Global Watch

This page provides a Parapometrics® analysis of world events for GTU's partners, friends, beneficiaries, and other interested parties.  Articles and information of interest and suggested areas of concern can be submitted to globalwatch@grandteton.edu

United States of America

Wyoming

An Open Letter on Wyoming's Economy

February 15, 1999

Governor Jim Geringer, State Capitol, Cheyenne, WY 82002-0010

Re: A Response to The Economist¾ An Open Letter on Wyoming’s Economy

Dear Governor Geringer:

I am enclosing for your information a copy of my response to the article that appeared in The Economist on July 18, 1998, page 29, "States and their progress: The Wyoming Paradox." The article was reprinted in the Casper Star-Tribune on July 31, 1998. It provides an excellent backdrop for a discussion on Wyoming’s economy and its criticisms need to be addressed. Also enclosed for your information is a copy of my comments on the Preliminary Report of the Tax Reform 2000 Committee.

In my response to The Economist I focus on the role of our banking industry in Wyoming’s economic plight. I call attention to the fact that in establishing Wyoming’s Business Council you neglected to appoint a taskforce to explore the monetary dimensions of Wyoming’s economic problems. I urge you to appoint a permanent Council on Monetary and Banking Reform (COMBAR) to focus attention on the flaws of our monetary and international trading systems and build a foundation of academic credibility for your efforts to improve Wyoming’s economy.

In my comments on the Preliminary Report I similarly focus attention on the Committee’s failure to address the connections between Wyoming’s tax, banking, and international trading systems, and the condition of Wyoming’s economy. I trust you will find these insights instructive.

I hope my few thoughts will help stimulate an informed debate on these most important issues. Please let me know if I can further assist you, the Council, or the Committee in any way.

With my kind regards.

Roger C. Elletson

Enclosure

cc: Members of the Wyoming Business Council and Tax Reform 2000 Committee, Members of the Wyoming House and Senate, Wyoming Banking Commissioner, and the Wyoming Bankers Association,The Economist, Wyoming Press Association, and Editor, Casper Star-Tribune, et al., Sundry scholars, lawyers, businessmen, politicians, and labor representatives

__________________________________

A Response to The Economist

by Roger C. Elletson

February 15, 1999

Last July The Economist took Wyoming to task for being a “paradox” that was “going nowhere fast.” [“States and their progress: The Wyoming Paradox,” The Economist, July 18, 1998, 29. Reprinted Casper Star-Tribune, July 31, 1998.] The Economist’s observations on Wyoming’s economy are valid. Its causal analyses, however, are flawed, as are its remedial policy recommendations that are little more than a promotional piece for the adoption of a state income tax, a position now dutifully endorsed by Wyoming’s Tax Reform 2000 Committee and the Casper Star-Tribune.

The statistics cited in the article are dreary indeed and should give everyone who calls Wyoming home cause for reflection. Why should Wyoming rank last of the states in new economic growth, value-added jobs and technological industries? The reason, suggests The Economist, is that “since Wyoming coasts along on federal largesse and the trust fund, its citizens barely contribute to the running of government.” It supports its position by enumerating the absence of an income tax and the low level of sales, cigarette, alcohol, fuel and property taxes, all of which, it implies, should be raised so that Wyoming can start “paying its own way.” “When someone else picks up the tab,” the author opines, “entrepreneurial spirit languishes.” True. But what is really happening to Wyoming? What about Wyoming’s relationship with the banking industry? This is the underlying paradox faced by Wyoming, one that Wyoming shares with the nation and the world. Is this a disclosed or a clandestine relationship? Is it a nurturing relationship, or is Wyoming being victimized by its banks? Why are the actions of the Money Power ignored by economists and religiously excluded from political discourse and public debate?

