When the Wyoming Business Council proposes a handout for a private business, the focus is on the positive—jobs, economic diversification, the flag and apple pie. When it brings these proposals before the State Loan and Investment Board (SLIB), the costs of these handouts—wasted resources, cronyism and the damage to unsubsidized competition—go unmen...

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...

Direct Primary Care can help make healthcare more affordable in Wyoming. Aug. 25, 2015 

A favorite corporate welfare scheme in Wyoming uses tax dollars to attract private companies to the state. One headline-grabbing scheme involves tax breaks and grants for data center attraction. When spinning the benefits of these subsidies, politicians make effusive claims to taxpayers, raving on about diversifying the economy, creating jobs, boos...

As the minerals boom turned to bust, so did the revenue supporting big government in Wyoming. Now our politicians have a choice. Should they: cut spending back to a level Wyoming taxpayers can afford;use revenues hoarded in savings accounts to continue spending at ever higher levels until savings run out, or;give money to private companies to magic...

Governments everywhere favor some companies over others by showering them with other people's money. In Wyoming, the constitution forbids legislators from giving tax dollars away directly, but this hasn't stopped indirect giveaways. One giveaway is called Public Purpose Investment, or PPI. Although sold on the basis of its supposed benefits, these ...

by Tom Rose As I mentioned in a previous blog, I believe that Wyoming should decriminalize status offenses. According to the most recent data available through both the FBI and the OJJDP, Wyoming ranks second-to-highest in the nation for both juvenile arrests and juvenile incarcerations. Wyoming is also the only state that has not decriminalized st...

"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...

by Wyoming Liberty Staff It has now been five years since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law. Notoriously known as "Obamacare", this highly debated reform - probably the most complicated piece of legislation in U.S. history - is still dispensing unintended consequences. With yet another case related to the ACA being heard...