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Definitions of Political Terms
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February 16, 2005
A large majority of the voters in Wyoming describe themselves as fiscally conservative, are you one of those? And if so, what does that imply?
In general political terms, that would mean that you believe in the following: efficient and frugal governmental spending, depending on the private sector to power economic growth, governmental decision making at a level of government as close to the people as possible, respect for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, respect for private property rights, small numbers of government employees, and perhaps a few additional lesser points.
You will not be surprised to hear that most Wyoming candidates for public office call themselves fiscal conservatives as well, and that certainly includes a sizeable majority of the current Legislature. It is too darn bad that with all of this alleged conservativism going on, the reality is very different. The truth is, as defined by the previously listed benchmarks, that there are almost no fiscal conservatives in the Wyoming Legislature.
To a true fiscal conservative, the idea of the government pumping large amounts of money into a variety of programs designed to incite and guide economic investment would be unacceptable. Yet that very type of thinking has been running rampant under the Capitol dome for 20 years, and shows no sign of abating anytime soon.
After the boom of the 1970’s went bust in the mid 1980’s, the Legislature scrambled to come up with programs that would halt the downward swing of the state economy. The three major efforts were the Clean Coal program, the Link Loan program and the Amendment Four venture capitol program. Did any of these programs become a capitalistic juggernaut and change the economy of Wyoming?
Of course not! All of those programs were utter and complete failures, whose main benefit was to benefit a variety of individuals without improving the economy of Wyoming in any noticeable way. The reason why they failed is because the philosophy of the fiscal conservatives is correct, the economy will work its magic at its own pace with or without governmental meddling.
From the mid 1980’s until the recent past, the fiscal liberals in the Legislature have mostly focused on building governmental agencies whose mission statement is directed towards creating economic development through the spending of taxpayer’s money. These efforts include both the Wyoming Business Council, whose spending policies are controlled by a volunteer board of directors, and a large number of local non-profit agencies who spend public money with almost no public accountability.
The most recent economic development theme to catch the eye of the movers and shakers in the Legislature is the concept of creating economic development by improving airline service with taxpayer subsidies. I suspect this liberal brainstorm came about due to concepts floated about at one of the many national conferences that are attended by the big dogs of the legislative branch.
Their theme is something like this…build an economic flyway, and the economic forces will come! So for the past four or so years there have a variety of new laws created, and monies appropriated,
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