The bad data keeps coming for New Mexico

Rob Nikolewski cites three recent reports detailing New Mexico’s poor showing on a variety of national reports over at Capitol Report New Mexico. These reports center on our state’s weak personal income growth, our higher education system’s inability to get students to graduate, and our ongoing dependence on the federal government.

Here at Errors of Enchantment, we’ve detailed plenty of negative data surrounding the New Mexico economy, but quite frankly, it isn’t really news anymore. It is just another report that comes out with nothing but yawns elicited in the Legislature where the policy prescriptions in 2014 included raising the minimum wage, using the general fund to prop up a poorly-designed lottery scholarship program, and spending $550,000 to build a movie studio back-lot near Las Cruces to further subsidize the film industry.

Minor course corrections aren’t enough. New Mexico is on the wrong economic path (of dependence and a perpetual belief that government spending is the solution to our problems). It didn’t get their overnight and the switch to a free market economy won’t be easy or quick.