The Democrats’ “Jobs Plan” is nothing of the sort

Like the movie “Groundhog Day,” New Mexico’s Democrats keep recycling the same “jobs plan” and calling it something new. As Sen. Clemente Sanchez outlined in today’s Albuquerque Journal, the latest and greatest plan boils down to the following (with a critique of each):

• Broadband expansion: there are ways to reduce regulation that will result in greater broadband deployment, but the Democrats’ plans involve spending more of your tax dollars to deploy broadband, not peeling back regulations;

• Increase Capital outlay spending: Literally this is taking money out of one pocket and putting it in the other and calling it economic growth. Government infrastructure spending must first be taxed away from another productive source;

• Minimum wage increase: Most of New Mexico’s major cities and the counties they are in (Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Las Cruces) all have minimum wages well-above the federal minimum. One would be hard-pressed to find any positive impact on the economies of these cities. To claim raising the minimum wage will create jobs is just asinine; 

• Industrial hemp research: It is unclear how “hemp research” will be an economic boon, but it is possible that hemp production could create some jobs and productive economic activity. This is the one solid proposal in the Democrats’ plan, but as this article points out, hemp is a water-intensive crop and the economic benefits are rather limited;