News item: Senators form new Western Caucus. "We believe in Western values, values of rugged individualism, of self-reliance and economic freedom," said Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso. "We oppose the federal intrusion in the everyday lives of the people of our great country."

For Westerners who inhabit the 21st century, and not some shopworn mythical version of the 19th, the announcement in The Tribune June 25 offers exciting possibilities.

If self-reliance, independence and standing on our own two feet are going to be the way of doing business in the West, then it could be curtains for Western welfare as we know it. The sprawling system of government subsidies that began when the U.S. Army cleared out the Indians to make way for white settlement based on free land and other goodies -- and which has been perpetuated by many members of the Western Caucus -- may finally be dismantled.

If the dozen Western Caucus members stick to their guns, here's what we should expect:

» Utah Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett co-sponsor legislation to reform the 1872 Mining Act and end the massive taxpayer subsidy of mining companies that now pay no royalties for taking billions of dollars worth of gold, silver and other minerals from federal lands. "For too long, the 1872 Mining Act has created a sense of dependency among multi-national mining companies," Hatch and Bennett would say in a news release. "Requiring them to pay a fair royalty of 8 percent and to pay the true costs of reclamation is one way we can honor the Western value of self-reliance."

» Idaho Sens. Jim Risch and Mike Crapo, both Republicans, lead the fight to end below-cost timber sales on national forests. "Over the past few decades the federal government has lost untold millions of dollars by selling the public's timber at prices below fair market value," the two senators might say in a prepared statement. "The Western values of independence and economic freedom demand that we end this practice."

» Wyoming Republican Sen. Mike Enzi pledges to charge ranchers who graze their stock on federal rangeland market-based rates, instead of the $1.35 a month they currently pay for a cow and calf. Enzi: "The Government Accountability Office found that federal agencies spent $136 million a year to manage grazing and got only one-sixth that amount in fees. No self-respecting independent rancher should accept that kind of federal handout, especially when Western states charge an average of $14.90 a month on state lands."

» Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl vows to end the billions of dollars in irrigation subsidies handed out since the Bureau of Reclamation began damming rivers so farmers can grow cotton in the desert. Kyl: "We believe in economic freedom, and part of economic freedom is competing on a level playing field."

» The newly formed Western Caucus introduces legislation that will require states to assume the costs of wild-land firefighting, running close to $3 billion a year in recent seasons, much of it to protect private homes in the wildland-urban interface. Barrasso, a Republican: "Washington's longstanding insistence that it pay for most firefighting is the worst kind of federal intrusion in our everyday lives. It's a violation of a sacred Western value, private property rights."

Of course, the members of the Western Caucus will do or say none of those things. They're like the Idaho state legislators who -- on April Fool's Day this year, and with no apparent sense of irony -- approved separate resolutions demanding the federal government "cease and desist" trampling on Idaho's sovereignty and asking that same federal government to fund a medical school program.

As Lewiston Morning Tribune columnist Jim Fisher reminded readers, those Idaho legislators were validating once again Western historian Bernard DeVoto's pithy description of the West's feelings about Washington: "Get out, and give us more money."

Tom Kenworthy is a Denver-based senior fellow with the Center for American Progress.