Oh no, not again.

         Or as the old bumper sticker read: “Please God, give me one more boom. This time I promise not to piddle it away” or words to that effect.

         Our governor and members of the Legislature are preparing for one of the more difficult budget sessions in memory as severance tax revenues are plummeting because of low oil and national gas prices worldwide.

         Wyoming is a commodity state, which means that its economy booms or busts, based on the prices that are charged for energy in the form of oil, natural gas, coal and uranium.

         Out here on our isolated island, we sometimes think we are immune to the economic calamities happening elsewhere in the country. Not true.  National and international events are affecting our economy in a big way.

         To those of us who count our lifetimes in Wyoming in decades, a certain question comparing our state with the rest of USA comes to mind: Is Wyoming’s economy the opposite of the rest of the country’s?

         It may be coincidental but it seems that the last three boom-bust cycles in Wyoming and the USA have seen them as two ends of a teeter-totter. The Cowboy State’s economy has been counter-cyclical to the economy of the rest of America.

         In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the USA was booming.  Wyoming was hurting.  Then-Gov. Stan Hathaway said when he took office in 1966 he discovered the state had just $80 in its general fund. You may have to go back to some dustbowl states of the 1930s to find state governments in that bad a fiscal shape.

         Then Wyoming’s economy took off in the mid-1970s and peaked in 1981.  Then it tanked in the mid-1980s and early 1990s.

         Meanwhile, the USA was doing very well from 1985 to 1995, while we struggled to get back on our feet.

         Since 2002, our statewide economy has been soaring as energy prices spiked to all-time levels.  At the same time the national economy slipped partially under the burden of those same high energy prices.

         In 2008 the economy was the biggest single issue in that national presidential election.  Everyone was saying the USA was in a recession. Here in Wyoming?  We had $11 billion in the bank and things are going very well.

         Thus, the theory – as the USA economy goes down, does Wyoming’s economy go up?

         Now here in 2015-2016, the country’s economy is bouncing back, mainly because of super low prices at the gasoline pump. I saw prices at $1.67 per gallon in southeast Wyoming earlier in December.

         But as the nation’s fortunes rise, Wyoming’s economy is headed south. We levy a fair severance tax against the oil, natural gas, coal and uranium that come out the ground here and we use that money to pay for our state government.  It is looking like this might add up to a $600 million shortfall for the next few years. 

         So, why is this happening in Wyoming?  Again?

A very simplistic answer could be that Wyoming’s keen-eyed focus on commodities as its economic drivers just is not working.  With coal, oil, natural gas and ag products as the key components of our economy, well, when prices are high for these items our economy soars here, too. When these commodity prices are high across the country, perhaps it is a catalyst that causes plants to close, jobs to be lost and politicians to start using “it’s the economy, stupid” as their mantra for getting elected.

         Obviously, things are more complicated than this.

         Today, most observers believe the demand for commodities worldwide at some future date might help Wyoming’s economy bounce back, no matter what happens to the rest of the country.

     Also, keep in mind those international Paris global warming accords that condemn fossil fuels. They may play a more permanent role in bad economic times here in Wyoming for some time to come.

         A few years ago, I quoted a former Wyoming Business Council CEO Tucker Fagan, who is one of the true believers: “Give credit to leadership and the Legislature for investing the mineral tax receipts in people (Hathaway Scholarship Program, community colleges and Department of Workforce Services) and hard infrastructure. This will give Wyoming a step up to diversify the economy. When we did not have business parks, available water, sewer, power, broadband, etc., we just were not in the game.  Now we will be when the economy comes out its current malaise.”

         Let’s hope so.