Can Wyomingites Afford To Make Up The Missing Mineral Taxes

In Wyoming we have been coasting for a very long time on the tax revenue brought in by coal. While coal is not going anywhere, most of the world still heavily relies on it, it is no longer "KING."

This was pointed out by for Wyoming Speaker Of The House Tom Lubnau in an article for Cowboy State Daily. In that article Mr. Lubnau points out, "For a generation, we have been the most conservative socialist state in the nation.  We have lived off of the tax dollars paid by other people.  We have developed Cadillac tastes while paying for a bicycle."

I'd like to thank Mr. Michael Madden for his well written article in WyoFile, "Can Wyoming afford to pay its ‘excess tax capacity’?" Mr. Madden points out that "unless Wyoming residents can actually afford to bridge the gap between what we pay in taxes and what our neighbors pay on average, then tax capacity as measured is just a bunch of empty numbers." 

Wyoming city, county, and state budgets will have to be cut, sharply. The size of government must shrink, drastically. This will help us.

But that still does not solve all of our states finical problems. More money will have to come in to take care of roads, police and fire, plus a few other essential items like education.

There is already a proposal to cut $100 million from education. That can be done by slashing at the admirative level. But that still does not balance the education budget.

The question Mr. Madden is asking is do Wyomingites make enough money to fill the gap we will be left with, even after all the cuts? That's a good question.

We all talk about government living within it's means. That means that we here in Wyoming will have get used to living with a lot less.