Response to Quigley and his “white paper”

In today’s Albuquerque Journal, liberal columnist Winthrop Quigley cited a “white paper” by some of his friends in the field of economics. He relies on statements contained in this paper to again call for higher taxes and to, theoretically refute a recent RGF column written to counteract Quigley’s calls for higher taxes.

Quigley did not include a link to the new “white paper” in his column either in print or online. There is nothing at the UNM Bureau of Economic Research page as of this posting. Nothing contained in this paper has been shared with me or anyone at RGF. I have reached out to Jim Peach at NMSU (a co-author of this white paper) who I know personally as well as Quigley himself to obtain a copy. Until we receive the actual critique of our work, it is hard to even formulate a response (rest assured, we’ll push for the ABQ Journal to give us such a response).

Anyway, at least from looking at Quigley’s article in today’s paper, he brings up some interesting points that one could argue mean NM does not spend as much and as a somewhat less bloated workforce relative to other states than we argue, but he fails to provide specific data or analysis to justify his arguments. More importantly, he doesn’t even attempt to make an economic argument that higher taxes would be beneficial or are necessary to improve New Mexico’s economy.

All that said, we do agree that eliminating loopholes and flattening the rate of New Mexico’s gross receipts tax would be good things.