At the theoretical level The Economist’s analysis reflects the conceptual limitations of traditional economics and the exchange-paradigm of money that preclude any discussion of the systemic foundations and flaws of the monetary and banking systems. The analysis ignores the fundamental relationships between a usurious, or debt-based credit money system, the agendas of the Money Power, and the levels and structures of economic development and growth. It ignores the self-evident reality that if the banking industry siphons off Wyoming’s monetary lifeblood and denies it the business and consumer credit needed to prosper, directing its investments instead into the trading centers of international finance, then entrepreneurial spirit will not only languish, it must eventually die, and business and labor will suffer accordingly. Wyoming will continue to face declining levels of real wages, increasing income inequality, decreasing employment opportunities, and the continuing emigration of its college graduates. And if the banks are engaged in such policies, why should we expect Wyoming’s corporations not to do the same and remove from the State all the revenue they can?

It is well established that population control, like capital control, is an integral aspect of monetary control. By constricting the volume of local loans by Wyoming’s banking system the Money Power can orchestrate the depopulation of Wyoming, and any other state for that matter. This can be done directly by “red lining” Wyoming loans and investments, or indirectly by increasing the real burden of indebtedness through the adverse manipulation of commodity prices or interest rates and by giving preference of foreign over domestic lending. The depopulation of America’s heartland provides a classic example of this process in action, one that The Economist itself observed in 1991 when it reported how the advocates of the “Buffalo Commons plan,” welcomed rural depopulation. [“Where Breakdown and Bankruptcy Play,” The Economist, Nov. 2, 1991, 21-22.]

It also seems a little impolite for The Economist not to have disclosed the fact that as long as our banking industry maintains its debt-based credit money system, a state income tax, for example, to ensure that Wyoming “pays its way,” in no way guarantees any improvement in Wyoming’s economy. It merely paves the way to initiate the State’s indebtedness. Wyoming currently has no general obligation bonds. A state income tax will simply provide an additional revenue stream that can be capitalized by borrowing to ensure that the State of Wyoming is harnessed instead to the treadmill of debt and the escalating levels of taxation required to service that debt. And once snared by an income tax there will be an enhanced incentive to attract ever larger hordes of tourists to the scenic but environmentally sensitive areas of the State to generate the revenues needed to meet the rising costs of indebtedness. Wyoming’s citizens will never have any prospect of relief from having to watch the predation of their patrimony by the beneficiaries of usury.

So what is the relationship between Wyoming and its banks? Under traditional economics and the current accounting system, both philosophical extensions of the exchange-paradigm of money, this relationship is deliberately obscured. The requirements of the banking industry are catered to by an accounting system whose main focus is on liquidity. Disclosures required for economic regeneration, such as the geographical sources and uses of funds and the methods and manner of the appropriations of usury, are simply ignored. These omissions are no longer acceptable. The revelations of the science of power and organic law have transformed the principles of economics and the paradigms of monetary understanding. They have revealed money as a medium of power rather than exchange and exposed the pretensions of traditional economics as a pseudology in the service of the Money Power. They have laid the foundation for the organic reformation of the accounting system. They have provided the legal basis to apply the doctrine of financial transparency to creditors as well as debtors. They mandate that the systemic flaws of the monetary, banking, and international trading systems be made central to all credible macro-economic analyses.

Under the principles of organic law, in addition to the focus on liquidity the banking industry is required to disclose, the academy to explain, and the accounting system to record, the form and geographic source of all deposits and the use and destination of all loans, investments and equity acquisitions. The banking industry is also held accountable for any inappropriate source of funds and any non-regenerative use of funds or subsidy of international trade at the expense of domestic production and employment. The Economist chose to ignore these aspects of Wyoming’s economic problems. Hopefully Wyoming’s bankers will rise to the occasion and begin to address these concerns through full and effective disclosure of their policies.

