I have often pointed to the errors, systemic and others, in the Wyoming economy. I have repeatedly explained the false sense of job security that comes with a large share of the work force on tax-funded jobs. I have also noted how our largely mono-industrial economy was a big factor in giving Wyoming the nation's slowest private sector growth durin...

LARAMIE – The Joint Judiciary Committee of the Wyoming Legislature voted to sponsor a bill that would substantially amend the Wyoming Controlled Substances Act today, by a vote of 12-1 (1 excused). The bill would eliminate the practice of "civil forfeiture" in Wyoming, which allows police to seize, and the attorney general to permanently deprive ow...

Would your representative vote to require single mothers to pay an extra one percent on their phone bills to cover the cost of extending lines to a $4 million mansion someone decided to build on their newly acquired rural property? In the coming session, the Wyoming legislature will find itself faced with the sunset, or scheduled end, of the outdat...

Government pension plans promise to pay current and future retirees a benefit based on a defined formula. To make good on its promise, government contributes tax dollars to a pension fund and invests them to generate income. But what happens when contributions and investment returns fall short? Will government raise taxes, cut spending, or reduce t...

CHEYENNE – The Wyoming Liberty Group published its latest Liberty Brief today, "Downing the Drones? Limiting Law Enforcement Use of Unmanned Aerial Surveillance in Wyoming." The brief, authored by WyLiberty staff attorney Steve Klein, discusses current protections against drone surveillance and suggest reforms that the Wyoming Legislature may adopt...

Yesterday, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated the opinion in Halbig v. Burwell and agreed to hear the case en banc. This means that the entire D.C. Circuit (or a large number of its judges) will hear and decide the case instead of just the three judges on the original appellate panel. The issue in Halbig centers on a pr...

You can't make this up: Weed welfare? That's what the Berkeley City Council in California has unanimously approved, ordering medical marijuana dispensaries to donate 2 percent of their stash to patients making less than $32,000 a year. Impressive. A unanimous vote. No doubt a lot of compassionate people on that city council. Well, as the Fox News s...

LARAMIE — The Laramie City Council adopted an ordinance last night removing the unconstitutional time limitations imposed by the Laramie Unified Development Code on political signs following an accelerated review process that began with a June 30 notice to Laramie City Officials from WyLiberty staff attorney identifying constitutional violations in...

Few people understand how the state pension system works but objections to reform are legion. Even though the type of pension benefit state employees receive has virtually disappeared in the private sector, many politicians, bureaucrats and state pension managers seem to think the government sector is different, making reform unnecessary. However, ...

In Nazi Germany, eugenics was an accepted branch of medicine. Its purpose was to "cleanse" the German people of individuals who were considered genetically less desirable. One would hope that this abhorrent practice would be confined to the dark history of the Third Reich. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Eugenics was well established in Americ...

In 1957, Ford Motor Company rolled out its new brand called Edsel. The ambition for the new brand was to help Ford outgrow General Motors. Reality, though, was different: after three years of disastrous sales Ford shut down the Edsel division. The motive for the decision is obvious: Edsel was losing enormous amounts of money. The verdict of the fre...

CHEYENNE – Judge Alan Johnson of the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming approved a settlement in Brophy v. Maxfield today, halting the enforcement of a two-year aggregate contribution limit under Wyoming law. The settlement ends a lawsuit filed by Wyoming Liberty Group attorneys in July that challenged the aggregate limit as a...

Several candidates who will appear on primary election ballots in Wyoming have endorsed replacing elected officials with appointed bureaucrats. Some of these candidates are even running for election to offices that they do not believe should be held by citizens who have been elected through the democratic process. Other candidates have said that th...

There are many unanswered questions in our universe: Is there life on other planets?Do intelligent beings on other planets pay taxes?When is government big enough for a statist? The first two questions are easy to answer. Yes, of course there is life on other planets. Anything else would be statistically impossible. As for intelligent aliens and ta...

Pension contributions to rise.Taxpayers now contribute $6.71 for every $1 contributed by bureaucrats.Taxpayers soon to be gouged at $7.08:1 before improvement to $6.21:1. Wyoming's last legislative session saw movement in the direction of more government sector pension reform, and not a moment too soon. With only 77.62 cents per dollar promised ava...

Suppose Congress mandated that supermarkets like Wal-Mart must give away groceries to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. Anyone who wanted to could walk in, demand milk, bread, baked beans and ice cream and then walk out without paying. It would be up to the supermarket to send us a bill and hope we pay it. Needless to say, such a law wo...

Back in July I wrote about the global socialist rebound, part of which involves the emergence of post-Chavez Venezuela. The new president, Nicolas Maduro, has doubled down on socialism and its fatally bad economic model, where daily life is dictated by shortages of everything from bread to electricity. Last year Maduro dictated "fair" pricing on el...

Among the many myths being spread around about fracking, the one about water consumption may be the most audacious one. Anti-fracking activists keep insisting that the process of hydraulic fracturing is threatening the water supplies in the West. This myth may grow legs in a drought-stricken state like California, but that does not mean it is true....

Federalization of education was the most heavily discussed topic this past week when the Republican candidates for the office of Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction met in Riverton for their final debate ahead of the primary elections on Tuesday, August 19th. Sheryl Lain, Bill Winney and Jillian Balow took the stage to wrangle over this an...

A quick look at price trends for goods and services reveals a head scratcher. While prices in the private sector tend to fall, prices in government-regulated industries, much like the cost of government itself, tend to rise. Why might that be? Perhaps because in the private sector, the profit motive drives entrepreneurs to find ways such as technol...