Legislators call it 'tax reform' It's actually a huge tax increase

You may have missed it when during recent campaigns legislative candidates promised to raise property taxes, add sales tax to food, and more.

You missed it because it didn’t happen. They kept it under their hats. Do you think that might have impacted your vote? Come to think of it, no candidate ever campaigned on repealing state retiree COLAs a decade ago, but, once elected, that’s what they did.

The purchasing power of Wyoming’s state retirees has declined by one-fifth since legislators terminated their cost-of living-increases. In the last few years, the legislature ended sales tax rebates and property tax relief for elderly and low-income families.

Now, despite economic hardship that caused, legislators plan to seize a bigger portion from the diminishing ability of the elderly and others to cover the increasing costs of food, housing, transportation, prescription medicines, and the other necessities of life.

Ever hear of “October surprises”? They’re a premeditated, pre-election announcement timed for maximum negative impact on an opponent. Plans for big tax increases were a November surprise, timed to have no impact on the re-election of candidates who promised no new taxes.

Here we were, trying to be informed voters, headed to the polls, having listened to what candidates said during the campaign, feeling secure they were under the spell of the pledge the Republican majority made to the Wyoming Liberty Group not to raise our taxes.

The election was held November 6; three weeks later we learned they have plans for a load of new taxes.

Does Wyoming need additional revenues? Yes, but we also need transparency among candidates who should have told us how they planned to raise that revenue before we voted. 

Wyoming legislators ought to be relieved they are not French lawmakers. French citizens are not so apathetic. When they are duped by their politicians, they don’t quietly sit on the couch grousing. They go to the streets. Politicians go into hiding as the people let them know how they feel about such antics.

While we reject the violence seen on the streets of Paris, there is middle ground between that and the complacency generally demonstrated by Wyoming voters. French voters don’t quietly accept what their elected officials dish out as “they know what is best for us.”

Having plotted to make sure we had no recourse at the polls in 2018, legislators are considering a package of tax bills that will greatly harm Wyoming’s older taxpayers and middle-income families. These proposals include raising your property taxes by 13%, eliminating sales tax exemptions on groceries and prescription drugs, raising the gasoline tax and much more.

Be reminded this comes on top of the elimination of COLAs for state retirees and property and sales tax relief measures for all fixed and/or low-income citizens.

If legislative candidates had been transparent about their plans, we could have had a grown-up conversation during the campaign. Voters could have heard what was being proposed, why it was necessary, how the burden could be shared. Candidates could have heard from constituents about the impact.

Who knows? The voters might have offered some helpful ideas about how to do it fairly. Older voters would have reminded them we’ve already sacrificed cost-of-living raises and tax relief. We might have suggested compromises that allowed for tax increases while restoring COLAs for state retirees and tax relief for other low and fixed-income taxpayers. 

Their strategy allowed for neither. 

They are listening to someone else. Lawmakers say they want to “spread the burden” so it doesn’t fall on the mining industry though those corporations are extracting untold wealth from the state, and despite the fact that even when they go bankrupt, these companies leave their retirees without promised pensions while company executives leave Wyoming in the dead of night with bags full of gold.

You can see why they didn’t want us to know of their plans, why they weren’t interested in what we thought, why they didn’t trust us enough to ask our views before the election.