On Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released data on July employment at the regional and state levels. And once again, New Mexico lagged behind its neighbors in job creation.

The BLS looked at employees on nonfarm payrolls in July 2014 and July 2015. At 0.5 percent, the Land of Enchantment trailed each of its bordering states:

Looking at the national picture, New Mexico was joined by just eight states — Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, West Virginia — in seeing either higher or unchanged unemployment rates. The absolute number of unemployed workers grew in all nine states.

With the national economy in precarious condition and losses mounting in New Mexico’s oil-production employment, it’s clear that more than ever before, the state needs an effective economic-development strategy.

Rio Grande Foundation Speaker Series Event:
Albuquerque's Transportation Future

Click here for registration form.

The Rail Runner, Bus Rapid Transit, and land-use planning; these are just a few of the issues currently being discussed by New Mexico's political leadership and economic development establishment.

What should advocates of the free market consider on these issues? Is bus rapid transit going to help or hurt mobility in and around Albuquerque? Should we really shut down the Rail Runner? What about TIDD's and the development known as Santolina?

• Location:  Marriott Pyramid 5151 San Francisco Rd NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109
• When:  Tuesday, September 15, 2015, 12:00 noon to 1:00pm
• Cost:  Seating is limited and can be purchased at the discounted price of $30 until Tuesday, September 8, 2015; $40 after the 8th

Randal O'Toole is a Cato Institute Senior Fellow working on urban growth, public land, and transportation issues.

O'Toole's research on national forest management, culminating in his 1988 book, Reforming the Forest Service, has had a major influence on Forest Service policy and on-the-ground management. His analysis of urban land-use and transportation issues, brought together in his 2001 book, The Vanishing Automobile and Other Urban Myths, has influenced decisions in cities across the country. In his book The Best-Laid Plans, O'Toole calls for repealing federal, state, and local planning laws and proposes reforms that can help solve social and environmental problems without heavy-handed government regulation.

O'Toole's latest book is American Nightmare: How Government Undermines The Dream of Homeownership. O'Toole is the author of numerous Cato papers. He has also written for Regulation magazine as well as op-eds and articles for numerous other national journals and newspapers. O'Toole travels extensively and has spoken about free-market environmental issues in dozens of cities.

An Oregon native, O'Toole was educated in forestry at Oregon State University and in economics at the University of Oregon.

Click here for registration form.

The IRS has released interstate taxpayer-migration data for 2013. The news isn’t good for New Mexico.

Washington’s revenue bureaucracy tallies the movement of tax filers, as well as number of exemptions claimed on each return. As the Tax Foundation explains on its migration calculator, the “number of exemptions … corresponds with the number of people the return is for; for example, a return for a married couple with two children would have four exemptions. Therefore, this number is closely correlated with the movement of individual persons.”

In 2013, there were 55,316 exemptions “arriving” in New Mexico. The outflow number stood at 63,739.

Evidently, fabulous weather, friendly people, and fantastic scenery can’t compensate for lousy public policy.

The Albuquerque Public Schools board (minus Peggy Muller Aragon who opposed the move), recognizing that it has an opportunity to increase its influence in Santa Fe at taxpayer expense, has embarked upon the misguided policy of paying its employees “political leave” while they serve in Santa Fe.

It was apparently all-too-easy for the Board to make the decision. After all, APS already has lobbyists patrolling the halls in Santa Fe, why not throw a few APS-paid legislators into the mix when it comes time to vote on the budget? At least one APS employee, Rep. Tim Lewis, has not accepted his pay as a teacher in the past and presumably will continue to do the same. I doubt the other three APS employees — Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton, D-Albuquerque; Rep. Patricio Ruiloba, D-Albuquerque; and Rep. Christine Trujillo, D-Albuquerque — serving in Santa Fe will take the same stance, but I’d love to be surprised.

The question that needs to be asked now is whether these legislators will be allowed to receive “per diem” pay as legislators (again at taxpayer expense). Kathy Korte who previously served on the APS board once called this “triple-dipping.”

Another serious issue with the new APS policy is that it gives APS employees, at least those who accept the “political pay” an unfair advantage over their unpaid colleagues. Board member Barbara Petersen put a positive spin on things saying that offering the pay could draw more APS employees to become lawmakers when they otherwise might not have been able to afford it.

Of course, having fewer legislators with private sector experience and more who are beholden to their government employer is the last thing New Mexico needs.

The Duke City’s transportation bureaucrats, Albuquerque Business First reported earlier today, “held presentations this week called ‘Transit Placemaking for the Central Avenue Corridor.’” Planners from Phoenix and Cleveland were on hand to tout the “benefits” of government-run buses and trains.

