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President Trump may have offended some of our allies this week when he delivered a stern message reminding them of their unmet defense spending promises, but it was not a message they haven’t head before. "If we’ve got collective defense,” then-President Obama said at a 2014 NATO press conference in Brussels, “it means that everybody’s got to chip in, and I have had some concerns about a diminished level of defense spending among some of our partners in NATO. Not all, but many.”

Twice in the past 20 years, Washington politicians serving wealthy out-of-state special interests attacked Utah’s rural communities. President Donald Trump provided these communities some temporary relief in October, but if we want to permanently protect Utah’s rural economy from outside intervention, we need to act now.

“The federal government’s Highway Trust Fund is broke, and another year of band aid funding is not going to fix it,” Sen. Lee said. “Different states have different values and needs. State and local governments are perfectly capable of reflecting those values and meeting those needs with unique, customized transportation policies without the interference of politicians, bureaucrats, and special interests in Washington. The Interstate Highway System was completed decades ago, drivers are buying less gas, and the federal government has wasted far too much money on non-highway projects. It is just an outdated system that is long overdue for reform.”

It was 170 years ago that Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers came to the Salt Lake Valley in search of religious freedom… and, finally, a land of their own in which to practice it. It is easy to take for granted, or to forget. But so much of American history – and of human happiness – has depended on the ability of ordinary people to have a part of this earth they can call their own, “to dress it and keep it.”