Bien running for Governor

Brent Bien is running for the office of Wyoming’s Governor and visited Hot Springs County at the Historical Museum on April 14.

Bien is from Sheridan and his father was a Marine Corps officer. Bien went to the University of Wyoming attending their engineering college. He later was commissioned as a Marine Corps officer and spent considerable time doing that, but retired in 2019 as a colonel in the Marine Corps. While in the service, he was an aviator and went to the Naval War College and got his masters in National Security Strategic Studies. Bien maintained his Wyoming residency the entire time and he is a Republican.

Bien said that he resigned this past fall to take on the endeavor of running for governor. He said the reason was, “primarily because of the threats that I see to our personal freedoms and our state sovereignty and just the lack of leadership that I’ve seen in the governor’s office for quite a while, in particular the last few years. And so that’s what leads me to where I am right now and about the lack of leadership that you saw in the governor.”

Bien brought up the subject of Covid in Wyoming and said, “There was no reason to shut this down… Remember our constitutional rights were made during a war. And during these crises, national crises, whatever the type of crises, that’s when the Constitution is potentially vulnerable. But that’s what we have to adhere to the most.”

Bien continued and said, “my rallying cry here is to make Wyoming the freest state in the nation. Right now we rank about 26 or so. We’re at the top of the bottom half. And there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be at the top. And that’s our rightful spot at the top. But that’ll be done by aggressively protecting personal freedoms, pursuing government accountability, and promoting state sovereignty as we do it.”

Regarding the subject of energy and Wyoming’s fossil fuel resources, Bien said, “We produce the cleanest coal out of the Powder River Basin and pretty much in the world and we really have to take an aggressive approach to it. I think we’ve kind of taken a backseat to a lot of it and a lot of these special interests and federal overreach have come in and kind of set the baseline force, which I don’t want to do anymore, particularly in the state.”

When it comes to solutions to these matters, Bien recommends insulation and said, “How would you pull that off? I call it “insulationism”, not isolationism… And what that is, is it’s getting a lot of these regulations out of the way.” Bien added, “I don’t want anything to do with isolationism. But insulationism is a plan to basically better protect this state from bad federal policy.”

Speaking out the state’s budget and monetary policy Bien said, “health care and education are the two biggest parts of our budget and when projecting out both, if we don’t get our budget in control and I’m a believer in cash-based budgeting and also performance-based where we can then in the next six or seven years, we’re going to be insolvent.”

Regarding education in the state, Bien said, “And as for the curriculum, I am opposed to CRT diversity, equity, inclusion, social, emotional learning, or any derivatives thereof. Our schools should be teaching, not indoctrinating, math, science, English civics for sure. We need to be teaching our Constitution, making sure we’re doing that… I do think that our parents should have visibility on the curricula prior to the semester beginning.”

Bien continued on the subject of education and its funding, where he supports what some other states are doing. He said, “Arizona’s got what’s called a backpack fund. And that’s basically where the money does follow the student. And I do think what that would do is increase competition between public and private. In the meantime, there’s competition. That when quality goes up, prices go down. It’s just a waste that we’re at the top in the nation for spending on education per student. And if we’re at the top of that kind of spending, we should be at the top for the products and I think we demand more.”

Editors note: We are pleased to print initial candidacy announcements as news. All candidates are eligible for one article per political season.