Wyoming Needs a Vision for the Future
Wyoming needs forward-thinking leadership. We are at a major inflection point in our state’s history, and we need to make big decisions about what our state will look like in the future and how we will get there. Unfortunately, most of the recent political decision making in this state has lacked the long-range thinking that we need.
Wyoming needs to refocus. We are facing problems that we have yet to acknowledge or address, even though they are becoming more and more apparent. Above all else, Wyoming needs leaders who can articulate a vision for the future. Without a cohesive vision, our politics are likely to remain the same – reactionary and shortsighted. With a strong vision, however, our state can position ourselves to meet and overcome the challenges that we know we will face.
My vision for the future of our state is based on three interrelated ideas: economy, community, and opportunity. Our economic challenges should be clear to everyone. We are a state that has built an economy largely dependent on natural resource extraction, especially coal. This economy has served us well and brought a lot of benefits and prosperity to our state. However, economies change, and we are in the midst of a decline in demand for our primary economic driver. Accordingly, we need to build new business sectors that are not dependent on our existing economic system.
This is easy to say, but much harder to do. Resource extraction does not naturally lead to the development of many other business sectors. As a result, we must approach economic growth intentionally and aggressively pursue opportunities, especially in communities that will be impacted by a decline in coal production. Skilled manufacturing seems to be a natural pivot point for coal communities, and we should be proactive about pitching Wyoming as a location for those types of businesses. We have already created a business-friendly tax structure, now we should ensure that our regulatory process is similarly situated. We should undertake a systematic review of our state regulatory process to identify barriers to development and bottlenecks in the process that can slow or stop economic development. Perhaps most importantly, we must be willing to invest in ourselves and have the patience to see those investments through. After all, why would a business invest in our state if we are unwilling to do the same?
As we take these steps, it is important for us to keep in mind the reason that we want these new and diverse business opportunities. It is not merely because we want growth, although that is true. Rather, it is because we want to build and maintain the communities that are the real building blocks of Wyoming. We want thriving communities because we want to raise our families and live our lives in this place that we have all chosen as our home. We want to be able to live good, free, prosperous lives, and we have chosen to come or stay here because we believe this is a place where we can do that.
If Wyoming’s communities – and by extension, Wyoming itself – are going to survive, we need to build places that can support and attract families throughout all the seasons of life. This means supporting high quality education, access to health care, and the amenities and luxuries that we have come to expect in the modern world. That is not to say that we should try to be something we are not. Wyoming is a special place, and those of us who choose to live here usually recognize that we are choosing a place that requires some sacrifice. However, we cannot expect our communities to survive if we cannot provide basic services.
The other necessary element for our communities and our state to survive is opportunity. Wyoming is second only to Alaska when it comes to the number of our young people that leave the state. While it is natural for some to come and some to go, too many of our next generation have left because they do not see a viable future in Wyoming. We cannot allow this to continue. We must build a state with the jobs, communities, and future that entices our next generation to build their lives here. For Wyoming to thrive, we need all parts of a healthy society, and we have been lacking when it comes to providing the opportunities for our young people to build the lives they want to live in Wyoming.
None of these ideas work without the other. We need to improve our economy to build communities and opportunities for our next generation. We need our next generation to build strong communities and economies. Without strong communities, new economies and opportunities will wither on the vine. My vision for Wyoming’s future requires us to take meaningful action on them all. Wyoming’s future can still be bright, but we must all recognize that it will not happen accidentally. We must take the steps to pursue a common vision.