New Mexico’s oil and gas gravy train keeps rolling along

According to Stein’s law (Ben Stein’s father) “Things that can’t go on forever, won’t.” And, while New Mexico’s oil and gas industry continues to produce huge piles of cash for the State, it is simply mathematically impossible to produce $3.5 billion surpluses every year.

So, as Source New Mexico notes in a recent article on the topic, “New Mexico’s budget is expected to have .2% less revenue this fiscal year than last thanks to a slowing global oil market. But it’ll still be enough to give lawmakers more than $650 million in new money to spend at the legislative session come January.”

In other words, New Mexico’s oil production boom continues apace, but growth is slowing somewhat. Of course, New Mexico continues to have plenty of money to do whatever policymakers want. What they SHOULD do is reform the gross receipts tax and cut taxes more broadly in order to diversify and grow the New Mexico economy.

What they WILL do seems to be to increase spending AND pump more money into our sovereign wealth funds which already have $54.7 billion in them.