Would your representative vote to require single mothers to pay an extra one percent on their phone bills to cover the cost of extending lines to a $4 million mansion someone decided to build on their newly acquired rural property? In the coming session, the Wyoming legislature will find itself faced with the sunset, or scheduled end, of the outdat...

Few people understand how the state pension system works but objections to reform are legion. Even though the type of pension benefit state employees receive has virtually disappeared in the private sector, many politicians, bureaucrats and state pension managers seem to think the government sector is different, making reform unnecessary. However, ...

Pension contributions to rise.Taxpayers now contribute $6.71 for every $1 contributed by bureaucrats.Taxpayers soon to be gouged at $7.08:1 before improvement to $6.21:1. Wyoming's last legislative session saw movement in the direction of more government sector pension reform, and not a moment too soon. With only 77.62 cents per dollar promised ava...

Back in July I wrote about the global socialist rebound, part of which involves the emergence of post-Chavez Venezuela. The new president, Nicolas Maduro, has doubled down on socialism and its fatally bad economic model, where daily life is dictated by shortages of everything from bread to electricity. Last year Maduro dictated "fair" pricing on el...

Corporate welfare violates the Wyoming Constitution.Data Center tax breaks cost taxpayers more than $500,000 per job.Higher electricity demand could send electricity rates skyward.Instead of picking winners and losers, the government should reduce taxes for all companies and let those with good ideas and private funding prevail. CHEYENNE, WY: The W...

Let's try a little thought experiment. First, think of your extended family, and pick out which ones you would consider poor. Next, imagine you meet Bill Gates and he says he'll give $10,000 to each of your relatives who is poor, and asks you for a list of those people. You may find a few more poor people the second time. This is the position the s...

In 2012 the Supreme Court ruled that the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act - Obamacare - was constitutional. This was not surprising: after all, since the 1930s the federal government has mandated that Americans buy retirement benefits through Social Security. Now there is another legal challenge to the ACA on its way through the court ...

NEWCASTLE, WY – Wyoming Liberty Group staff attorney Steve Klein testified before the Joint Judiciary Interim Committee of the Wyoming Legislature today regarding two committee bill drafts that would substantially change the practice of civil forfeiture in Wyoming. "The Wyoming Controlled Substances Act currently allows police officers to seize pro...

Wyoming's wide-open spaces and horizons that appear to stretch to infinity are some of the most remarkable amenities residents can enjoy. For those who are more familiar with life in towns or even small acreages, these magnificent expanses of land without buildings can sometimes seem empty. Agriculturalists, however, can recognize how actively our ...

The Wyoming Department of Family Services (DFS) has proposed legislation to reform the current Child in Need of Supervision (CHINS) system to a Family in Need of Supervision (FINS) program. The underlying premise of FINS (sometimes called Families in Need of Services, Persons in Need of Services or PINS) as enacted in many other states including Ar...