Philip Baron, MBA At the Joint Revenue Committee meeting in July 2019, Wyoming lawmakers were presented draft legislation to increase the state fuel tax by 3 cents per gallon. According to the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WyDot), this tax would bring in $20 million a year. WyDot would receive 67% of this revenue, about $13.4 million, and t...

"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 Wyoming has the nation's highest Government Employment Ratio and the third-highest Government Compensation Ratio. Our state also lacks in industrial diversity. Main finding: Counties where government earnings are a significant share of employee compensation are more industrially diverse than counties with a relatively...

by Evan Blauser Medicare's History and Background At the height of the President Lyndon B. Johnson's "War on Poverty" and "Great Society", the idea of paying in advance for senior's medical costs was presented and passed by the 89th Congress in 1965, and Medicare came into fruition. Since their inception, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security hav...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff With reference to the recent job losses in Wyoming coal mines, this Report presents a review of employment trends in the private sector since 1990. Main findings: 1) Job growth today is low by historic comparison. 2) In terms of employment, our economy is more diversified now than it was three decades ago. News storie...

by Austin Hein Earlier this year, the American Federation for Children (AFC) released the results of a poll they conducted, testing the favorability of school choice programs. The poll showed that 78% of people polled support education savings account programs (ESA). This begs the question: if nearly four-fifths of people support ESAs, why hasn't W...

By Philip Baron, MBA A draft bill presented to the Joint Revenue Committee in July of 2019, would allow voters in a city to approve a sales tax increase (up to 1%) for up to four years. Tax increases imposed for a specific project would expire if they collect the amount of funding needed for the project before the four-year time period. Right now, ...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff The Government Employment Ratio (GER) is one of several measurements of the size of government. Likewise, the Government Compensation Ratio (GCR) is a measurement of the cost of government related directly to the performance of the private sector. Main finding: Wyoming has the largest GER and the second highest GCR of...

by Austin Hein Last week, I wrote about the constitutionality of education choice programs and how they relate to the recent Supreme Court ruling of Trinity Lutheran v. Comer. If that was not enough to convince you of the Constitutionality of education choice programs, this will. Regardless of the Trinity Lutheran decision, programs like Education ...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff Every time I open the Casper Star Tribune I feel the urge to write another "set the record straight" piece. Just last week I had to correct the Tribune's account on the corporate income tax; this week's exhibit of biased reporting is their July 21 story on government spending reform. The article gives the reader a fir...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff Government spending in Wyoming is under scrutiny, in part because of proposals to raise taxes as an alternative to spending cuts. This Report examines three spending areas with reference to government charges, calculating the net spending by those areas. Main finding: Because of the net balance between spending on the...

By Philip Baron, MBA Decreased mineral tax revenue has led Wyoming lawmakers to consider raising the tax on wind energy from $1 a Megawatt Hour to $5 a Megawatt Hour. Wyoming is the only state that has a true "Wind Tax" of $1 per kilowatt-hour. When compared to other wind producing states in the West, Wyoming has had a lack of wind development sinc...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff It is sometimes suggested that Wyoming needs more government spending per capita because we are a rural state. As recently as on July 21, the Casper Star Tribune suggested as much: According to a 2018 analysis by USA Today, state and local government spending per capita in Wyoming is the second-highest in the nation, ...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff The last Weekly Economic Report explained that there had been no visible effect on government spending in Colorado since the introduction of TABOR. This Report looks at the revenue side of the budget. Main finding: The introduction of TABOR has had a limited but statistically visible effect on state revenue in line wi...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff Education choice is vital to growing and developing Wyoming as a state. Wyoming needs a strong, student-centered education system to move forward. Many of the state legislators understand this, but why is there such little progress in education freedom? Most arguments you hear are weak excuses, such as the case with t...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff The bankruptcy of Blackjewel LLC on July 1st, 2019, led to the closure of their operations in Wyoming at the Bella Ayr and Eagle Butte mines. Around 600 miners were put out of work. These mines generate around $30.4 million1 a year in severance taxes (tax on minerals taken from the ground), and about $15.2 million2 a ...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff Some citizens who have corresponded the Revenue Committee in opposition to tax hikes have been asked for input on where the state can make budget cuts. This is a welcome question, one that legislators have asked before. Before I respond to this request, I would like to point out that there is not exactly a vacuum wher...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff On Tuesday, July 9th, Rep. Jerry Obermueller (R - Casper) presented an updated version of a bill known in the Spring 2019 legislative session as The National Retail Fairness Act. This bill presented to the Revenue Committee, is now being called National Corporate Tax Recapture, and, like the previous version, it propo...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff Whenever politicians write bills about taxes and government spending they do so based on a an idea of how government relates to the private sector. This idea is rarely spelled out, and most of the time the politicians themselves are not even aware of how it affects their work. More often than we might want to admit, l...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff If a business is not taxed or regulated, does it exist? This is not just a question for practitioners of empirical ontology, but one that has real-world meaning in Wyoming today. Explains the Casper Star Tribune: Since the idea first appeared in the Legislature last year, regulated gambling was recognized by many to b...