Caucus Growing Pains

Dear editor

The Freedom Caucus has been in the news lately but are they just “The flavor of the Month” or will they be around for a while. This is a group of mostly first time politicians who were energized by the increases of taxes on residences. The taxes in WY have historically been so low that they have not been a real issue. The taxes have remained low for many years because the mineral industry has been carrying the load for years. I suspect that many of the people complaining about taxes also have a couple of phones and maybe even a couple of cars they also have to pay taxes on but that’s interfering on paying for a house.

They claim to be against waste but are going about it the wrong way. You don’t fight waste by cutting the taxes but by finding the waste. School expenditures have been their target but when the schools were receiving so much money from Coal leases they were required to spend it and we did get some nice schools. They do not seem to make the connection between taxes and the cost of living in a society such as ours. The public facilities in Wyoming are declining very fast and are in need of major repairs. If they do not wish to pay for them, they can always try living away from the rest of us.

The Freedom Caucus organized a good campaign and elected a lot of legislatures and were able to get much of their issues passed but they were beginners. I was in the House 50 years ago and the situation was the same as it is now. Every new person comes with what he thinks is the answer to many problems but the veterans will tell them that we tried that years ago and it did not work then and it won’t now but they had enough numbers to force the issue through and the next 2 or 3 years will be spent correcting mistakes.

The caucus will call me a Rino but I have been voting Republican for 70 years and my first association with politics goes back to riding with my father hanging Wendel Wilkie posters in 1940.

Don Thorson