The events were attempts to promote Albuquerque Rapid Transit (ART), a bus rapid transit system designed to replace “Rapid Ride,” which runs three express routes along Central Avenue.

The Foundation recently weighed in on the weaknesses of the ART proposal — issues that surely went unaddressed at “Transit Placemaking for the Central Avenue Corridor.” Read the issue brief here.

Phoenix, it’s important to note, has been a boomtown for decades — long before the recent expansions of its transit systems. While both Arizona and New Mexico had about the same population a century ago, the states’ public policies diverged radically. One adopted a right-to-work law and kept taxes relatively low. The other focused on the federal government as a driver of jobs and development, enacted a cumbersome tax on gross receipts, and refused to ban compulsory unionism. The opposing approaches yielded very different results for the states’ two dominant metro regions.

As for Cleveland, it does have one thing in common with Albuquerque: vanishing locals. Between 2013 and 2014, Bloomberg found, the metro areas lost the same percentage of residents. Unlike Albuquerque, Cleveland, as a city, has experienced net population loss since the 1950s. Another key difference? Cleveland’s population density — an important determinant of transit viability — is 42 percent higher than Albuquerque’s.

Are Duke City developers clamoring for bus rapid transit? Douglas H. Peterson, principal of Peterson Properties LLC, recently wrote in Albuquerque Business First that “35 property owners representing 55 properties … have signed official letters of opposition [to ART] that I have delivered to the mayor and councilors, [and] dozens of other citizens have contacted me to express their agreement that ART would do much more harm than good for our city and be a tremendous waste of resources.”

Finally, there is no evidence to support the claim that transit attracts educated Millennials. Last year, a report by City Observatory found that 25-to-34-year-olds with at least a B.A. were flocking to places like Houston, Las Vegas, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Jacksonville, and Denver — hardly havens for subways, light rail, and bus rapid transit.

Albuquerque needs a vibrant and growing private-sector economy. Feel-good “infrastructure” projects have proven to be spectacularly ineffective tools to achieve the goal. No self-congratulatory, dissenters-not-allowed sessions celebrating “smart growth” will change fundamental facts. The city’s policymakers must look elsewhere for effective economic-development strategies.

As we continue to celebrate National Employee Freedom Week, it’s important to note the economic performance of states that empower workers, not union bosses.

On January 1, the Foundation began to track announcements of expansions, relocations, and greenfield investments published on Area Development‘s website. Founded in 1965, the publication “is considered the leading executive magazine covering corporate site selection and relocation. … Area Development is published quarterly and has 60,000 mailed copies.” In an explanation to the Foundation, its editor wrote that items for Area Development‘s announcements listing are “culled from RSS feeds and press releases that are emailed to us from various sources, including economic development organizations, PR agencies, businesses, etc. We usually highlight ones that represent large numbers of new jobs and/or investment in industrial projects.”

The Foundation will soon release the results of an analysis of six months of Area Development announcements, comparing right-to-work (RTW) states and compulsory-unionism states. For now, here’s a fascinating finding on what we’re calling the “border-crossing phenomenon”: the incidence of firms based in non-RTW states making investments in RTW states, and vice versa.

In each of the six months, RTW states grabbed the lion’s share of jobs to be created by border-crossing companies:

Employee freedom, real economic development. The correlation is strong.

It’s National Employee Freedom Week. The event is a “campaign offering an unparalleled focus on the freedoms union employees have to opt out of union membership.” With participation by 97 groups in 42 states, this year more Americans than ever will learn about their rights regarding “organized labor.”

Polling data reveal that 27.5 percent of unionized New Mexicans do not know that they cannot be forced to join and/or pay full dues:

New Mexico is not yet a right-to-work state. But workers covered by “collective bargaining” here can opt to pay an “agency fee,” which supports the non-political portion of union expenditures. Religious/conscientious objectors have the right to avoid paying a single penny to a union.

Click here for New Mexico-specific information about employee freedom. And spread the word!

In listings of highest city-level minimum wages, Albuquerque rarely makes the list of those having the rates. However, as we all know, living in Albuquerque isn’t as expensive as living in San Francisco. So, a website called SmartAsset did the cost of living calculations for major cities with their own minimum wages and found Albuquerque to have the 5th-highest in the nation.

You can see the top-10 cities by “real” minimum wages below:

Shockingly enough, despite (or perhaps because of) the cities high minimum wage, Albuquerque is not exactly booming as the liberal Brookings Institute has pointed out.

Interestingly, and further buttressing the case against government-mandated minimum wages, a new report out of Seattle relating to that City’s $11/hour minimum wage indicates that the usually fast-growing restaurant industry lost jobs concurrently with the increase in the minimum wage.

