I thought I would give you an update from my time in the budget session in Cheyenne.
To begin with, I would like to say that the Joint Appropriations Committee got the ball rolling in the right direction by making some cuts to get out in front of this downturn economy. While these cuts were a good start, personally I feel like we should have done some more prioritizing and made a few more cuts that would have stopped us from reaching into the rainy day funds this early in the downturn. The income realized from the interest on these savings is very significant.
If we start reaching into these savings too early and this downturn lasts a while as predicted by the Creg report, we could easily damage a vital revenue stream early on. Personally I would have liked the legislative body to scale back and slow down some of the projects like the State Capitol construction project and the lower priority projects for the University of Wyoming that could have taken us out of the structural deficit, but there were not enough conservative votes to achieve that this session.As part of the Revenue committee we stopped two attempts by the leadership in the House and the Senate to move forward on a state income tax. The upcoming interim topics for the Revenue committee will include looking into raising taxes again. I will continue to oppose this notion. I believe that we need to take a serious look at our spending and prioritize our budget before anything else is even considered.
Now that I am back from the session, I will try to keep you updated. If you have any questions or comments please let me know. Thanks, Mark
Mark has a 100% voting record with WYWATCH and is ranked #10 out of 60 in the Wyoming Liberty Group index.
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