The Economist is correct in noting that we could have lived without the latest business council, now expanded to include “task forces on troublesome areas of the state’s economy.” Sadly, however, the governor neglected to appoint a task force on the one segment of the state’s economy most urgently in need of review, the banking system and the economic effects of the global regime of “free trade.” And this is despite the fact that the Money Power has subordinated all state and national interests to the mandates of usury and the agendas of international finance. It has enthroned the financial rewards of speculation over those of productive business. It has impoverished labor in the cause of debt service. It has undermined the curriculum and compromised the integrity of education. It has brought the world to the brink of a systemic financial collapse that must inevitably impact Wyoming’s economy. All to protect the monopolists of money.

What Wyoming needs is the Business Council working together with a Council for Monetary and Banking Reform (COMBAR). COMBAR will spearhead the drive for regenerative organic development through banking disclosure, accounting reform, and the debt-free issuance of national currencies. It will pursue the debt-free funding of national, state and local government to eliminate the impoverishing effects of budget deficits. It will strive for all levels of government to serve their constituencies rather than have to act as enforcement arms to further the agendas of the banking industry. The politician who inaugurates this reform will not only deserve the office of Governor, he or she will leave a lasting legacy for Wyoming and the world.

So don’t worry about Wyoming. We’ll get by. In the last century the Equality State led the nation in giving women the right to vote and electing the first woman governor. Today, Wyoming is home to Grand Teton University and the creations of the science of power and organic law. Their impact on the world will be more profound and enduring than the concerns of Martin Luther, the pronouncements of Adam Smith, or the assertions of Karl Marx. In the Third Millennium they will allow Wyoming to initiate the transformation of the Western Academy and lead the nation and the world from the preorganic to the organic era of human history.

The Economist should direct its attentions to our local and international bankers. They’re the folks who have lost their credibility.

__________________________

Roger Elletson is the founder and chancellor of Grand Teton University. He took a five-year sabbatical from the practice of law to complete and publish two seminal works on the legal foundations of the money and civilization questions and establish Grand Teton University as a “virtual university” at www.grandteton.edu. His works include Money: A Medium of Power (Grand Teton University Press, 1998; ISBN: 1-880262-05-3, 292 pp, Paper $26.00, P/H $3.95), and his contributions to PARAPOMETRICS¨—Journal of the International Parapometrics Institute (Grand Teton University Press, 1998, ISSN: 1082-250X, 107 pp, Paper $16.00, P/H $2.00). He can be reached at Grand Teton University, P.O. Box 15480, Jackson, WY 83002, Tel: 307-733-4810, Fax: 307-734-1230, or relletson@grandteton.edu.

___________________________

An Open Letter on the "Preliminary Report" of Wyoming's Tax Reform 2000 Committee

February 15, 1999

Irene Archibald, Executive Director, Tax Reform 2000 Committee, P.O. Box 472, Encampment, WY 82325

Re: An Open Letter on the Preliminary Report of the Tax Reform 2000 Committee

Dear Irene:

I read with interest the Tax Reform 2000 Committee’s “Preliminary Report” (the “report”). I’d like to take this opportunity to share with the Committee some thoughts and organic insights on both the enabling legislation that established the Committee and provided its guidelines, and the Committee’s report itself.

Advances in Organic Monetary Understanding

By way of providing some background for my comments I’d like to apprise Wyoming’s policy makers and all interested parties of recent advances in monetary understanding, their effects on economic theory, and the attendant political actions that flow from these theoretical achievements. I refer here to the debunking of the myth of the exchange-paradigm of money and the revelation that money is a medium of power rather than a medium of exchange. I refer, as well, to the associated development of the science of power, the Parapometrics¨ methodology, that in due course will inevitably supplant the partisan pretensions of traditional economics. These organic monetary advances make the power parameters of money, the policies of the banking industry, and the conduct of international finance central to any and all credible macro-economic understanding and analyses. [See, Roger C. Elletson, Money: A Medium of Power (Jackson, WY: Grand Teton University Press, 1998); ISBN: 1-880262-05-3, 292 pp, Paper $26.00, P/H $3.95.]

It is important for members of the Committee, and for everyone concerned with Wyoming’s tax system, to appreciate the full responsibility involved in a thorough investigation of Wyoming’s tax system. As I shall make clear in these few comments, that responsibility extends far beyond the tentative findings of the “Preliminary Report.” It is also important to appreciate that the Committee has had to pursue its inquiries into Wyoming’s tax system without the full level of support it could have received from the legislature. This certainly did not make the Committee’s task any easier. I would therefore like to direct my initial observations to the preorganic conceptual limitations imposed on the Committee by the enabling legislation establishing it [the “Act”].

The Limitations of the Enabling Legislation

From the standpoints of power and organic law, the opening statement of the Act embodies its conceptual shortcomings. It describes the Act as: “AN ACT relating to taxation and revenue.” [p.1.] It makes no mention of money, the medium for the measurement of both taxation and revenues. Under the exchange-paradigm of money that provides the conceptual foundation of traditional economics, this omission is perfectly acceptable. It follows logically from assuming that money is a medium of exchange. Once money is recognized as a medium of power, however, the omission becomes intellectually offensive, academically compromising, ethically disingenuous, and politically unacceptable. It is an omission whose adverse effects permeate the entire report. It is an omission that undermines both legislative and Committee credibility. It is an omission that can no longer be ignored.

Organically speaking, the opening sentence of the Act should read: “AN ACT relating to money, taxation and revenues.” The failure to make money the axis of the legislation means that the Committee has been established on a conceptual and legal fault line. Important issues that should be addressed and anticipated by the Committee have not been and will not even be considered. Future legislators will have to make policy decisions based on a flawed conceptual paradigm and an inadequate work product. In the face of economic adversity or financial tremors the people of Wyoming and the majority of their legislators will have only a vague appreciation of their predicament and little choice but to accede to the demands of special interests. In the event of more seismic financial developments the State’s legislators will be even more disadvantaged and the people of Wyoming even more vulnerable.

The Act recognizes a tax system as an instrument for “generating sufficient revenues to meet expected [state and local government] needs in the future.” [Sect.(1)(b).] This is a preorganic perception: it is intellectually limited and academically no longer acceptable. While revenue generation is certainly a valid function of any tax system, it is important for all policy makers and interested parties to realize that a tax system is also, and primarily, an instrument of monetary power, policy and control. It is the power of taxation that extends purchasing power to money itself. Taxation is thus an integral and indissoluble aspect of the money and credit creation processes of our private commercial and central banking system. No objective analysis of any tax system is possible, therefore, without providing as a foundation a comprehensive understanding and full disclosure of how the tax system serves the monetary policies of the banking industry and how those policies, in turn, impact all aspects of state and national economic advancement, stagnation, or regression.

The conceptual shortcomings of the Act’s opening statement are continued in its guidelines which are, again, deafeningly silent on the policies of the banking industry, the tax and revenue implications of usury, and the anticipated levels of future state and local indebtedness. One example will illustrate this. The fourth guideline asks the Committee to “Review and evaluate forecasts of the most likely range of state and local revenue needs.” [Sect. 1(b)(iv).] This is a perfectly proper requirement. There is no guideline, however, requiring the same of projected state and local indebtedness. Under the preorganic paradigms of traditional economics and the exchange-paradigm of money this is perfectly in order. Under the power-paradigm of monetary understanding, on the other hand, tabulations and projections of present and future state and local government indebtedness are a prerequisite for estimating “the most likely range of state and local revenue needs.” [Sect. 1(b)(iv).] Organically speaking, the Act should have specifically spelled out the Committee’s obligation to “Review and evaluate forecasts of the most likely range of state and local indebtedness” before it asked the same of revenues.

Without a mandate from its enabling legislation to review the monetary dimensions of Wyoming’s tax system, the Committee can largely be excused for ignoring them in its Preliminary Report. Now, however, the Committee is on notice about these aspects of the tax system and will be held responsible for their inclusion in its Final Report.

