If the Freedom Caucus driven Joint Appropriation Committee budget cuts survive the Legislature, hundreds of Wyomingites will lose their jobs—and Wyoming will take the hit squarely on the chin.
Last week, the Freedom Caucus–aligned members of the Joint Appropriations Committee voted to take a meat axe to the state budget. Not a scalpel. A meat axe.
Here’s what they cut: $40 million from the University of Wyoming; $6 million from university athletics; $100 million by eliminating the Wyoming Business Council; $58 million in pass-through federal funds for Indian Health Services and $17 million for obstetric care—half state dollars, half federal match
All told, $221 million stripped from the budget—during a year when Wyoming is sitting on a $250 million revenue surplus.
This isn’t belt-tightening. It’s economic self-harm.
In Wyoming government, dollars equal people. There’s no mystery here.
At the University of Wyoming, roughly 80 percent of the budget is personnel. A $40 million biennial cut equals $20 million per year. Eighty percent of that — $16 million — funds payroll.
Using UW’s own rough averages, the $16 million cut equals to about 160 lost jobs.
Eliminating the Wyoming Business Council puts another 40 people out of work. Of course, the grant and aid to create new jobs, help Wyoming communities grow and attract new investment, vanishes, too.
Cutting $58 million from Indian Health Services and $17 million from maternal and infant care removes critical funding from already fragile systems. Wyoming has huge obstetrical deserts. The JAC’s plan only makes the situation worse.
Applying the same conservative employment ratios, those cuts cost another 300 jobs across the state.
Then there’s athletics. Athletics matter a lot.
The Freedom Caucus likes to sneer at university athletics, but here’s the reality: people don’t travel to Laramie to watch bad teams.
Only 2 members of the JAC attended UW, and many do not have any college education at all.
Cut $6 million from athletics and competitiveness drops. When competitiveness drops, fans stop coming. When fans stop coming, hotels, restaurants, bars, gas stations, and retailers feel it immediately.
A 2017 study by UW economists found that University athletics supported over 250 jobs in restraunts, hospitality and athletics. A 2025 study puts the annual economic impact of UW athletics at over $200 million statewide.
If attendance falls off — and it will — it’s reasonable to assume at least 100 of those jobs are at risk.
So, Wyoming loses 160 UW jobs, 40 Wyoming Business Council jobs, 300 health care jobs and 100 athletics-related jobs
That’s 600 direct job losses from the first round of cuts alone.
But it doesn’t stop there.
The multiplier effect compounds the job loss. I wrote last year about the economic multiplier effect—the simple reality that when someone loses a job, the pain spreads.
Fewer groceries bought. Fewer oil changes. Fewer meals out. Fewer contractors hired.
Using a very conservative multiplier of three, those 600 lost jobs turn into roughly 1,800 Wyomingites without a paycheck.
In a state already struggling to keep young families, professionals, and health-care workers, those people won’t hang around hoping things get better. They’ll leave.
Housing prices soften. Communities hollow out.
Productive workers, innovators and businesspeople will be forced to sell devalued properties to wealthy people who will use our property as a hedge against inflation. Ultimately, they will rent the property back to us at inflated rates.
Wyoming will become playground for the rich rather than a place to build a life.
Employers will pay higher unemployment costs for workers who want jobs but can’t find them. If the employers cannot pay, Wyoming will pick up that tab.
The Freedom Caucus made other big cuts, like state employee cost-of-living increases, which will trickle through Wyoming’s economy. I wish I had space in a 750-word column to analyze those cuts, too.
So, what do we get for detonating our university, our health-care system, our economic-development arm, a major regional economic engine and putting 1800 people out of work?
Wyoming gains another $154.5 million parked in the state treasury, likely earmarked for future property-tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthiest ZIP codes in Wyoming.
The Freedom Caucus wraps these decisions in slogans about “freedom” and “fiscal responsibility.”
But the result is clear: dismantle institutions, drive out workers, and turn Wyoming into a low-service, low-opportunity state designed for those who don’t rely on paychecks.
That’s not conservative stewardship. It’s reckless demolition.
The Freedom Caucus will parade around in their red clown suits, and Wyoming will be left holding the rubble.
Tom Lubnau served in the Wyoming Legislature from 2004 to 2015 and is a former Speaker of the House. He can be reached at: YourInputAppreciated@gmail.com