In a separate article, Wendy’s CEO Emil Brolick, when asked how the franchisees who own and operate Wendy’s locations could raise prices to offset the higher wage costs in places like New York. He replied that “our franchisees will likely look at the opportunity to reduce overall staff, look at the opportunity to certainly reduce hours and any other cost reduction opportunities, not just price. You know there are some people out there who naively say that these wages can simply be passed along in terms of price increases. I don’t think that the average franchisee believes that.”

What: The City of Albuquerque is applying for $80 million in federal funds to build a new "Bus Rapid Transit" system along Central. Is this a good idea or a bad one?

Two people who both care and are knowledgeable about the proposed project are going to discuss the issue — with the discussion and a public question-and-answer period moderated by yet another community leader and regular transportation writer from the state’s largest newspaper.

There is no charge for this public event!

When: Thursday, September 3, 6:00 – 7:30pm

Where: Room 2401 at UNM Law School 1117 Stanford Dr NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106

Who:

Paul Silverman Principal at Geltmore, LLC A commercial property management business

Paul Gessing President of the Rio Grande Foundation A free market, state-based think tank headquartered in Albuquerque

Moderated by:

D'Val Westphal Member of Albuquerque Journal Editorial Board, writes a regular "Road Warrior" column

Click here for event registration form – it's free!

Thanks for your interest and support.

It’s the most hated tax in America. That’s why New Mexico needs more of it.

The state’s constitution limits the mill rate that may be applied to real and personal property. And in 1981, the “Big Mac” tax shift made the “property tax no longer a source of public school funding and [required] public school operations to be funded almost entirely by the state’s general fund.”

This week’s Tax Foundation map explores one consequence of New Mexico’s eschewment of the property tax. The mean effective rate on owner-occupied housing in the Land of Enchantment is one of the lowest in the nation:

Good news? Maybe not. Economist Caroline Hoxby has “consistently found evidence that both students and taxpayers are better off under locally based systems of school funding and school control.”

The Northeast gets a lot of policies wrong, but one of the few sound strategies its states follow is local funding, and thus local control, of government schools. And the property tax, which is paid in annual or biannual installments, often motivates those it impacts to demand more from educrats.

A proposal: Bring the property tax back to New Mexico in a significant way, financed by cuts in the tax rates on personal income and gross receipts.

Recently, Blue Cross applied for and failed to receive an eye-popping 51.6% increase in insurance premiums. This denial was a clear win for consumers against the greedy insurance industry, right? Well, not so fast says David Hogberg of the National Center for Public Policy Research in a new blog posting.

Hogberg notes that Blue Cross applied for the massive increase because its plans were attracting sicker customers than the other insurers in the exchange. He also noted that Blue Cross has stated that the decision may cause them to leave New Mexico exchange.

That may seem like a minor problem, but that sick group will then be pushed to other, healthier plans that will then see their premiums skyrocket.

In other words, unless Blue Cross, which operates as a non-profit, was simply over-reaching, this rate increase is a sign that ObamaCare is eventually going to result in dramatic rate increases here in New Mexico. Regulatory denials may cause attrition among providers in New Mexico’s health insurance market but those massive rate hikes are inevitable.

As the following chart illustrates, New Mexicans saw particularly-rapid rate hikes in 2014.

New Mexicans concerned about coal mining in the state — and throughout the nation — should consider attending an upcoming “listening session” in Farmington. On August 20, at the Courtyard Marriott, the Bureau of Land Managment will receive input on “how the BLM can best carry out its responsibility to ensure that American taxpayers receive a fair return on the coal resources managed by the federal government on their behalf.”

The eco-left’s war on coal is going quite well. Mining companies are filing for bankruptcy, layoffs are robust, and coal’s share of the fuels used to generate electricity is declining.

In New Mexico, coal production dropped from 25.8 million to 21 million short tons between 2009 and 2014. Employment fell by 6.1 percent. (The state ranks 11th among the states in coal production.)

The good news is that export opportunities are manifold. As the Institute for Energy Research recently noted, “The International Energy Agency’s coal forecast indicates that global demand for coal is expected to continue to increase, surpassing 9 billion tons by 2019.” China is a major consumer, as is India, and according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “PetroVietnam … is seeking to purchase 11 million tons of coal per year starting in 2017 to supply Vietnam’s domestic power industry.”

Free trade offers New Mexico new customers for its natural gas — and soon, one hopes, crude oil. But coal is another commodity with a promising export future. The rest of the world isn’t embracing anti-coal hysteria, and that’s a good thing for the Land of Enchantment’s economy.

The following article appeared in various news outlets throughout the State including the Las Cruces Sun-News.

Since 2009, New Mexico has waived federal work requirements tied to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps. Over 21 percent of all New Mexicans receive food stamps, leaving us behind only Mississippi.