The Preliminary Report and the Criteria for Judging Wyoming’s Tax System

With this background in mind I would like to address the Committee’s Preliminary Report starting with its enumeration of appropriate criteria against which to measure an optimal tax system for Wyoming. It is important to keep in mind that the data presented in the report are informative and there is no reason to doubt their validity. What is a matter of public policy concern is the underlying paradigm of causal analysis within which the data are presented and the reviewed. It is these aspects of the Committee’s report that an organic critique must call into question.

Under the heading of “Background” the report opens with a set of criteria against which “to judge Wyoming’s current tax system and to base recommended changes.” [p.1.] All eight criteria are commendable. The criteria, however, are understandably circumscribed to preclude any mention of the effects on Wyoming’s tax structure of the levels of state and local government indebtedness or the economic or demographic policies embodied in our monetary, banking and international trading systems. By their omission, the report implicitly suggests that the Committee is either unaware of these considerations, or that they do not exist, or that they are dimensions of Wyoming’s tax system that lie beyond the purview of ordinary contemplation and are thus legitimately excluded from public discussion. They are, presumably, the sacrosanct supports of the “free market” providing the foundational canons of traditional economics and the dogmas of theological materialism. They must just be accepted without question. While such selective omissions are condoned and indeed sanctioned under the precepts of traditional economics, under the advances of organic monetary understanding and the science of power they no longer pass intellectual, academic, or ethical muster.

An organic review of the judging criteria for Wyoming’s tax system requires the amplification of some of the existing criteria and the addition of two new criteria. Organic criteria for Wyoming’s tax system should read as follows.

A Wyoming tax system should:

(i) Be accountable to taxpayers and regenerative of Wyoming’s economic, social, and demographic foundations. It should be an instrument of public policy and the common weal and should be shielded from manipulation or control to further vested interests or the policies of the banking industry.

(ii) The submitted criterion is acceptable.

(iii) Treat individuals, business, banks and other financial institutions equitably, imposing similar tax burdens on people, businesses, banks and financial institutions in similar circumstances. The tax system should legitimately impel the process of production and exchange. It should be crafted to minimize regressivity, shun predation, and serve only as an instrument for organic, and socially regenerative economic and demographic advancement.

(iv) Be framed in such a way as to enhance organic economic development efforts. The tax structure should attract and not deter regenerative businesses seeking to move into the state or desiring to stay in Wyoming. It should be conducive to maintaining a growing and vibrant population.

(v) Be composed of elements that support the ability of local governments to raise revenue to meet their needs without being forced onto the treadmills of compounding debt and usury. As a matter of public policy the tax system should be supportive of invoking the monetary mandates of the Constitution for state-wide and nation-wide policies to encourage the interest-free funding of state and local government needs and expenditures and thereby avoid the socially destructive effects of budget deficits.

(vi) The submitted criterion is acceptable.

(vii) Be responsive to interstate economic competition. It should monitor, and be publicly and assertively aware of, and informed about, the monetary and banking foundations and control of international markets and the international trading system and how these impact Wyoming’s economy. It should be responsive to the legitimate requirements for the protection and advancement of regenerative Wyoming businesses.

(viii) Limit its involvement in spending and land use decisions to ensuring that both decision making processes serve Wyoming’s social, economic and demographic regeneration and advancement rather than furthering the agendas of special interests.

(ix) Rest on the philosophical foundations of organic law and economic, social, and demographic regeneration and advancement. Wyoming’s tax system should be able to rely on uniform accounting standards for all local subdivisions of government. It should also be able to require whatever accounting reforms are necessary to provide the financial data necessary for informed and regenerative tax decisions by Wyoming’s policy makers, including, but not limited to, the comprehensive disclosure of the sources and uses of all funds by businesses, banks, and financial institutions.

(x) Rest on the philosophical foundations of financial transparency for both debtors and creditors alike. As a matter of public policy an equitable tax system requires that the principle of full financial disclosure is applied not only to productive businesses but also to the loan, investment, and asset acquisition policies of the banking industry and other financial institutions.

