Our Lame Duck Not So Lame
I think Dave has enjoyed being Governor. He’s had a nice run. For the most part his agency appointments have been competent and not afflicted with Blagojevich cronyism; his judicial appointments are beyond reproach; after the luxury of being awash with mineral revenue, he anticipated the budget crunch a little bit before it happened. He spent money like a drunken sailor and made the Republicans take the blame. Of course, the Republicans in the Wyoming legislature, like their kin in Congress, eagerly spend money on what their constituents desire while despairing of big government and big spending.
Don’t think I bought it all; I have some significant disagreements with some of Gov Dave’s policies, but that is not the point here.
Lately The Sage Grouse, yet to be cited in a White House briefing or Wall Street Journal front page piece, has put the mud to the faces of a few Wyoming Republican candidates; deservedly so, for after all, they were down in the mud with the pigs, searching for muck instead of answers. The Sage Grouse accused most of them of playing a “Let’s Pretend” game of ignoring reality in search of banality.
Then, on Thursday, June 17, GOP candidate Colin Simpson candidly admitted that the federal government (that’s you and me) does own Yellowstone Park and various national forests, and that there ain’t much we voters can do about that. Maybe Colin is listening to The Sage Grouse. If not, maybe he should. Maybe Colin is not succumbing to the “Let’s Pretend” philosophy. Let’s watch.
And on Thursday, when the seas parted and the skies changed from black to blue, Gov Dave, not admitting to post partum depression, spoke to the candidates: you Republicans, fixated on rhetoric and base pandering, have no policies or positions or specifics on real issues. I thought maybe Gov Dave had been reading The Sage Grouse.
I will be waiting for the telephone to ring.
Gov. Freudenthal has indeed been a good governor; however, it is much easier to be a good governor when the state is awash in funds as Wyoming has been for at least 6 of his 8 years. State government has grown by leaps and bounds and that means that somebody (mostly the mineral industry) has to pay for that growth. If either cap-and-trade or a carbon tax are enacted, the funding picture for Wyoming could change quite dramatically. What seems to be lost in the ballyhoo about independence from fossil fuels is that our economy is energized by fossil fuels. Make fossil fuels more expensive and what happens to the economy? Would we suddenly find ourselves in the midst of a double-dip recession? Hopefully, elected persons in Washington, D.C. will exercise some judgment instead of listening to the environmentalists screaming wolf as they have done for the past 3 decades. I don’t foresee either good judgement in Washington, D.C. or ceasing of environmental racket. After all, environmental organizations live by begging and they have to shriek to get gullible people to untie their purse strings.
Good comments. Dave has been a pretty good governor. What about the woman running for Governor? What is she saying?
RT, You sure got it right on this one!