The making of another biennial budget is now in full swing and many are asking questions about what our state budget should and should not do.
Before that debate goes further, a few facts matter. Wyoming does not have runaway spending. We do not have structural debt. We are not staring at a $38 trillion credit card bill to be handed to our grandchildren. Wyoming is not Washington, D.C.
Yet fear-laden, “cut everything” chainsaw rhetoric has been imported here for political theater.
Those slogans may sound bold on a campaign mailer, but their consequences aren’t symbolic.
They land squarely on families, communities, hospitals, schools, and the people who keep this state running. I have to wonder how many campaign mailers last cycle promised this?
Wyoming has always balanced its budget. It is right there in the Constitution I swore to uphold and defend.
The budget I submitted this past November included nearly $500 million in excess tax revenue paid largely by industry, not you, money that could be saved for future generations, while still leaving flexibility for the Legislature to set priorities.
We can do this because Wyoming has long done three things right:
● We developed our mineral resources responsibly with vision and grit. Resources that pay the bulk of our taxes.
● Conservative legislatures protected the public purse.
● We saved during good years so investment income could support us in lean ones.
That is not luck. That is discipline and wisdom.
When revenues fell in the past, I cut budgets but never for show.
Every reduction meant fewer services, longer waits, and real people who felt the pain. Those decisions were weighed carefully because government is not a spreadsheet; it is neighbors, communities and obligations we owe one another.
That careful approach is not what we are seeing from the Joint Appropriations Committee.
I submitted a balanced budget that funds the essential functions of government.
Reasonable people can debate how best to deliver economic development or rural OB care, that is governing. What is happening is different.
A faction has decided wearing red coats and declaring a “fiscal cliff” creates a useful story line. Cutting close to a billion out of a budget that already has a $500M surplus is not credible. In the end this is about who do you trust?
These reductions are not solving a structural problem, but they sure as heck could create one.
“Smaller government at any cost” may poll well in August, but it does not help plow roads, teach children with disabilities, keep clinics open, or help seniors age at home.
Freedom Caucus aka Club No members on the Joint Appropriations Committee are dismantling without a fiscal strategy, only a desire to claim victory.
In the process, they weaken Wyoming, harm our small towns and erode our competitive edge. The message to employers, investors, and our kids is unthinkable: Wyoming is closed for business.
If these reductions stand, Wyoming faces:
● Damage to University of Wyoming programs and our membership in the Mountain West Conference.
● Reductions to rural hospitals, labor and delivery, and care for Native American communities.
● Limits on food programs for children and low-income families, and cuts to preschools.
● The elimination of statewide economic development efforts, ceding opportunities to Texas, Colorado, South Dakota, and Montana.
● Continued disregard for fair pay for our state employees who keep us safe.
● An insufficient response to wildfires and protection of our lands.
Taken together, this is not fiscal discipline. It is institutional demolition carried out without the public understanding or meaningfully participating in the process.
A red line on a spreadsheet does not attract employers. It does not keep young families here or protect our small towns from hollowing out. It does not keep Wyoming, Wyoming.
There is still hope.
Most legislators understand what Club No does not: Wyoming’s future is an inheritance, not an election prop. Wyoming already enjoys the lowest tax burden in the country. We must be prudent without being reckless.
The choice before us is clear. One path leads to stability, growth and opportunity.
The other delivers long-term harm while shifting benefits to wealthy, out-of-state interests at the expense of working families and rural communities.
I call on the full Legislature to reject this demolition budget, restore funding to core institutions, and remember why we, all of us, were elected, not to perform outrage for cameras, but to protect the people and communities of Wyoming.
Mark Gordon was elected Wyoming's 33rd Governor on November 6, 2018.
