Gov. Huntsman's Monthly Press Conference . . .

Gov. Jon Huntsman says his clash with the Legislature on budget cutting and liberalizing the state's liquor laws is a result of different "world views."

Huntsman wants to protect education and human services from severe budget cuts, by what he calls "backfilling" with the state's so-called rainy day fund and borrowing for highway projects. The state must make the reductions "creatively."

Huntsman offered a budget that would require cutting about 7 percent, but GOP leadership fired back, saying they wanted to cut state services by a least twice that to avoid dipping into the so-called rainy day fund or borrowing. Says Huntsman:

We have two different world views. I represent all the people in this state. They represent their individual districts.

Republican state Senate leaders' have also launched an aggressive drive to roll back Huntsman's on-going initiative to liberalize Utah's "anachronistic" liquor laws. The Guv thinks the tourism industry is crucial to Utah and he wants to lure 25 million visitors a year by 2012. "Twenty-first Century" liquor laws are key to that, he says.

There's always a lot of passion [during a session] — a lot of drama. We are holding our ground and we always do.

The press conference will be aired on KUED on Friday at 8:30 p.m.