by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff Educational Savings Accounts, or ESAs, are modeled on highly successful health savings accounts (HSAs) and put taxpayer funds directly in the hands of parents so that they are free to optimize their children's education. Now that COVID19 health orders prompted school shutdowns across the country, education savings acc...

by Philip Baron, MBA As 2019 draws to a close let's look at the tax increase bills to watch out for in the 2020 budget session. Here is a summary of the tax increase bills that have been endorsed by the Interim Joint Revenue Committee for introduction in February 2020. Corporate Income Tax: Link to bill: National Corporate Tax Recapture The biggest...

Despite the clear cut law that names of government servants are public records, Superintendent Jillian Balow thinks she is above the law. School districts across this state will burn through more of our tax dollars hiring attorneys to try and weasel out of a simple public record request by Senator Tom James asking for the names and salaries of thos...

by Philip Baron, MBA At the October meeting of the interim Joint Transportation, Highways & Military Affairs, a fifty-cent tax "fee" was proposed on every phone connection in the state. The proposed bill was not sponsored by the committee, who declined to vote on moving the bill out of committee. This fee would be administered in a similar way ...

by Philip Baron, MBA A draft bill sponsored by Rep. Harshman, R -- Casper, proposes that the Office of State Lands and Investments solicit proposals to maximize the value of school and state trust lands. The draft bill was discussed at the November 12, 2019 meeting of the Select Committee on Capital Financing and Investments. The aim of this legisl...

An Analysis of the British Columbia Model to Cut Red Tape – How They Eliminated 1/3 of all Regulations in 3 Years. Wyoming is a society afflicted by distrust when it comes to taxes, an economy reliant on minerals, and government spending. Support for reducing regulation is broad-based as the general public supports such initiatives while lawmakers ...

By Philip Baron, MBA On Friday, August 26, 2019, the Joint Judiciary Committee met in Casper, Wyoming, for their second interim meeting of the summer. The most controversial issue discussed was the proposed legislation entitled "Reporting Mental Illness Adjudications to Firearm Dealers." This bill is a part of the national "Fix NICS" (National Inst...

A proposed bill being considered by the Judiciary Committee is tabled until their Halloween meeting for concerns from stakeholders and questions about what the bill would actually accomplish. The bill considers taking a bite of the elephant that is public records being stored and accessed electronically through the creation of a website to house so...

"Premature protectionism of agencies and bodies will hinder progress." This was the key message delivered by the Wyoming Liberty Group to the Judiciary Committee when they convened for their second meeting on August 15thand 16th. The Committee agreed, and in a sweeping vote, killed Senator Tara Nethercott's motion to move forward on drafting a bill...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff Of all the spending programs in the state budget, Medicaid is probably the toughest to reform. Half of it is funded by the federal government, with state funds covering the other half. There are a lot of strings attached to the federal funds, making the provision of Medicaid-funded health care a chore for providers (w...