A waste of time. That would be a good way to describe the “analysis” of a group that recently traveled to Phoenix to figure out why Arizona’s largest city (Phoenix) is so much more successful than New Mexico’s (Albuquerque). While the head of the Rio Grande Foundation has indeed been to Phoenix (and other parts of Arizona) many times, he didn’t need to take a trip to Arizona State University to figure out the situation.

Here are a few of many ways in which Arizona public policies or policy outcomes make Arizona a fast-growing, successful state that leaves New Mexico in the dust:

Arizona’s top personal income tax rate is 2.5% while New Mexico’s is 5.9%. Keep more money = attract more people;

Arizona is a “right to work” state. New Mexico remains “forced unionism” for private sector workers;

While it DOES have a high sales tax rate 8.38%, Arizona does NOT have a harmful gross receipts tax like New Mexico’s which is not that much lower;

Arizona has NO state-level prevailing wage law (New Mexico does). This means that public infrastructure projects in Arizona are done at market wage rates, not artificially inflated rates;

Arizona’s labor force participation rate is significantly higher than New Mexico’s meaning fewer people on welfare programs and more people paying taxes. New Mexico’s Medicaid population is also the highest in the nation which sucks money from other taxpayers and programs.

Because it is more business friendly Arizona has 10 companies listed on the Fortune 500 index. New Mexico has few publicly traded companies headquartered in the State.  

Arizona’s crime (while rather high) is nowhere near as high as New Mexico’s;

Arizona’s K-12 system has a variety of school choice options and outperforms New Mexico’s (which is dead last);

Arizona outperforms New Mexico even while spending 45% less money per student;

Despite the New Mexico delegation looking to further expand New Mexico’s higher education footprint as a means of “revitalizing” downtown, it is noteworthy that Arizona spends approximately 1/3rd what New Mexico spends (per student). 

According to the local weather folks June 16th was the first 100 degree day of 2025. So, it only makes sense (not really) that folks behind the proposed “Heat Rule” in New Mexico (Healthy Climate New Mexico) were outdoors in the middle of the hottest day of the year for their first “Beat the Heat Fiesta.”

As usual we at the Rio Grande Foundation dropped by to check things out. We stopped by around 2:30 for the 2pm to 5pm event. It appeared that most people were “beating the heat” by staying home.

There was free swag to be had including some pointers on staying cool, some towels to dip in water and cool off, and some “liquid IV” drink. We didn’t pick up any condoms or Narcan.

The Heat Rule remains a costly potential extension of government. The deadline for public comment has been extended to July 17. Take a moment to comment today! (click the link)

As part of our work to better inform voters (in this case those in the City of Albuquerque) about the issues in this fall’s election, we are surveying candidates for mayor and city council. The survey below is from current city councilor and District 5 (on Albuquerque’s West Side) candidate Dan Lewis.  You can find out more about Dan and his campaign here. You can find a PDF of his candidate survey here.

As part of our work to better inform voters (in this case those in the City of Albuquerque) about the issues in this fall’s election, we are surveying candidates for mayor and city council. The survey below is from mayoral candidate Mayling Armijo. Armijo has primarily worked in economic development over the years. You can find out more about her and her campaign here. You can find a PDF of her candidate survey here. 

As they did all across the country this past Saturday (which was also President Trump’s birthday AND the 250th anniversary of the US Army), protesters in Albuquerque came out in droves (perhaps 3,000 or so) at Albuquerque’s Mariposa Basin Park.

