As a rancher, I've dealt with my fair share of messes. But I've never had to shovel as much bull as I did reading Ogden Driskill's latest column.
The former Senate President asked what the Freedom Caucus has accomplished. That's a strange question coming from someone who spent the last two years taking credit for many of those very accomplishments.
Let's refresh his memory.
We delivered the largest tax cut in Wyoming history—and the first broad-based property tax relief in half a century—with a permanent 25% exemption for homeowners and a 50% exemption for many of our seniors.
We protected women's sports from men. We repealed gun-free zones. We passed universal school choice. We strengthened homeschool freedom. We defended parents' rights. Those are real accomplishments that Wyoming families can see and feel.
But apparently facts aren't getting in the way of Ogden's campaign.
He claims we abandoned wildfire relief. Pure fiction.
The House Appropriations Committee advanced multiple bills to strengthen wildfire response and preparedness.
He voted for them. They’re now law.
His complaint about "200 budget amendments" is perhaps the most remarkable claim in the entire piece.
What he conveniently leaves out is that the Senate adopted nearly 200 amendments’ worth of spending increases in a single amendment by simply rubber-stamping Governor Gordon's proposed budget in less than an hour.
He also blames the Legislature for failing to pass a supplemental budget.
Funny how he forgets to mention that it was his own chamber—the Senate—that failed to get a budget across the finish line.
Then he criticizes school finance recalibration—a bill he voted for, along with every other senator and nearly every House member.
Why? Because it was a good bill that delivered substantial teacher pay raises while modernizing Wyoming's school funding model. Apparently it only became a bad idea once campaign season arrived.
And he fails to mention that he supported one of the most damaging pieces of legislation for clean, beautiful Wyoming coal – green new deal-style carbon capture mandates that I’ve been fighting to repeal.
Finally, Ogden asks whether Wyoming families are better off today and whether government has become "more productive."
That's the wrong question.
Government isn't supposed to become more productive. Government doesn't create wealth, raise cattle, drill wells, build businesses, or harvest crops or mine our beautiful Coal. Wyomingites do.
The job of government is to protect our freedoms, spend our money responsibly, and get out of the way.
That's exactly what conservatives have been fighting to do.
If Ogden Driskill wants to run against lower taxes, school choice, the Second Amendment, parental rights, and protecting women's sports, that's his decision.
But he ought to at least tell the truth while he's doing it.
The only thing more impressive than Ogden's selective memory is his willingness to campaign against bills he voted for. I am amazed how he continues to gnaw the leg off that is not caught in the trap.
