The government is crying in its cups about a lack of money. However, according to the Heritage Foundation, Taxmageddon means Wyoming taxpayers would face an $836.5 million tax increase. This includes: $288 million in Bush-era tax rates: $216 million because of expiring payroll tax cuts: and $332.5 million in new Obamacare taxes. Imagine if the gove...

A Wyoming grassroots group, made up of three regular guys, asked the Federal Election Commission (FEC) if the ads they created would be considered 'advocacy.' If the ads were, it would mean the group would have to register with the government just to speak about issues like gun rights, land rights and health care they consider important. The paperw...

For reasons only known to the FEC, it continues to ignore Supreme Court rulings. It's time for that to stop because ironically, campaign finance laws do more than big money ever could to shut people up and confine participation in politics to the wealthy and connected. It's time to overturn vague and overbroad laws, and let Free Speech live up to i...

It's been a busy budget session and our cartoon this time tells it like it is. Not only do our citizen legislators have to wade through a behemoth budget bill, they have another 250 that they have to vote on, whether they know what they're about or not. This makes it all the more important for citizens to keep an eye on what's happening and let leg...

Does it seem like you have less and less of your own money to spend and jobs are harder to come by? That might be because you are battling a government that is every day more like an octopus; while you confront an ever increasing burden of government head on, its tentacles reach around and pick your pocket with hidden taxes. 

Governor Mead announced he will cut approximately $200 million from the current fiscal year's spending. This apparent burst of fiscal conservatism came as a result of a clause in the 2014 budget bill directing the governor to review agency budgets and reduce them if it looks like the fall in tax revenue will result in a deficit. Revenue has been on...

by Charles Katebi With just a few weeks until open enrollment, WINhealth has decided to leave Wyoming's health insurance exchange. The insurer hoped that Obamacare's federal bailout fund would pay for its losses. However, it only paid insurers a fraction of what it promised. Wyoming legislators rejected Medicaid expansion last year because they wor...

by Wyoming Liberty Staff "This is the biggest anti school choice vote by a local school board in state history." Sandy Shanor, Chair of Laramie County School Board #1 In a historic 5-2 vote last week in Cheyenne, the state's largest school district passed a solidly anti school choice resolution for use by the Wyoming School Boards Association (WSBA...

We struggle under the burden of ever-inflating government. Just let go! Down-to-earth free-market alternatives to ballooning government worked in the past and can work again. 

In a rare example of decision making, the Capitol Oversight Committee voted unanimously to approve a new design option for the Herschler building, one without an executive building. This will likely be the first of many reductions in the scope of the over-budget Capitol Square project. It's too bad it takes a fiscal crisis for our governing class t...

Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner. Thomson/West, 2012. $69.93 new, $43.27 used, and Kindle edition at Amazon.com. As they say on the Internet, IANAL. I am not a lawyer. So what am I, a non-lawyer, doing reviewing a book on reading legal texts? A book that might well be a law school text or part of an...

This comic represents the Wyoming Liberty Index, maintained by the Wyoming Liberty Group but scored by volunteers. 

by Charles Katebi No single provision of Obamacare has been more disastrous than Medicaid Expansion. It's cost taxpayers billions more than promised and hurt the very people it was intended to help. Now Governor Mead wants to try yet again to expand this ruinous government program in Wyoming. Following an event at an oil recovery facility in Rivert...

When we spotted a flagrant example of media bias, we thought this cartoon would help explain it. 

Government-run health care. 

With federal funds come federal shackles. 

by Wyoming Liberty Staff Core property rights principles can help resolve Casper's ongoing debate about smoking in bars better than some one-size-fits-all regulatory regime. The right to exclude others can empower individual bar owners to sort out how much or little smoking occurs in bars across Casper. Therefore, Casper does not need a citywide ba...

by Wyoming Liberty Staff Wyoming is no stranger to the ugliness of the school choice battle. When it comes to the state monopoly over education, parents are almost always the losers. Currently, local school districts are the only body with the authority under the law to approve an independent public charter school. These elected school boards have ...

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...

Maureen Bader and Glenn Woods talk about Wyoming Business Council's funneling of public money for private benefit and in Gillette and other Wyoming communities.