Given the location an easy bike ride away from his house (and thus not requiring sitting in traffic or parking), RGF’s President Paul Gessing felt that he “needed” to check out the situation. Pictures are below. Here are some of his comments:

1. 1. 1. 1. To the extent that the protesters were actually opposed to executive or even government power, that is a good thing. I don’t remember the left being exercised by Joe Biden’s numerous usurpations of constitutional power. And, of course, MLG has also been an authoritarian on COVID and gun rights.
         2. The protests were large and—at least in ABQ—peaceful. Perhaps protesting in the suburbs draws a different crowd than Civic Plaza or near UNM?
         3. Still a few people wearing masks even outside and after more than 5 years since COVID began.
         4. Based on their signs/flags, most of the protesters seemed to fall into one of three camps: 1) Personal dislike of Trump. 2) Pro-immigration 3) Pro-trans/LGBT. I’d have LOVED to see something about federal spending or tariffs, but this was a partisan-led protest

      

      

      

      

      

On this week’s interview Paul talks to Sarah Smith, an activist in Las Cruces, New Mexico, about some of the most important issues facing her area of the State. Sarah came to prominence during the COVID as a leading opponent of MLG’s lockdowns.

Sarah is involved with Coalition of Conservatives in Action (a Las Cruces grassroots group), New Mexico Freedoms Alliance (which operates statewide), and  the National Coalition for Health Integrity.

They discuss a recent referendum attempt that was denied by politicians in Las Cruces, plans afoot to ban natural gas in Las Cruces, and broader economic and political issues in the City. Don’t miss this conversation!

Back in 2023 the Governor through her unelected Environmental Improvement Board rammed through a radical plan imposing a 43% electric vehicle mandate. As of right now and with the 43% mandate looming, New Mexico car dealers sell about 5% EV’s. Everyone admits that New Mexico will massively fail to hit 43%. No OTHER state is anywhere close to hitting 43% either. Colorado has the highest percentage of EV sales at 26.4% but that is a far cry from 43%.

So, with bipartisan votes in both houses of Congress and President Trump’s signature having recently eliminated the ability of states to follow California’s unrealistic EV mandates, it is surprising but not totally shocking that New Mexico has decided to “double down on stupid” by joining California in suing to keep its unrealistic EV mandate in place.

The suit is tactically over usage of the Congressional Review Act. It is hard to see a judge (let alone the US Supreme Court) choosing to get involved in what amounts to a squabble over parliamentary rules of Congress, but you never can tell with judges these days.

It is very “on brand” for Gov. Lujan Grisham to advocate so strongly against New Mexicans and their own needs and wants relating to vehicle preference on behalf of HER demands.

There is no question that New Mexico’s consistent “dead last” ranking in the annual Annie E. Casey Kids Count report is a serious and downright tragic situation. That’s because these awful rankings have real world consequences for our children and the future of our rapidly-aging state.

But, that doesn’t mean that we can’t laugh about aspects of the situation, especially the responses of New Mexico’s numerous left-wing activists and politicians to the ongoing failure of their policies. One might think that Michelle Lujan Grisham JUST took office given their “we’ll get ’em next year” rhetoric. Check out the Albuquerque Journal story on the results for details. We especially like the comment of the head of Voices for Children which seemed to throw water on the entire idea of the report itself:

Local governments where politicians push a big construction project absent community demand or a reasonable “game plan.”

A broken state capital outlay system that pumps out cash to local governments with few strings attached.

No master plan, no budget, and no oversight at any level of government for a massive $13 million taxpayer-funded project. All of this at a time when the State’s roads and bridges are suffering from poor conditions and inadequate maintenance.

And people wonder why New Mexico is ranked 50th and is found to offer its taxpayers a poor return on their tax dollars!

In New Mexico there are numerous ways to mark the time: green chile harvest, the State Fair, Balloon Fiesta, and the monsoons come to mind, but in recent years June has also meant the annual appearance at the very bottom in the annual Kids Count report. The annual report is put together by the Annie E. Case Foundation (a center left policy group working nationally). The results are reported (and justified) by New Mexico Voices for Children. 

Yet again, New Mexico continues to go in the OPPOSITE direction in terms of child well-being with 7 measurable points getting worse and only 4 improving.

