Freudenthal: Do We Want Wyoming to Grow? Maybe.

This column originally appeared in the AARP Wyoming News, January 2022.

By Dave Freudenthal
Former Wyoming Governor


Four decades of population growth in Wyoming (1980-2020) were less than the population growth in the decade spanning 1970 to 1980. Admittedly the energy boom in the 70’s was the only real statewide boom since statehood in 1890. No one expected nor necessarily wanted subsequent decades to match the growth rate of the boom.

But four decades of very modest growth in Wyoming, while surrounding states have grown more rapidly, makes you wonder. Do we really want Wyoming to grow? After years of loving Wyoming and its people in public life and practicing law, I am not sure I know the answer.

One of the wonderful aspects of Wyoming people is the myriad of contradictions we share to varying degrees. We possess the marvelous ability to hold two contradictory thoughts simultaneously, with equal vigor. And by “we”, I include myself.

If we secure a hide-a-way in the mountains and/or water, or if we find a secluded favorite hunting, fishing or camping spot, we really don’t want anyone else around. A dear friend certainly captured my attitude, “I don’t want another fishing pole in MY fishing hole.”

We devoutly speak of the need for economic development in Wyoming. But we really tend to not want more people. In 2002, while campaigning door to door in Evanston, I encountered a delightful couple. Top of their list for the next Governor was economic development and more jobs for Wyoming’s young people. I inquired as to whether they could tolerate more people moving to Evanston. After all, an economy with greater job opportunities for Wyoming youth would be an economy attracting others to move to Evanston. Without hesitation, I was informed they did not want Evanston to change. They were blessed with three children and needed only three high paying jobs to keep them around Evanston. In retrospect, an entirely rational view given the distances we now travel to see our grandchildren.

We are devotees of the free enterprise system but expect state government (and sometimes local government) to magically create economic development. Since 1980, at least seven state entities have been given this task. The Department of Economic Development and Planning, The Wyoming Travel Commission (in various formulations), The Wyoming Community Development Authority (WCDA), The Economic Development and Stabilization Board, The Investment Fund Committee, The Department of Commerce, and The Wyoming Business Council. Governor Herschler, in a fit of rhetorical exuberance, once described our penchant to revise the statutes and rename our economic development efforts as “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic”

Except for the WCDA, all of these have enjoyed the use of state dollars. I have been directly and indirectly involved in these efforts. None of the efforts ever received a significant percentage of the annual state budget, nor were they particularly successful. The tourism efforts have been the most consistent and successful. Wyoming’s unique natural environment, the Western lifestyle and the National Parks give Wyoming the opportunity to compete for the tourist dollar through a properly funded and managed promotional program.

Competing for traditional industrial development and/or encouraging expansion of existing businesses has proven much tougher. We consistently preach Wyoming’s low personal and business tax environment as key to economic expansion and diversification. My experience as a member of the Economic Development and Stabilization Board in the eighties and my time as Governor courting business prospects taught me that low taxes are simply not enough.

Workforce availability, available investment capital, distance from markets, attractive communities for employees and a host of other variables tend to dominate relocation decision making. If low taxes automatically equated to diversification, Wyoming and Alaska would be the two most diversified economies in America. Perhaps, one of our contradictions is claiming we keep taxes low to encourage economic development when, in fact, we just like low taxes for ourselves. I certainly like low taxes.

All of us have friends and family who have chosen to live in locations with much higher tax rates than Wyoming. Their reasons vary. Whatever their reasons, Wyoming’s low tax environment is not enough to lure them or their businesses to Wyoming. The exception being, they may choose to retire here.

Our circumstance has been studied and reviewed clear back to early statehood when we had an emigration commission dedicated to encouraging people to move to our newly christened state. Most recently, Governor Mead championed thoughtful work under the moniker “ENDOW WYOMING”. Some of the ideas were original and some were restatements of well-known problems. Nearly all were ignored. Hardly a new pattern. Prior efforts were treated the same.

I end where I began. Do we really want growth and more population? We cannot have one without the other. We (including myself) have not been able to actualize a majority opinion on this issue, let alone a consensus. Perhaps this is a conversation worth having----again!