Important Aspects of the Committee’s Report

I would now like to address some of the other important aspects of the Committee’s report.

It is fair to say that the Committee’s Preliminary Report provides a superficial assessment of Wyoming’s tax system; a basic, initial review. For students of monetary power and public policy the most striking aspect of the report is its failure to make any mention of the relationships between Wyoming’s revenues and its tax and banking systems. It also declines to discuss anticipated levels of indebtedness for the state, local governments, and the various taxing authorities, or how the demands of debt service will inevitably affect future revenue requirements and taxes.

I shall now expand briefly on some of the positions taken in the report and points raised by the Committee to show how they need amplification to meet organically acceptable academic standards.

Problems with the Current Tax System

On page 5 the report starts its discussion on the “Problems with the Current Tax System.”

1) The first problem the report identifies is that “Tax collections in Wyoming are less stable than other states.” This is an important observation. The report also notes that:

“Wyoming’s mineral taxes are levied on the 100 percent market value of production. The prices are nationally and internationally determined. Price changes dominate the swings in the valuation of major mineral production.”

The report shows that as a result of these swings in valuation mineral taxes fell from $752.5 million to $494.5 million between 1982 and 1996, a 34 percent decrease. The report also correctly points out that “market values” determine the growth in non-agricultural property taxes and that “market values”, in turn, “fluctuate due to changes in economic forces such as the job market, personal income, the availability and terms of credit, price level, tax rates and location dersirability.” [p.6, emphasis added.] In its list of “economic forces” the Committee should have included the most important economic force of all, the policies and agendas of the national and international banking industry. As a matter of its own economic well-being, the State of Wyoming should begin to monitor these “economic forces” continuously and extensively.

The Committee, on the other hand, defers of these “economic forces” almost as if they are inscrutable “Acts of God.” They are not. They are the products of the monetary policies, power, and control of international finance. And it is precisely because these “economic forces” hold such overwhelming control over Wyoming’s present and future financial condition that Wyoming should take the national and global lead in establishing a permanent Council for Monetary and Banking Reform (COMBAR) to analyze and better understand these forces. Wyoming needs to begin the process of harnessing these “economic forces” to further the betterment of all its citizens and the citizens of the nation, rather than simply allowing those forces to advance the agendas of international finance at the cost of Wyoming’s and the nation’s economic and social debilitation.

2) The second of the “Problems with the Current Tax System” raised by the Committee is that: “residents do not contribute to the services they receive based on their ability to pay.” [p.7.] The tendentious implication of the Committee’s position here is that Wyoming’s residents need to pay more for the services they receive. Possibly. But Wyoming residents should not have to pay more just to service additional indebtedness to the banking industry.

Organically speaking, the question must be asked: is the Committee not indulging itself in conceptual semantics and manipulable statistics in making the case that Wyoming residents need to pay more for the services they receive? It should be recalled that this is precisely the position taken by The Economist in its criticism of Wyoming. [“States and their progress: The Wyoming Paradox,” July 18, 1998, 29.]

The Committee suggests, for example, that “Wyoming residents pay mineral taxes only to the extent that the stockholders reside in the State.” [p.6.] Is this truly the case? Is the Committee suggesting that if the out-of-state stockholders of Wyoming’s mineral companies were to physically relocate and move to Wyoming, than all of a sudden, Wyoming’s residents would be carrying the full financial burden for their services? Wouldn’t it be more accurate, for purposes of public policy analysis, to assume that the mineral taxes are being paid by the Wyoming corporate operations themselves, as identifiable, legal, corporate, Wyoming residents, rather than by the out-of-state stockholders of those corporations? And what about the depletion of Wyoming’s patrimony through the extraction of its mineral resources? Are these irreplaceable losses borne by the out-of-state stockholders? Is this depletion not entitled to recognition in the State’s accounting system? And how can this best be done? And, most importantly, how can Wyoming’s residents be fairly expected to pay more if the banking industry has already targeted the State for diminishing incomes and depopulation. [See, Roger C. Elletson, “A Response to The Economist,” posted on Global Watch at www.grandteton.edu.] I respectfully submit that before the Committee can presume to have fulfilled its mission on the State’s tax system, or Wyoming’s legislators their responsibilities on the matter, all these issues need to be comprehensively explored.

