David Miller

Forty years of service economy is now showing its ugly face. So much for flipping hamburgers and selling insurance and financial services to each other. — we need to mine things, make things and grow things in the USA to have a country.

We do not make many of our prescription drugs in America anymore. We do not mine most of our minerals in America anymore. Much of our food is imported from who knows where! We used to have the electrical generation grid that the world envied, and the cheapest rates in the world; it built America — it won two world wars! Now, with the obscene federal tax credits, our grid is becoming increasingly unstable and we have dismantled over 100,000 megawatts of coal and nuclear-powered generation over the last 10 years. And the visual impact on our Wyoming landscape is appalling!

What does this have to do with Wyoming? Everything! Wyoming produces the calves that supply the beef market nationwide. Our producers receive little of the retail cost of beef. Why? Regulation!

Our mineral industry has been the number one revenue generator for Wyoming taxes over the last 50 years.  What has it gotten us? A bloated state government, a bloated education system from K-12 to our university!

Over regulation has finally killed the “golden goose.” A case in point is the infamous Moneta Divide project in Fremont and Natrona counties. Moneta Divide has been in permitting for over 20 years — first with Encana Energy (the largest taxpayer in the state for many years) and now with Aethon Energy. The delays in getting this up and running in “market time” has cost the state of Wyoming hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue.

Moneta Divide is one of a nearly infinite number of projects that could be up and running and producing jobs and resources for Wyoming and all of America! Look at history: Government is not the answer, individual initiative is the answer. We must remove hurdles to allow the brain trust “of the people” to flourish!

Government regulatory interference is the REAL pandemic and most businesses are affected: restaurants, tourism, hotels, food production, you name it. They are saddled with ambiguous regulations administered by unqualified bureaucrats. In this time of shrinking revenues, state jobs must be cut, and these unelected “regulators” should be among the first to go.

You are the answer and you must elect your representatives to allow you to solve problems. Your elected representatives must legislate the regulatory environment out of existence.

Wyoming and America are worth saving “for the people” and not for the crony capitalists and communists that are running America into ruin now!

(State Rep. David Miller, R-Riverton, is a businessman and professional economic geologist who has served in the Wyoming Legislature since 2001. In a more than 40-year career, Miller’s primary professional focus has been on mineral exploration, development and mining.)