Dear editor:
My name is Lisa Kinney. I was born in Wyoming, attended Laramie High School, and got my BA and JD at the University of Wyoming. I was in the Wyoming State Senate for 10 years.
I was an attorney and director of Albany County Public Library. I worked as a financial advisor with VALIC, AIG, and Corebridge for 22 years. I have been a Democrat and a Republican in my political career.
In Wyoming, we are all the same -- we all live under the same snowstorm. We are a close-knit family. What we do in our lives is our business, not others.
And then, we get to Dave Simpson's column, "Stay Put, Harriet. We Need You In DC!" He supports Hageman because she supports Trump, and Wyoming voted for Trump, but..... what has happened?
I have known Dave for years and respect him. I have known Harriet since 1989 when she took my bar refresher courses as a new attorney. I respect her. But she is not providing the entire information about the "Big Beautiful Budgett Bill" to the Wyoming people.
My question is: don't we, as Wyomingites, look out for each other first? If my car gets stuck in snow, a passerby helps me.
If someone is sick, we provide meals. If something in the big, beautiful budget bill hurts Wyoming, our representatives should let us know and challenge it--not just accept it because they are asked to do so.
What is very disturbing is Hageman's support of Sen. Mike Lee's proposal to the budget bill to have the USDI and BLM sell a percentage of Wyoming public lands. The amendment failed, but Hageman supported it.
What could be more un-Wyoming than selling public lands? Nothing, and she continues to support this notion which will return.
More details of the budget bill which passed: the big bill in the house was 900 pages long, and Congress was given about 10 days to approve it.
I downloaded that bill because I wanted to see if it would help Wyoming. As an attorney and former legislator, I started reading it. I could not get through the 900 pages because of the short time frame and the complexity of the issues.
Who wrote this bill? Were Wyomingites looked after? Why did Congress only get a few days to "review" and "pass" it? Sure, Congress and Harriet had aides who brought up positive points.
I went to Harriet's recent speech at the Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce three weeks ago (I was President of Laramie's Chamber years ago) and heard her outline maybe 10 items that affected Wyoming.
Broadly, they were mostly true. However, in 900 pages (it was 885 or so coming out of the Senate), there were a lot of problems for Wyoming, which Harriet did not mention.
By analogy, you are out of town, and you get a call from firefighters saying there is a fire in your house. The good news is that they saved your cat and retrieved your family photos. They failed to mention your house burned to the ground.
The same is true with Harriet's presentation about the bill. What she says is good may be good, but what she doesn't mention is the harm to the people of Wyoming.
We need a voice in Congress who will challenge what is not right for the people of Wyoming. An active, loud voice challenging what is wrong for us.
Let's look at what else was in the bill, and I am still learning:
1) 11,000 people will lose their health insurance in Wyoming;
2) student loan payments just doubled (happened to my son--in-law)
3) we need to support oil and gas, yes, but the bill terminated the clean electricity production and investment tax credits for wind and solar facilities and implemented the enhanced Foreign Entity restrictions. What does Wyoming have more than most states? Sun and wind;
4) rare earths--Wyoming has coal ashes, but the cost of processing is exorbitant;
5) the bill reduced the federal mineral royalty rate for coal from 12.5% to 7% making Wyoming receive $50 million less annually from this fund;
6) it increased the U.S. debt to around 3.4 trillion over the next 10 years ;
7) it reduced tip tax and overtime tax until 2028 instead of making it permanent, but made the giant tax deductions for millionaires permanent. Medicaid, Snap reductions...the damage continues.
These are just a few of the problems in the big budget bill. The 900-page bill touted by Harriet has many problems for Wyoming.
Her acceptance of those faults means, according to Dave Simpson, that she is standing up and supporting the president, not us. Our representative's voice should be heard in these issues, not remain silent.
Dave Simpson is right in saying she is a Trump woman. However, we need a Wyoming representative who will take care of the people in Wyoming.
Sincerely,
Lisa Kinney,
Laramie