On page 8 of the report the Committee states that “Wyoming’s current tax structure may contribute to the lack of economic growth in the State.” This is certainly an important issue to address. But far more important for the Committee to address, and the people of Wyoming to debate, is that “Restrictive loan and investment policies by Wyoming’s banking industry may contribute to the lack of economic growth and the state’s depopulation.”

The Committee commendably points out that the tax system should “minimize regressivity” [p.1(iii)], that “Wyoming’s sales tax exhibits regressivity” [p.10], and that “[a]n income tax will bring more balance and fairness to the State tax structure” [p.19]. The Committee fails to mention, however, that when the real objective of a state income tax is to provide the tax base to enable the banking and financial industries to initiate a program of compounding State indebtedness, then it is an income tax rather than a sales tax that epitomizes “regressivity” and eventually becomes an instrument of predation rather than redistribution. Would that not offend the Committee’s first criterion, that Wyoming’s tax system should be “accountable to taxpayers.”? [p.1(i).] Or is the system only intended to be accountable to wealthy taxpayers, the nations’s creditors? The Committee needs to ensure that it is not guilty of a lack of candor. It needs to protect against inadvertently encouraging any negative perceptions of its actions that might fester in Wyoming’s public conscience.

Important Insights and Deserved Commendations

The Committee deserves the people’s thanks for making the commendable recommendation for the implementation of a real estate transfer tax. [p.17.] Under our current debt-based credit money system the compounding appropriations of usury allow the nation’s creditors to command an ever larger percentage of the nation’s money. The “free market” also permits the nation’s creditors to demand the unrestricted right to transform their monetary claims into real wealth, including real estate. Organically speaking, the state needs to mitigate the socially destructive effects of this orchestrated transfer of wealth by taxing all participants in the exchanges that make it happen.

The Committee makes an important point when it says that “The Governor and the Legislature should form a separate committee to examine State and local government spending.” [p.24.] And it makes the equally important suggestion that “a study should also identify what increases in spending since 1990 are due to inflation, mandates and non-essential growth in government spending.” [p.25.] Questions such as “inflation” and “non-essential growth in government spending,” however, cannot be honestly or fully addressed without a comprehensive discussion of the foundations and impact of our monetary, banking and international trading systems. The Committee needs to spell this out in its Final Report. And this result can best be achieved through a recommendation that “The Governor and the Legislature should form a separate and permanent Council on Monetary and Banking Reform (COMBAR) to examine the economic, social, and demographic effects on Wyoming of the nation’s monetary, banking, and international trading systems and policies.”

The Committee also deserves kudos for its recommendation to have “consistency in financial reporting by local governments.” [[p.25.] More is required, however. Not only are uniform accounting standards and practices required between various local governments to better coordinate Wyoming’s tax system, new accounting categories are needed to itemize the effective tax that is being demanded of every segment of the economy to sustain our monetary system. Until these accounting reforms are implemented, the State of Wyoming and its local governments will continue to lack the necessary tools to identify the legitimate costs of government services and distinguish them from the artificial costs included in their price tags that are essentially a usury tax paid to our banking industry for the use of its current debt-based credit money system.

The Looming Deficit and the Realities of Practical Politics

Behind the report and all the discussions on Wyoming’s tax system lies the stark reality of a looming budget deficit for the coming biennium in excess of $100 million. Deciding what taxes to raise and who should pay them, and what expenses to cut, and who should bear those cuts, will continue to dictate the substance of political reality. It will increase social friction, escalate the tensions among Wyoming’s citizens, and further fray the tender fabric of the state. It will fuel economic enmity and incite political factions.