Gov. Susana Martinez’ Administration has proposed to reinstate rules limiting able-bodied people – including parents of children older than six-years – to three months of SNAP benefits unless they work, do volunteer work, or attend job training classes at least 20 hours per week. Children and the myriad food programs targeted at them and those who simply cannot work are not up for changes.

New Mexico is not alone in re-instating these modest requirements. According to a September 2014 report from the Pew Center, no fewer than 17 states were working to re-instate work requirements on able-bodied adults.

In 2014 Maine re-imposed a three-month limit (out of every three-year period) on food stamps for able-bodied adults without minor dependents — unless they work 20 hours per week, take state job-training courses or volunteer for about six hours per week. The number of such people receiving food stamps in Maine has dropped nearly 80 percent since the rule kicked in, to 2,530 from about 12,000.

Maine’s work requirement has been in effect for about a year now without a reported increase in hunger. No reports of dire or exacerbated hunger exist for the decade-plus during which this policy was in effect nationwide from the time of the welfare reforms enacted by then-President Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress in the mid-1990s.

Seemingly, when presented with a set of requirements to in order to attain food stamps, able-bodied adults manage to find work attain food through working, moving to a places where work is more plentiful, or by some other means.

Food stamps were meant to provide a temporary bridge for people who are between jobs or have fallen on hard times. They were never meant to be a permanent way of life. The Administration’s proposal benefits recipients by increasing their opportunities to access gainful employment.

On the flip side, unlimited government benefits with no requirements allow people to completely remove themselves from the work or volunteer forces. Sitting at home watching television or waiting for the phone to ring is no way to look for work. Volunteering or improving one’s skills through enhanced education are great ways to find a job.

Indeed, while unemployment rates in New Mexico remain elevated, the economy in neighboring Texas is humming with unemployment at 4.2%. For generations Americans have moved to better their economic prospects. Should we really lure them to remain in economically-distressed states through government welfare?

The Martinez Administration’s proposal encourages self-reliance rather than dependency. What doesn’t work is forcing American taxpayers to spend $80 billion a year on a rapidly-expanding welfare program and imposing little or nothing in the way of requirements.

Democrats used to value an honest day’s work. As President Franklin Roosevelt said in 1935:

“Continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.”

Requiring able-bodied adults without small children to work, get an education, or give back to their community is hardly too much to ask of those who wish to receive food stamps.

Gov. Martinez is wise to impose some form of requirements on able-bodied adults. It is a necessary first step towards ending New Mexico’s culture of dependency.

Paul Gessing is the President of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is an independent, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility

Despite (or perhaps because of) the latest bailout, Greece remains deeply-troubled. The crisis has manifested itself due to Europe’s single currency, the Euro. Greece cannot pay its bills, but because of the Euro, it cannot devalue its currency either. So a series of bailouts and “austerity” measures have been imposed.

This is a quick synopsis of the Greek situation, but what are the parallels for New Mexico?

In July of 2011, The Economist magazine noted one interesting parallel when an article “Greek Americans” noted which U.S. states are most reliant on transfers from Washington for fiscal support. According to the article, New Mexico was the most reliant U.S. state in the nation by far.

It is true that unlike Greece, the U.S. has a long-standing single fiscal policy and a culture (200+ years) of unified action. Greece could easily leave or be kicked out of the currency union after only a few decades of unity. That is not likely to happen to New Mexico.

Unfortunately, our state shares the Greek propensity to rely on outsiders for financial support along with a bloated government payroll and underdeveloped private sector.

According to Key Policy Data, New Mexico has the second-most state and local government workers per 100 private sector workers of any state in the nation — more than 25.

The proliferation of government employees has helped to create a bloated and under-funded government employee pension system. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, New Mexico’s government employee pension system is in the worst overall shape of any public employee pension system in the nation. This is a serious issue that makes New Mexico’s parallel to Greece quite direct.

What can be done? The Martinez Administration has been working hard to convince legislators to deregulate the New Mexico workforce and restrain the growth of government. These are good things, but New Mexico’s Senate needs to help, not hinder, efforts to spur private sector economic growth.

We need a healthy dose of transparency in terms of how much New Mexico relies on Washington dollars to keep our economy afloat. We know New Mexico is too reliant on Washington, but how reliant?

The federal debt is more than $17 trillion, yet there is no easy way for New Mexico policymakers or the public to answer such basic questions as: How many federal grants do our agencies utilize? How many state employees collect a paycheck that depends, in whole or in part, on a federal subsidy? And most importantly, what would happen if this federal money dried up?

Idaho is one state that has embraced the added transparency that we are calling “financial ready.” Simply put, