Another day, another attack by a liberal Democrat levied against Gov. Martinez on the economy. This time, liberal former Gov. candidate Alan Webber attacks Gov. Martinez in the Albuquerque Journal on what we can all agree on is New Mexico’s poor overall economic performance. As I’ve written before, this remains the Democrats’ best line of attack against Martinez in the 2014 election, but there are several issues.
1) The Dems offer no sound solutions. Gary King wants a higher minimum wage and laws mandating “equal pay” for women. Webber (as indicated in his article) wants “green jobs” despite repeated reports indicating that projections of “green jobs” employing massive numbers of people being overblown. Both are typical, central-planning ideas that put government in charge of picking and choosing the industries that are favored and those that should fail.
2) Government doesn’t create jobs. At the outset of his article, Webber notes the “unbelievable record Gov. Susana Martinez has of creating jobs.” Unfortunately for Webber, Gary Johnson had it best when he said, “I didn’t create a single job as Governor.” Government can set up reasonable tax rates, rules, and regulations that allow average New Mexicans to build businesses and create jobs, but by removing productive resources from the private sector economy, government mostly kills both wealth and jobs and sometimes diverts those resources to other industries whether those are actually desired or demanded by the marketplace.
3) Gov. Martinez is merely the Governor, not the queen or dictator. In other words, Martinez has controlled one branch of New Mexico’s government, the executive, for just less than four years. The Courts and Legislature, not to mention the PRC and most local bodies, have been controlled by big-government liberals for decades. New Mexico did have a good decade during the 2000s in part due to some serious income tax cuts, but it’s not like New Mexico was at the top of all the good economic lists before Martinez got elected.
Democrats, whether that means Gary King or anyone else, have a long way to go to convince New Mexicans that they have viable solutions for New Mexico’s economy.
I noted last week that KOB channel 4, 5 PM news carried a piece placing the blame for NM’s terrible economy on the shoulders of Gov. Martinez for being unable to “work with the legislature”. KOB would never suggest that the democrat legislature will not work with the governor. Nor would they say that the democrat legislature does everything in its power to block every attempt to make NM a more business friendly state. There will be no changes for the better until the obstructionists in the legislature are sent packing. Ditto for the obstructionists to education reform in NM.
Economic improvement will start with lower taxes, Right to Work laws and letting the governor (either party) choose their own judges; not have to select from a list provided by some partisan panel.
I agree with you Fred. My only defense for the media relating to her interactions with the Legislature is that Martinez herself has not really made the case that the Legislature is a problem or that it is an obstacle to more significant reform efforts. Rather, Martinez has backed only very modest reforms that have in turn tended to be further watered down.