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The budget message, focused on careful stewardship and prioritizing essential needs — family, economy, and efficient government — acts like a rancher caring for their land and livestock. Just as a rancher must manage and replenish resources to ensure the ranch does not fail, this budget manages state resources — financial and natural — to mitigate volatility and ensure long-term prosperity for all Wyoming citizens. My forward to the budget message follows.
A few months ago, Wyoming mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, neighbors, employers, and friends welcomed our Wyoming Guard members home from extended deployments overseas. All were relieved and excited to be reunited when our soldiers stepped off buses and planes, happy to be home. And what a welcome! Some came home greeting new additions to their families. Others came back to spouses and loved ones not seen for almost a year.
Times like these remind us of the essentials underpinning American prosperity: strong friendships, strong families, strong economy, and strong communities that care about kids and grandparents, and the promise of opportunity and a bright future. These same factors underlie my recommended budget. Visiting with our soldiers during their deployment, I heard their concerns about coming home.
 “Will there be a job for me?” was a common question.
I was proud to see from the moment they stepped onto Wyoming soil, our soldiers had opportunities and relevant information on potential employment. Overall, Wyoming is better positioned economically today than it has been in some time. Our economy is more diverse, our education system better and more responsive, and our communities are stronger. All done despite facing some pretty daunting headwinds over the years.
Wyoming was built by pioneers who faced adversity, but understood what it took to make things better for being here. They recognized our natural resources — grasslands, coal, oil, gas, minerals, and wildlife — are abundant and could, with care, provide a better life for them and their descendants.
We are the beneficiaries of their sensible, conservative, tenacious, and courageous values, benefitting more than any other generation from their labors. These folks experienced hard times, and knew how challenging it was to build something in our mountains and on our plains. They understood the importance of laying in a little extra against the prospect of a harsh winter.
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Circa 1933. Photographer Joseph Elam Stimson. Wyo State Archives.
We can see the fruits of their wisdom in the income generated from the investments held in our permanent trusts. Much has been made in the news about our investment income, which is expected to be the largest source of revenue this year. But what does that really mean? This biennium alone, every Wyoming taxpayer can thank Wyoming’s Treasurer for the investment portfolio reducing the overall tax burden. For example, the investment earnings for the general fund from Wyoming’s portfolio is anticipated to reach $913.7 million in the upcoming biennium. This is $913.7 million that Wyoming taxpayers will not pay.
Wyoming’s savings are not idle. They are invested and their earnings are a powerful diversifier to the volatility of a commodity driven economy. To further this service and to honor the conscientiousness of our forebears, I am recommending permanent savings of $250 million to protect against hard times and to benefit Wyoming’s future taxpayers.
"The art of effective listening is essential to clear communication."
- James Cash Penney, Founder JC Penney Company, Kemmerer, WY
Some suggest this is the time to cash in, take care of ourselves, and stop worrying about Wyoming’s future or our children. These are the actions that seemingly guided our nation for the last couple of decades as Washington D.C. piled up debt without regard to consequence. This generation has already benefitted more than any other from our predecessors' efforts; even worse, we have borrowed more from our children than any other in history. This should not be the template for Wyoming. It certainly has not been to date.
In the last six years, our conservative fiscal discipline maintained the state through two of its largest losses of income: a major pandemic and a prior administration bent on humiliating every industry that built Wyoming. After years of extraordinary budget volatility, this budget is an heir to our conservative philosophy and predicated on the fundamentals from which Wyoming emerged.
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