by Charles Katebi Throughout the debate to expand Medicaid during the 2015 Legislative Session, opponents repeatedly claimed that the federal government couldn't be trusted to keep its promise to cover 90 percent of Medicaid Expansion's costs. So it should come as no surprise that the Obama Administration has now broached the idea of reneging on it...

Have you ever wondered whether government should buy coal or natural gas, convert it to a higher valued product and then sell that product in the open market? If this sounds like a bad idea to you, you'd be right. Private companies have already invested their own money in this type of scheme and lost big. It is unlikely government would do better w...

The 2015 legislative session created a number of measures that put taxpayers into the risky business of supporting some private companies. It also, in contrast, set up the Minerals Tax Task Force that could turn this corporate welfare trend around. The job of the task force is to study and make recommendations for a fair, viable and simplified syst...

A Wyoming love story For thousands of years, alchemists tried to change base metals into gold. Today, this lofty goal rests unachieved, but its legacy remains. Now, instead of changing lead to gold, crafty alchemists look to change money from the pockets of taxpayers to their own, and governments seem happy to assist. High on the alchemy hit list i...

Imagine you have ten accounts you allocate your paycheck to every month. At bill time, you take money from two of these accounts, call them your traditional accounts, to pay your bills. One day, your paycheck suddenly plunges and you don't have enough flowing into these traditional accounts. No problem, you can just divert the flow from some other ...

by Charles Katebi If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. After the Wyoming legislature overwhelmingly rejected Medicaid expansion, its advocates returned to the drawing board to design another half-baked measure to help hospitals cope with the rising cost of uncompensated care. Senate File 145, otherwise known as the Uncompensated Care Bill...

"We need to look like we are doing something for that community." Wyoming Sen. Wasserberger, Joint Appropriations Committee, January 26, 2015 Facing declining mineral tax revenues, the desire to continue spending and the inability, so far, to raid the rainy day fund, Gov. Mead's push to diversify the economy to create jobs and generate more tax rev...

The Food Freedom Act has passed in Wyoming. It decriminalized some voluntary capitalist acts between consenting individuals and not a moment too soon. Government regulation is no panacea and food regulation could soon become even more disconnected with its purported purpose of keeping us healthy. Seems the USDA may incorporate environmental sustain...

by Charles Katebi With just two weeks remaining in the legislative session, the forces of socialized medicine were defeated, at least for now. After losing decisively in the Wyoming Senate and finding no traction in the Wyoming House, Medicaid Expansion supporters tried to ram this policy through with an amendment to the budget bill. Amendment 31 o...

Facing a state budget deficit, declining revenues and the desire to continue spending, Gov. Mead asked, "What constitutes a rainy day?" This thinly veiled call to raid the state's rainy day account to fund his spending priorities was ignored by the legislature. Instead, the legislature began the search for more revenues by developing a task force c...