As I sit at my computer on the day after Christmas, I am confronted with my usual problem in writing my columns: too much good stuff on ColoradoPolitics.com to cover in the space my kindly editor allots to me for my missives.

I’d like to wallow a bit in a recent CoPo story that reminds us Tina Peters, the deeply corrupt former Mesa County clerk, is still in jail, and that’s a good thing. The CoPo story was actually about a small victory she recently won in court, in a scenario that is almost laughable. It seems Ms. Peters, back in 2022, had attended a court hearing regarding her deputy clerk’s possible criminal activity, when several employees of the district attorney’s office noticed Peters was illegally recording the proceedings on her iPad.

In a scene that sounded more like a six-year-old being asked who snuck a bite of the pie, the judge asked Peters, “are you recording ma’am?” She said no. Well, she apparently was. She was eventually found in contempt of court and fined $1,500, which may well seem like small potatoes when it is considered relative to a near-decade in state prison, but an appeals court ruled the whole contempt thing had been improperly handled and the fine was cancelled. She’ll stay in state prison though, as her conviction was in state courts and a certain soon-to-be president won’t be able to pardon her.

But I’m not going to write about that.

Instead, I’d like to draw your attention to another Out West Roundup story that discusses a very interesting state tax issue in Wyoming. Yes, that’s right, I found a tax issue in Wyoming to be really interesting.

Perhaps I’m a bit of a policy nerd (Editor: perhaps?).

Earlier this year, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon vetoed a tax bill. I was about to note Gordon is a Republican, but in Wyoming, that’s kind of unnecessary. Democrats do not hold a single statewide office, and in the state senate, Dems hold exactly two of the 31 seats (roughly 6%), and in the state house, Dems have five of the 62 seats (roughly 8%). You can’t have too much actual power when you could have your entire party’s legislative delegation meet in a single booth at IHOP.”

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Way back in the early 1980s, when I was assigned to FE Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, my late first wife and I went to register to vote in Wyoming. When we told the clerk we were registering as Democrats, he said “well, that increases the number of Democrats in Wyoming by a third.” An exaggeration to be sure, but not by that much.

Recall please Wyoming is the state that kicked former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney not just out of her congressional seat (via a primary) but out of the party entirely, because she was not a big insurrection fan. Yup, the Wyoming GOP formally voted to “stop recognizing Cheney as a Republican.” A tad petty, can’t we agree? Not so much?

In any case, the Wyoming governor previously vetoed a bill that has now been resurrected, Lazarus-like. It has been the only veto he issued of the five property tax reduction bills he was sent. His reason, quite reasonably it would seem, was that particular bit of tax reduction would give Wyoming taxpayers a whopping 25% exemption for the first $2 million of the fair market value of their homes. That would add up to a roughly $220 million loss in income for the state.

Now, you may recall Wyoming is not exactly teeming with people. The most recent population count in 2023 shows there are 584,057 Wyoming residents. If the newly reintroduced bill becomes state law, each resident would “owe” just under $400 per person per year in lost tax income. The bill does come with some money attached to backfill areas where the property tax cut hurts the most, with $125 million directly allocated and another $100 million from the states “rainy day” fund, though it is not clear if self-inflicted rainy days count.

And as noted, this was one of five property tax cut bills the Wyoming legislature passed. I can’t help but wonder, given the massive size of the GOP edge among elected officials, if this reviving of the vetoed bill is not so much about tax cuts as it is about hobbling, and ultimately destroying, the ability of the state government to, well, govern.

Perhaps Wyoming is to be the test-case bathtub for GOP activist and government hater Grover Norquist, who vowed under GOP leadership government would be shrunk so small it could, as he colorfully put it, be drown in a bathtub?

The old joke is Republicans run for office on the message government doesn’t work, and then spend their time in office proving that to be true. I’m not so sure that is a joke anymore.

But I’m also reminded of a time, the American founding, upon which I’ve invested quite a bit of research during the last 25 year or so, as part of my performances of my one-man show as Alexander Hamilton. People back then were, quite understandably, uncertain about government and most (in cities at least) lived more “libertarian” lives, with less governmental “interference” in their lives, and most taxes came from import tariffs at the major ports.

But if your house caught on fire, well, there was no socialist fire department. Rather, you had to pay an insurance company a regular fee, and they would then put a plaque on your front door. If your house caught fire, the firefighters that responded would be employees of various insurance companies, and if their specific plaque was not on your door, they watched your house burn down. Darn socialists, right?

Well, it turns out even for minimal services from your government (Thomas Jefferson wanted the coasts patrolled and the mail delivered, and all the rest wasn’t the government’s business — a very 1700s view), you need to pay some taxes. I rather like a fire department responds when a house catches fire. And having driven thousands of miles, en route to and from ICBM missile sites in Wyoming, I’m glad there is a state patrol to respond when accidents happen. I’m glad the wait for a cop and an ambulance isn’t measured in hours. But those would be some of the many “blessings” of a gutted government.

Though we can argue about what government should do, surely, we can agree there should be government, can’t we?

Sadly, in this new age, I’m not so sure we can.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.