A few things are worth noting:

1. Earlier this year MLG and her allies (including Voices) claimed that New Mexico had made dramatic improvements in child poverty. Sadly, in the real nothing of the sort has happened. As Kids Count notes 25% of New Mexico kids were in poverty in 2023 (the report’s data is based on 2023 info). In 2019 the percent of New Mexico children in poverty was…25%).
2. Funnily (in a sad way) while New Mexico student performance on math and reading dropped dramatically in the new report (thanks largely to MLG locking kids out of school during COVID), graduation rates rose. This only highlights why graduation rates are lacking in credibility.
3. 
4. It is just sad to watch Voices attempt to spin the data to make it look like the “progressive” policies in Santa Fe are either working or simply don’t go far enough. Their policies have failed. They failed last year and they failed the year before that (2023).

A reversal of course and embrace of free market economic policies combined with educational choice and accountability would be (our) better way of improving outcomes for New Mexico children, but it won’t happen under our current “leadership.”

UPDATE: This proposal was killed in a committee, but we are told it COULD be brought back. Please consider emailing Council below:

A bill is now being considered at  Albuquerque City Council known as the “Renter’s Empowerment and Neighborhood Transparency Act.” If adopted it would have profound, negative impacts on the City’s apartment rental industry and availability of rental units. I’m referring to bill O-25-88

RGF president Paul Gessing recently had an opportunity to speak about New Mexico’s economic, education policy, and crime issues (and how we work to improve them) with a group from Global Ties ABQ. The delegation came from southeast Asian nations including Vietnam, Australia, and Laos to name just a few.

It is always fun to share a bit about New Mexico with those from other nations.

Crime and homelessness are two of the dominant issues that voters will be considering as they head to the polls to vote for mayor and city council this November, but the Rio Grande Foundation is asking candidates for mayor (and soon city council) for their views on a wide variety of issues thanks to a new candidate survey being sent to candidates starting today. You can find the short 10 question survey here. If you are a candidate you can print out the two short pages with detailed instructions on how to return the survey (or you can do it directly online).

Results of the survey will be posted at both the Rio Grande Foundation site and here at ErrorsofEnchantment.com. They will be shared widely on social media and other traditional media outlets as well. They will also be shared to like-minded organizations. Each question relates to critical economic policy issues facing the City of Albuquerque and the next administration regardless of who they are. Page one of the two page survey is below.

Click on the picture below to find the full survey.

According to a new Wallethub report New Mexicans  spend the 6th highest amount in the nation on health care relative to their median incomes. This is not a surprise to anyone who follows either economic or health care policy issues in New Mexico. The State is both impoverished and facing a shortage of medical providers.

The methodology was as follows:

WalletHub analyzed the prices of five components, including the costs of doctor, dentist and optometrist visits, plus the prices of ibuprofen and lipitor, across the 50 states.

We summed up the individual costs of the components and adjusted the resulting figure to the median monthly income in each state, then used these results to rank-order our sample.

Despite having $61 billion sitting in state government accounts, neither the Legislature nor Gov. Lujan Grisham lifted a finger during the 2025 legislative session to address the health provider shortage (or its costs). They also did not return any of the State’s money to taxpayers. The State’s high Medicaid rates undoubtedly play a role in high provider costs.

As health policy expert Michael Cannon notes: “Medicaid increases the cost of private health care and insurance, crowds out private
health insurance and long-term care insurance, and discourages enrollees from climbing the economic ladder.” Check out the map below to see where New Mexico ranks relative to other state.

In a bit of good news the New Mexico Environment Department’s proposed “Heat Rule” for which we commented (in opposition) and encouraged the public to do the same, the Department has extended the comment period to July 17 due to the high level of public comment. You can (and should) provide comment at either link above.

At this time it is worth taking a closer look at the data used to support this proposal as well as the coalition pushing the proposal and their motivations. Simply put, there has been zero data produced in support of specifics contained in the “Heat Rule.” Why should employees working in certain conditions take that exact amount of time off? What are the specific benefits? What is the exact problem being addressed? None of that information is clearly provided.

