 Rooster listens for the phones in the Wyoming legislators' offices, and they're not ringing about cutting property taxes. Maybe this is because legislators don't have phones, but Rooster will stand by his research. He doesn't see any carrier pigeons, either, flapping about this issue.
So the topic that so many thought could be the "defining" issue of the 2008 legislature will end up being a tiny toot at the end of the parade. There will be a small expansion of a small program that gives low-wage working people a small property tax refund if they'll bring in the paperwork they don't want to bring in to show how badly off they are. It's too humiliating, even for the whiney poor – the current program had only about 600 applicants. Rooster thinks that rich people should be required to turn in their check stubs to prove that they DON'T deserve the refund – otherwise, they get it, and everyone will think they're poor.
The governor wanted to give a property tax refund to the elderly only, whether they asked for it or not. He says the secret to getting legislation passed is not to care who gets credit. In keeping with that philosophy, no one is getting credit for this one, because it isn't happening. Speaker Roy Cohee, who sometimes shares an office with me, says, "I don't see why you get a break just because you live a long time."
The allure of property tax breaks to legislators seems to be that it would make Wyoming voters even less responsible for paying for state services, when, thanks to the energy industry, they already pay practically nothing (Rooster overheard Rep. Tom Lubnau saying, "Wyoming is the most conservative socialist state in the country."). The less citizens pay, the less they care what government does, or politicians. Which suggests a simple campaign slogan: "Reelect me. Stay home and watch your new TV while I eat shrimp in Cheyenne with the Petroleum Association."
For a few weeks, the Republican legislature fell all over itself to offer a different tax break than the governor's. They would cut tax for veterans. They would cut the assessment rate that determines the tax you pay. They would cut the rate at which the assessment rate could grow. They would cut property taxes in Nebraska, New Jersey, and British Columbia. They would cut the grass, so Rooster can get to the worms.
But in the end, nobody showed up in rags and Winnebagos to beg for relief. As Sen. Jayne Mockler said, surveying the big, crowded room during the House Revenue Committee's hearing on property taxes: "These are all lobbyists. There's a total of two regular citizens in the room."
When the room is full of lobbyists, and the legislators swoon to the smell of shoe polish and slightly damp cashmere, time often runs short, because each one of these lobbyists must squeeze out some rhetorical honey to prove their worth (so they can pay the property taxes they don't want cut – and theirs, by the way, dwarf those whiney poor people's…). In the end, legislators saw the wisdom of these selfless advisors, and there will be no major changes.
At the House Revenue shindig, Sara Gorin of the Equality State Policy Center earned the prize for Testimony of the Year. She followed Erin Taylor, of the industry-funded Wyoming Taxpayers Association, who produced her usual charts showing that basically the state is riding along on the energy industry ocean liner without paying even for the croutons. Gorin, who is not always on the same page with the WTA, rose and said: "Mr. Chairman, members of the committee – ditto." And sat down. She gets this week's cock-a-doodle-do! -30-
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