The Freedom Caucus is so bereft of new ideas, all it can offer voters before the Aug. 18 primary election is recycling a foolish vendetta against the Wyoming Business Council.
It’s the same snake oil concoction that the far-right group managed to sell people in 2024, when it promised to deliver the keys to a booming economy: Cut government spending to the bone, and lower or eliminate taxes.
The Freedom Caucus got its proverbial butt kicked in a showdown with the Senate’s traditional wing of the Republican Party during the budget session. It’s worn out its welcome in Wyoming politics in record time.
The Freedom Caucus had three goals: Take away a huge chunk of the University of Wyoming’s block grant, lay waste to much of the state Department of Health’s budget and defund the Wyoming Business Council.
UW supporters hammered Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, Freedom Caucus chair emeritus and co-chairman of the Joint Appropriations Committee, for proposing $61 million in cuts. All were restored.
Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, insisted the health department’s budget was bloated. The vast majority of cuts were restored, and some received additional funding.
The Freedom Caucus didn’t eliminate the Business Council, but took consolation in the fact that money was cut.
The agency submitted a request for $110 million, Gordon cut it in half, and the two chambers finally approved $15 million to keep the council functioning while legislators pondered its future during the interim.
Despite the Freedom Caucus’ criticism of the council for allegedly standing in the way of the free market’s ability to determine what enterprises succeed in the state, economic development in Wyoming is virtually the last thing it cares about.
Time and time again, the Freedom Caucus passes legislation that doesn’t help promote economic development or stands directly in its way. Usually, it’s the latter.
Wyoming has an affordable housing crisis that gets exponentially worse each year. If people can’t afford any place to live, they won’t settle in communities to raise families. Economic sustainability, much less growth, will be nonexistent.
For those who can find an affordable house, the caucus led the charge to give residential owners an across-the-board 25% property tax cut. Wealthy homeowners, naturally, receive the highest reductions.
The Legislature could have backfilled the loss of revenue from property tax cuts so services provided by local governments, schools and special districts could be funded at the same level, but it didn’t.
That lost revenue has led to reductions in cities and counties, including law enforcement, fire protection, ambulances, infrastructure, hospitals, parks and libraries.
Does the Freedom Caucus think corporations will jump at the chance to come to the “business-friendly” state of Wyoming when communities are providing far fewer services and reducing the quality of life?
Six Wyoming hospitals are at risk of closing within the next three years. About one-fifth of the state is considered a “maternity desert” that lacks a birthing center or an obstetrical physician. Wyoming’s suicide rate is one of the highest in the nation.
Josh Dorrell, the Business Council’s CEO, told lawmakers that lack of skilled, available workforce is the top deterrent for businesses hoping to launch or expand in Wyoming.
A council analysis showed 60% to 70% of Wyoming-born residents permanently leave the state by age 30. People, Dorrell said, are “voting with their feet” to leave.
Where does that leave any chance of economic development in a state that desperately needs to find tax revenue from a sector besides the fossil fuel industry?
If the Wyoming Business Council is eventually defunded, the Equality State would be the only one in the nation that does not have an economic development agency.
Before the Joint Appropriations Committee voted to defund the Business Council, Pendergraft said it’s not government’s role to build infrastructure.
“Leave that to the free market. Leave that to the businesses to develop that,” he said. “Leave that to the consumers that want those things.”
Dorrell said many examples across the state indicate that the state’s minimal “investment in infrastructure” is working against Wyoming.
“The idea that the state or that the community shouldn’t pay for infrastructure, that experiment is sort of running right now, and what it’s saying is that people are leaving and what it’s saying is our economy is in decline,” he said.
If the free market system works so well, why don’t companies just come here on their own and create a thriving economy? That’s not happening, and it’s the Freedom Caucus’ outdated economic theories that are hurting Wyoming, not the Business Council’s approach.
Business Council board member Mark Christensen had some pithy words for legislators last month.
“Wyoming has lower taxes and Wyoming has all these other things,” he said, “but that’s not what drives people like what drives the quality of life. I feel like sometimes we don’t address the hard problems.”
The Freedom Caucus not only doesn’t address them, it purposely runs away and pretends those hard problems either don’t exist or are the fault of a state agency. Roadblocks the far right puts in the way of economic development are what’s really hurting Wyoming.