Students of power will recognize Wyoming’s predicament as a textbook example of the orchestrated use of monetary power. On the one hand the State’s revenues have been reduced through adverse commodity price manipulations. On the other hand the State must live with an escalating, or inflationary, cost structure impelled by the compounding exactions of usury.

For any state, when diminishing revenues meet rising costs the results are traditionally predictable—higher taxes and a greater indebtedness to cover compounding deficits. Residents must either accept diminished living standards today through higher taxes for government expenditures, or an even greater diminution in living standards tomorrow through still higher taxes to pay not only for the government expenditures, but also to pay the compounding interest or usury on the debt incurred to the banking and financial industries who are the ultimate beneficiaries. In a repeat of what they accomplished on the national front, our financial institutions will sugar-coat the option of State indebtedness and sweeten it to the point that incumbent politicians will be tempted to take it over the immediately painful alternative of current taxes. Wyoming will then be on the slippery path to further economic impoverishment and social degradation.

Today, however, this need not be Wyoming’s fate. With the advances of organic monetary understanding the academic foundations have been laid for Wyoming to consider the alternative of invoking the monetary mandates of the Constitution for state-wide and nation-wide policies to pursue the interest-free funding of state and local government expenditures to avoid the economically and socially destructive effects of budget deficits.

The stage is set, the props in place, and the drama is inexorably unfolding. The protagonist is the banking industry. The rest of the actors are bit players. But only the bit players are on stage. The protagonist is content to remain behind the scenes and watch a misdirected cast following the ill-advised suggestions of orchestrated self interest, stumbling in disarray and struggling to cope with a misleading script. The only question remaining is whether or not the people of Wyoming are finally ready to demand of their representatives, the ordinary actors, that they oblige the protagonist to come forth from the shadows, acknowledge the advances of organic monetary understanding, face the spotlight of public scrutiny, and openly take his place in a civilized society.

The Inadequacy of the Preliminary Report and the Responsibility of the Final Report

If the Committee intends to successfully complete its mission it needs to recognize that its first order of business is to assure the academic community and the people of Wyoming that its members are qualified and willing to address all the issues involved in developing a comprehensive and equitable tax structure to meet the long-term revenue needs of Wyoming’s future. The Committee’s Preliminary Report failed to do this.

In its Final Report the Committee should recognize its responsibilities to meet the advancing standards of organically acceptable scholarship. The Committee should acknowledge the advances of organic monetary understanding and fulfill its intellectual, academic and ethical obligations to bring these into the mainstream of academic analyses and public debate. And, I say again, the best way for the Committee to do this is to recommend, in its Final Report, a further organic study of Wyoming’s tax structure through the establishment of a permanent Council for Monetary and Banking Reform, this time under an informed and comprehensive legislative mandate.

I trust that the Committee will find these few thoughts instructive and I invite its members to contact me if I can assist them in any way.

With my kind regards.

Roger C. Elletson

Enclosure

cc: Governor Jim Geringer, Members of the Wyoming Tax Reform 2000 Committee and Business Council, Members of the Wyoming House and Senate, Wyoming Commissioner of Banking and Wyoming Bankers Association, Wyoming Press Association, Editor, Casper Star-Tribune, et al., Sundry scholars, lawyers, businessmen, politicians, and labor representatives

__________________________

 

Home ] About GTU ] Looking for Partners ] Administration & Divisions ] Mission & History ] Intl. Parapometrics Institute ] The New Academy ] [ Global Watch ] Parapometrics International ] Seminar Programs ] Grand Teton Divinity School ] Degrees & Courses ] Students & Services ] GTU Press ] University Bookstore ] Academy of Western Scholars ] Trustees & Alumni ] Friends & Benefactors ]

info@grandteton.edu
©1998 Grand Teton University. Parapometrics® is a registered service mark used by Grand Teton University