TOMORROW: The Wyoming Legislature Convenes for the 2024 Budget Session

The WYFC is committed to fighting for the protection of your God-given rights and against the growth of government in Cheyenne.

Tomorrow at 10 AM, the 2024 Budget Session kicks off with the Governor’s State of the State address. You can catch the speech live on Wyoming PBS’s YouTube channel.

Then, at 2 PM, the work begins. You can view the Legislature’s schedule here and view proposed bills here. Tune in to view live legislative proceedings by visiting the Wyoming Legislature’s YouTube channel.

For some help deciphering the language of those in power in Cheyenne, check out WYFC member Representative Ward’s recent column: The Good Old Boy Glossary.

What’s in store?

THE BUDGET:

The Legislature will fulfill its constitutional duty to fund Wyoming government for the next two years. While the Legislative Service Office has determined that a budget of $8.7 billion would be needed to maintain the same level of services included in previous budgets, the Legislature has presented with a budget of $10.8 billion from the Governor- allegedly based on “need.”

The WYFC is committed to ensuring right-sized government that only funds the constitutional and necessary functions of government.

SAVING OUR HOMES- PROPERTY TAXES:

Among the litany of property tax-related bills filed thus far, House Bill 127 provides the most relief to the most taxpayers. Applicable to residential and commercial properties, this bill caps property tax increases at 3% or the change in median household income for the county in which the property sits — whichever is less. This bill, unlike other property tax bills, applies to the structure and the land being taxed, which is typically 27-29% of the taxable value of property.

PROTECTING OUR KIDS

Boys cannot become girls. Girls should not be forced to share private spaces or athletic competitions with boys. Pornography should not be accessible by children in public schools. Kids shouldn’t be instructed in the tenets of radical gender ideology or that the United States is an empire of evil. Parents have a right to direct the education and upbringing of their children.

Keep an eye out for legislation to ban the chemical or surgical abuse of children under the guise of “gender identity,”, to protect girls and women, to keep sexually depraved materials out of our schools, to prohibit classroom instruction in gender identity and sexual orientation in K-12 classrooms and in CRT, and to give all Wyoming parents a say in their child’s education. The WYFC will pursue every means to bring them to the Governor’s desk.

RESTORING OUR FREEDOM

The Governor and his allies seem to have forgotten that he shut the doors of “non-essential” Wyoming businesses in 2020 and left in place multiple COVID-19 “emergency measures” for over two years.

We didn’t forget, and we’re sure you didn’t either. The WYFC will support measures to prevent all future medical mandates and a bill to require legislative approval for future lockdowns.

RESTRAINING GOVERNMENT

With record breaking budgets and overflowing coffers, it is inevitable that state government wants to grow. It’s time for that to stop.

The WYFC will restrain the growth of government and will seek to require state approval of federal grants (and all their strings), end federal funding and mandates in education, and prohibit federal interference with the management of Wyoming’s lands.

PROMOTING WORK

Hard work built Wyoming. We will promote the dignity and promise of work by reforming our welfare programs. The WYFC will support legislation to strengthen work requirements in welfare programs, shorten the length of unemployment benefits, and will oppose the expansion of all welfare, including Medicaid expansion. After all, as Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with socialism is that you always run out of other peoples’ money.