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...

by Wyoming Liberty Staff "…the reality of why school choice is needed is simple; public education continues to plot a failing course towards complete government centralization from the top down, and complete learning uniformity nationwide. This course is out of step with what parents want and what is best for children — and with what is best for Am...

by Charles Katebi Ever since Congress passed Obamacare in 2010, each April 15, the dreaded tax return filing day, brings ever more complexity to our federal tax code. This year's complexity is the employer mandate, the most harmful of the law's tax provisions because it spells trouble for businesses and workers alike. If the Supreme Court sides wit...

by Wyoming Liberty Staff April 15 looms large on the calendar for taxpayers. Don't be fooled if you get a refund on your federal income tax return. Taxes represent a significant annual expense for many families, especially those that usually pay the United States Treasury, because the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") withheld your money throughout ...

Have you ever wondered whether government should buy coal or natural gas, convert it to a higher valued product and then sell that product in the open market? If this sounds like a bad idea to you, you'd be right. Private companies have already invested their own money in this type of scheme and lost big. It is unlikely government would do better w...

by Tom Rose This week I attended two days of the Judiciary Interim Committee. There were several juvenile justice related topics on the agenda. During my attendance at these long and sometimes heated meetings a junior legislator asked out loud (in frustration) if anyone knew whether juvenile crime in Wyoming was actually decreasing. This legislator...

The 2015 legislative session created a number of measures that put taxpayers into the risky business of supporting some private companies. It also, in contrast, set up the Minerals Tax Task Force that could turn this corporate welfare trend around. The job of the task force is to study and make recommendations for a fair, viable and simplified syst...

by Wyoming Liberty Staff In writing a piece about why school choice is the right choice for parents in Wyoming I could start by reciting a whole slew of numbers regarding graduation rates, college enrollment, academic achievement and taxpayer savings. These figures are readily available everywhere and have been discussed for years by those in the e...

WyLiberty attorney Benjamin Barr comments on the 1040 campaign checkbox in this NPR story. April 14, 2015 

by Stephen Klein In the 2015 Wyoming Legislative Session, Senate File 14, or Senate Enrolled Act 1 (SEA 1), would have overhauled Wyoming's drug forfeiture laws to require a felony conviction before alleged drug property (cash, cars, firearms and the like) could be permanently taken by the state. The bill passed the Wyoming Legislature with an init...

by Tom Rose If you have been following juvenile justice issues at all you may have come across the fact that Wyoming is the only state in the nation which has not decriminalized status offenses. You may even believe that you have an understanding of what that means. The concept is fairly simple: a status crime is an action that would not be a crime...

by Tom Rose For the last few weeks I have been writing about child wellness in Wyoming. According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation Wyoming ranked 19th in the 2014 annual report which is a lower ranking than our performance of 15th according to the 2013 report. These rankings are determined according to sixteen measured wellness categories divided a...

A Wyoming love story For thousands of years, alchemists tried to change base metals into gold. Today, this lofty goal rests unachieved, but its legacy remains. Now, instead of changing lead to gold, crafty alchemists look to change money from the pockets of taxpayers to their own, and governments seem happy to assist. High on the alchemy hit list i...

by Charles Katebi In March, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in King v. Burwell, a case that could decide the fate of Obamacare in Wyoming and around the country. The case centers on whether the federal government has the authority to issue tax credits to subsidize insurance on exchanges that it has established. If the chief justices rule aga...

by Wyoming Liberty Staff The 2015 Wyoming Legislative Session is over but our work here at the Wyoming Liberty Group for 2015 doesn't end as we continue to focus on a parent's fundamental right to raise their children without government interference. Recently we went to Washington D.C. with a group of mom's from around the state to speak to Wyoming...

Imagine you have ten accounts you allocate your paycheck to every month. At bill time, you take money from two of these accounts, call them your traditional accounts, to pay your bills. One day, your paycheck suddenly plunges and you don't have enough flowing into these traditional accounts. No problem, you can just divert the flow from some other ...

by Tom Rose In this part of the Wyoming Wellness series we look a bit more closely at a few of the specific wellness indicators related to child and teen deaths and teens who are not in school and not employed. Our starting point for following these wellness metrics is the 2014 Child Wellness report published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Kids...

by Charles Katebi If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. After the Wyoming legislature overwhelmingly rejected Medicaid expansion, its advocates returned to the drawing board to design another half-baked measure to help hospitals cope with the rising cost of uncompensated care. Senate File 145, otherwise known as the Uncompensated Care Bill...

"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...