In fact, what is notable about the groups supporting this rule is that the construction and trades groups are NOT the primary advocates for strictly regulating heat exposure. Actually, the main spokesperson appears to be Conservation Voters New Mexico which advocates on climate change. Interestingly, both major teacher unions are involved as well and former teacher union lobbyist (NEA) Charles Goodmacher is a policy advisor as well.

For the environmental groups it appears that the “Heat Rule” is simply a way to advance the “climate change” agenda under a different guise. And, while teachers unions seem like an odd fit, they ARE radical leftists who have an iron clad lock on the State’s failed education system AND there HAVE been issues with cooling units at some schools in recent years. Is that the motivation?

The Heat rule seems to be just an opportunity to further impose costs on New Mexico businesses for ideological reasons, not due to any specific benefit to the environmental or teacher union groups themselves. An additional and highly questionable group supporting the rule appears to be various “progressive” governed cities. Check out the logo below from Healthy Climate NM website:

A panel of trade judges just unanimously declared the majority of Trump’s tariffs illegal. What does this mean?

Another candidate has entered the race for Gov. What does it mean?

Treasurer of New Mexico’s Democratic party abruptly resigns 5 weeks into the job. What’s going on?

The Food Stamp program (SNAP) is being trimmed in the BBB. New Mexico is the number one food stamp recipient state.

MLG and other blue state governors respond to the end of California’s EV mandates.

Recent testimony highlights New Mexico’s absurd federal dependency.

Paul recently talked to KOAT TV about Albuquerque’s shady public campaign financing system.

A new report from Wallethub has found that New Mexico is the 2nd-poorest state in the nation. This is completely unsurprising considering that New Mexico is among the highest poverty states and most dependent on government with little in the way of private industry. Interestingly, as the report further breaks down, both the State’s top earners and bottom earners are quite poor.

Income in New Mexico (1=Best, 25 =Avg.):

• Overall Rank: 50^th
• 46^th – Average Annual Income of Top 5% (Adjusted for COLI): $371,006
• 49^th – Average Annual Income of Bottom 20% (Adjusted for COLI): $12,351

Of course, unlike West Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and other impoverished states, New Mexico is sitting on $61 billion that policymakers refuse to return to residents of the State. Of course, MLG has claimed massive improvement in child poverty which (again) fails to check out.

The following is a four part thread from Alex Ross who does a great job with the Roswell Daily Record. He highlights a recent presentation given to the New Mexico Legislature on New Mexico’s dependence on federal spending. I’m summarizing and adding to a few of the points made.

Propst pointed out that for every $1 New Mexico pays in taxes it receives $3.21 back in federal funds on things ranging from direct payments (Medicare, Social Security and SNAP), to grants, payments to state and federal employees and money for the state’s national labs, military installations and other assets.

Today at the Inaugural meeting of the Federal Funds Stabilization Committee, Wayne Propst, secretary of the @NewMexicoDFA cited data from a recent report which ranked New Mexico as number one in terms of states that receive federal funds.

He added that in all the state’s budget for FY 26 totals about $33.16 billion with dollars coming from various sources, with $14.44 billion or about 44% of it, coming from federal dollars.

Of course, New Mexico has long been both poor and extremely dependent on federal dollars, but the Rio Grande Foundation has been concerned for many years about this dependency (and the poverty driving it). Sadly, while the State sits on $61 billion and numerous other pots of money to enact bold economic changes, the State’s so-called “leadership” would rather whine about a loss of funds from a federal government that is $36 trillion in debt.

1/4

— Alex Ross (@Alexrosstweets) May 29, 2025

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The idea of Albuquerque’s public campaign finance law is to “get money out of politics.” Of course, reality doesn’t always work out the way the it is intended.

In fact, the upshot of the system as it exists is that candidates often qualify for public financing and THEN have “measure finance committees” (essentially PACs) set up by friends and supporters to run other aspects of their campaigns. Worse, as we saw when Tim Keller ran and won in 2017 he abused the system, but was never held truly accountable and remained mayor. You can check out the KOAT story here. 

