Charlie Katebi and KGAB's Gary Freeman discuss Governor Matt Mead's budget cuts and how the state's fiscal crisis exposes Medicaid's empty promises to patients. 

by Charles Katebi In civics 101, we learn how government works. Voters elect legislators, legislators pass bills, and bills become law. This side of government is transparent and accountable. But there is another side of government that is far less accountable. Once a bill becomes law, it's up to an agency to enforce it. Sometimes they effectively ...

We won. The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) will not spend any money on the Clean Power Plan (CPP) until the Supreme Court's stay on the CCP is lifted, if ever. Here, for the terminally curious, is the longer version. Wyoming has an extremely short budget session, 20 working days. To work within that, the budget bill is done as a "mirror ...

During Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal's visit to Wyoming in November 2015, he discussed his strategy to put Louisiana's fiscal house in order. His basic philosophy of government is that we can grow the American economy or we can grow the government economy, we can't do both. If we want to grow the American economy we must shrink the government eco...

Wyoming faces a multi-million dollar deficit in the 2017-18 biennium and the specter of plummeting revenue looms large on the horizon. Why then, is the State Loan and Investment Board (SLIB) about to rubber stamp funding to help lift a new $18 million terminal off the ground at an airport that just last year lost 50 percent of its customer seating ...

Wyoming's Legislative Service Office (LSO) released a report evaluating Public Purpose Investments (PPI), the use of the Permanent Wyoming Mineral Trust Fund (PWMTF) to subsidize loans in the state. The report found that PPIs returned less financially than the Treasurer's regular portfolio. This is important because no matter how politicians try to...

As dreams of palaces turn into nightmares, Wyoming's Capitol renovation project muddles along to fiscal disaster. After paying millions to design and architectural consultants and having state employees work on the project for more than a year, the committee has decided it's time to hire someone to manage the project. But instead of hiring someone ...

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...

by Stephen Klein In the 2015 Wyoming Legislative Session, Senate File 14, or Senate Enrolled Act 1 (SEA 1), would have overhauled Wyoming's drug forfeiture laws to require a felony conviction before alleged drug property (cash, cars, firearms and the like) could be permanently taken by the state. The bill passed the Wyoming Legislature with an init...

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...