Wyoming's Most Listened to Political Podcast
Wyoming Plagiarism of Al Gore's Title
David Iverson - July 17, 2023
Last week, Representative Barry Crago, a ”Republican” from Buffalo, penned a statewide op-ed blaming the numerous failures of the 2023 Legislative Session on the work of the 26 members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.
It’s
interesting that Rep. Crago would mooch the title of his op-ed, “An
Inconvenient Truth:…” from a thoroughly discredited Al Gore movie about
global warming. The claims made in
Crago’s piece are just as preposterous as those in the film. Rep. Crago
spends several paragraphs asserting that it was the Freedom Caucus that
prevented any form of tax relief from being passed.
In
the Wyoming House of Representatives there are 26 conservatives. There
are 31 liberal "republicans," with whom Crago votes in lock-step. I
say that they are liberal because their voting record proves it
out. Barry Crago and his Wyoming Caucus votes with the Democrats an
astounding 80% of the time. Not even Liz Cheney has a record like
that.
And yet, the Wyoming Caucus
insists they are the true Republicans and are the only ones working for
the good of Wyoming Citizens.These
are the folks that voted for millions upon millions of dollars of new
spending and who claim that property tax caps only benefit the rich.
I
would be more than happy to provide the audio soundbite of Casper
“Republican” Steve Harshman saying that. If Crago and the Wyoming Caucus
truly believe they are working in our best interests, they must think
Wyoming should lean more to the Democrat party. Because, that’s how they
vote.
At his recent town hall, Crago implored the crowd to pour over Wyoleg.gov to
find the truth of his voting record. Fortunately, I already have. Of
the 620 recorded votes in the 2023 session, 534 times Crago dutifully
voted with Mr. “Tax the Rich” Harshman.
One
of those votes was against capping your property taxes. And how many
times did Rep Crago vote to increase spending? Almost every single
time. Search “Crago” on the site he pleaded with you to look at, you’ll
find out for yourself.
At Crago’s
town hall he quoted Mark Twain in saying, “There are lies, damn lies and
then there’s statistics.” Of course, he was referring to Evidence
Based Wyoming, WyoVote and WyoRino—the three prominent legislative
rankings websites. The only thing
that Evidence Based Wyoming does is keeps track of how often a
legislator votes with the Republicans or the Democrats. If the data from
that site is nothing but lies, then so is what Crago says about his
voting record.
The last time I
checked, 26 is less than 31, and is not a majority in the House. It is
mathematically impossible for the Freedom Caucus to have stopped a
single thing that Crago and his pals wanted to pass. Crago’s
Wyoming Caucus has the majority in the House. Why were they not able to
pass any meaningful property tax relief? The Freedom Caucus could not
have stopped them. There is only one logical conclusion: they didn’t
want to.
Barry Crago can blame the Freedom Caucus for anything he wants but like Al Gore’s movie, saying it doesn’t make it true.
In
Johnson County, we haven’t trusted Cheyenne since 1892. Representative
Barry Crago’s votes prove we still don’t have any reason to.