CHEYENNE The Legislature’s interim committees are wrapping up their assigned studies with a number of needs still dangling.
One in particular is of interest or should be by anyone who drives on Wyoming roads and highways.
It is the need to do something about a $600 million deficit in the highway funding budget of the Wyoming Department of Transportation.
So far the lawmakers have rejected an increase in the fuel tax. They also turned thumbs down on a bill to institute a toll tax for Wyoming interstate highways, that would be paid mostly by the trucking industry.
A couple of months ago they voted down or ignored bills that would cut in the highway funding program for a slice of revenue from gambling.
Currently there is nothing else in sight that would keep the roads from crumbling under our wheels.
This does not bode well for the road travelers, which means just about all of us.
It is clear from the statements of the Freedom Caucus people that they will oppose any and all tax increases or anything that promotes waste, fraud and abuse when they start voting in February when the budget session opens.
Since the caucus controls the House, where all the budget and other spending bills must begin, they have the budget and all spending by the tail, as it were.
The power of the Freedom Caucus is not as strong in the Senate. But the Senate can only act on the budget or other spending bills the House sends over.
Gambling money, meanwhile, is a new gold pit for the state. As such it was a logical choice to deal with the highway deficit.
A test came in a meeting last October of the Select Committee on Capital Investments and Investments.
This committee, which had gambling as one of its assigned topics for interim study, had ordered a few draft bills from the Legislative Service Office that dealt with gaming.
The packet included a bill increasing taxes on online sports betting and two that cut in highway funding for tax revenue.
One highway funding bill cut money from skill based games while the other took a slice of revenue from parimutuel betting.
The opposition was ready. Attending the meeting that month were representatives of gaming companies.
They maintained the industry needed time to get grounded in the state and, moreover, more taxation would discourage new operations from coming here.
The two highway funding bills were not even considered while the others failed vote counts.
The failure of the committee to take action on the gambling bills in general ignited a testy observation from the chairman, Sen.Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne.
She deplored the inability the Legislature to pass any gambling bills in the last few years.
Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, the committee vice chairman and a caucus leader, said he didn’t want the state to depend on gaming money or any other single revenue source to operate.
But Nethercott also offered her understanding of the “base problem,” which she said is the takeover by big, rich, un-named political organizations “that have the ability to control your electeds through fear and misinformation, wittingly or unwittingly, creating confusion and fractionalization of our great state.”
No names of political organizations were forthcoming.
The message could be a forerunner to a dismal, conflicting budget session.
This will be first budget session where the guys and gals of the right-wing Freedom Caucus with their majority in the House will vote on a two-year state budget.
Their national agenda, which they follow, is heavy against tax increases.
So where does that leave the need or money for roads and highways. What are the other options?
This topic, like many others, could end up in a “wait until after the next election” item.
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Contact Joan Barron at 307-632-2534 or jmbarron@bresnan.net