The Rio Grande Foundation opposes taxpayer-funded elections on principle. Candidates should have to raise money from willing donors, not forced contributions to their campaigns through taxation. As we’ve seen and as this story reiterates, the system has utterly failed to “replace” private interests as a source of campaign support.

Gov. Lujan Grisham’s latest defeat at the hands of the Trump Administration came recently when bipartisan majorities in BOTH houses of Congress (including New Mexico Democrat Gabe Vasquez) voted to overturn California’s exemption to federal emissions regulations. This exemption has been expanded dramatically in recent years to the point that California’s plan was to eliminate the internal combustion engine from the state by 2035. Also, other “blue” states like New Mexico had been using the exemption to enact their own EV mandates. In New Mexico that meant 82% of all vehicles sold by 2032 would be EV’s. 

But, Congress and President Trump acted to end California’s exemption. Of course, New Mexico car dealerships were only selling 5.53% EV’s as the mandated 43% EV sales requirement was kicking in. So, New Mexico is nowhere near achieving MLG’s goal.

What’s next? It looks like MLG and the other left wing governors are going to be rather limited in their next steps as this article notes: they have formed the “Affordable Clean Car Coalition.” What will that coalition do? The answer is, “not much.” According to the Coalition’s statement:

We will continue collaborating as states and leveraging our longstanding authority under the Clean Air Act, including through state programs that keep communities safe from pollution, create good-paying jobs, increase consumer choice, and help Americans access cleaner and more affordable cars. As we consider next steps for our clean vehicle programs, our states will engage stakeholders and industry to provide the regulatory certainty needed while redoubling our efforts to build a cleaner and healthier future.

The coalition plans to work together to develop solutions that make lower-emission vehicles more affordable and accessible. That could involve expanding access to charging stations.

The states also plan to explore opportunities for developing and adopting what they call “next-generation standards and programs” aimed at reducing vehicle pollution.

Of course, Americans already have ready access to EV’s and New Mexico continues to subsidize them directly as well as charging stations for them. Aside from spending even more tax money on subsidies there’s not much else to be done by MLG (thankfully). MLG has consistently pushed for unrealistic and costly environmental goals throughout her time in office. Like the Wicked Witch of the West all she can do is shriek while her power wanes.

In a recent interview w/ Source New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham whined about potential federal reductions in the generosity of SNAP (also known as food stamps). The Gov. said in part:

You’ve got $1 billion that we get into the state for SNAP… These are radical cuts. It’s a little bit different and I don’t think people quite understand the nuance of it, but we could be on the hook for up to $300 million if the cuts, as we know them, were voted on today.

So, we were curious as to which states have the highest percentage of their populations on SNAP benefits. In a surprise to absolutely no one New Mexico has the highest percentage of residents on SNAP of any state in the nation (and it’s not really close). According to this from US News 19.9% of New Mexicans are on the program. The next highest is Louisiana with 18.5% of its residents on SNAP (that’s a 7 percent difference).

Shockingly, New Mexico’s SNAP population is 4 times the percent of Utah and more than double that of Texas and Colorado.

Of course, New Mexico is “not a poor state,” but it IS a poorly-governed one and its people are poor even though the State is sitting on $61 billion. New Mexico can obviously afford to take up the slack on SNAP, but it shouldn’t have to. If the Gov. and Legislature would enact long-overdue policy reforms to bring economic growth to the State we wouldn’t have so much dependency and thus such a large SNAP population.

The State of New Mexico is sitting on a massive pile of capital outlay dollars as the State’s roads continue to decline. KOAT Channel 7 recently did a story on the issue and asked RGF for our perspective. You can check out the full story by clicking here or on the picture below. In the brief time allotted we discuss both the problems and potential issues associated with New Mexico’s capital outlay process.