Wyoming COGD: A Lesson in Federal and State Policy

Center for Fiscal Accountability ^ | 2011-08-14 | Jacob Feldman

[92nina]

...Wyoming, however, has an extremely high income per capita of $63,677 (4th highest in 2010), encouraged by some successful state policies such as no income tax and a favorable economic environment with pro-business state laws. This has led to the one of the nation’s lowest average unemployment and fastest growth rates in the last ten years. However, these policies suffer a high burden of federal taxation, increasing the amount of day Wyomingites work to pay off their government burden.

Moreover, Wyoming is not without its own state-based problems that drive up the cost of government. Wyoming suffers from some of the highest property and sales taxes in the nation. Combined together, they account for nearly 10 percent of all Wyoming income. Additionally, Wyoming has the nation’s largest proportion of public workers to taxpayers in the nation. However, Wyoming is not bogged down by unfunded pension liabilities like Illinois or New Jersey.

While not a perfect record, Wyoming’s Cost of Government Day reflects more of the costs of federal taxation upon successful policies, rather than the irresponsible spending that characterizes many of Wyoming’s Cost of Government Day ranking neighbors. The case of Wyoming shows that responsible state spending is possible, but a punitive federal government and a large public workforce imperil good policy choices by increasing pressure to raise more revenue.

[92nina]

While Wyoming is one of the first two states celebrating Cost of Government Day after the national average, it has a somewhat less disheartening story compared to the other state, Rhode Island.

Take this article and others I found to the fight to the Libs on their own turf; put the Left on the defensive at at Digg and at Reddit and in Stumbleupon and Delicious

[NVDave]

The taxes aren’t all that high here in Wyoming, certainly not what these yahoos would like to paint. Property taxes are higher than in some other places with high income taxes, and we do have a “high” sales tax compared to Montana’s (ie, MT’s is none), but overall, it works for us. The less populated counties have very minimal taxation at all, the more populated areas have higher taxation. So it takes the tax monies where they’re needed and where they’re spent. There’s not some huge slush fund of location-less tax revenues for the pols to spend in Cheyenne.

We have significant costs in this state, especially in winter. It is very easy for a bunch of eggheads in DC to spout off about the costs in Wyoming’s government, but they’ve never had to spend what we spend to keep the roads open in winter. Starting in 2007, those costs started to go up - rapidly - as diesel costs soared.

[Big Horn]

I think the cost of living is fairly good here in Wyoming.We do have many gov. employees because we have a large area and small population. It takes as many county employees in a county with low population as one with high population. We have a large number of roads and less people to maintain them, but they are important for our economy.

[NVDave]

And we also have such areas as Yellowstone, the national forests, all the BLM lands, the Indian rez’s... all of these areas are utterly infested with government workers (and indeed, Yellowstone is a prime posting for which they compete...)

The COL is WY is higher for food than other states. Energy is lower tho - at least until The Kenyan’s coal emissions policies hit the utilities.

I personally like the harsh winters. Keeps the bums out of here. Altho there was one hard-core bum who slept on the side of the Interstate ramp at the east end of Fifth Street in Sheridan for months on end...