax-reform-referendum-enough-signatures-november-ballot/

We blocked the increase in the food tax, taxes on services and an increase for the fuel tax and other issues.

Rep. Judy Weeks Rohner was a key leader in this fight.

Rep. Judy Weeks Rohner has filed to run for State Senate District 12, and so House District 30 is an "open" seat race.

I am the Convention nominee with the backing of the party. The other Republican candidate gathered signatures besides running through convention. I did not gather signatures. There is a primary this June. Let me know if you need a yard sign.

Please come to one of my Town Hall meetings and help me understand the issues that are important to you.

I ask for your vote.

Fred C. Cox

fred@fredcox4utah.com

https://www.fredcox4utah.com/

2011 Tax increase or Not - Example of fighting taxes

In 2011, shortly after winning the special election to replace Rep. Ron Bigelow (who was appointed to be the Governor's Budget Chair) and being appointed and taking the oath of office, I remember being in the House Republican Caucus room, full of members and guests and media. The Governor's budget office was there, Ron Bigelow was there. I am also pretty sure the Governor was there.

The Governor's budget for this year had this statement:

Governor Herbert proposes strengthening Utah’s
tax policy by requiring taxpayers to remit quarterly
estimated income tax payments for taxes on
non-withheld income, beginning in tax year 2012.
Of the 42 states with an individual income tax,
Utah and Idaho are the only states that do not
require quarterly remittance. Quarterly payments
for non-withheld income are already mandated
for the federal income tax and Utah’s corporate
income tax.

Instituting quarterly estimated payments would
bring Utah’s remittance schedule in line with the
federal schedule and add stability to State revenue
forecasts. It would also accelerate revenue
collections two quarters into perpetuity, resulting
in a one-time increase of $130,000,000 to the
Education Fund.

I stood up and spoke against this change in state law.

Utah does not require quarterly estimated tax payments for individuals or many small businesses, but that was being proposed to change.

The Governor was proposing his budget with this extra $130 Million and was promoting it as not a tax increase. I told everyone that from a cash flow point of view, it would feel like one for individuals and small business owners, many of which were still recovering and hurting from the 2008 downturn. I knew I was. I could feel any interest in the idea evaporate after my comments.

It was one of the first times I remember realizing as a legislator I could make a difference. This wasn't even a floor vote or a committee vote. It was the Governor trying to get support for this idea. It didn't work.

Some in the legislature are now working to solve some other structural imbalances. A term that is used to say a tax policy isn't friendly to the state to get taxes from Utahns. It makes budgets harder. That is sometimes actually a good thing. .

https://www.standard.net/news/government/2024/apr/09/utahs-last-tax-reform-attempt-crashed-and-burned-what-now/

Vote for someone that is not afraid to stand up to these ideas, as I have several times before.

Vote for Fred C. Cox for House District 30.

One example was the 2019 Tax Referendum.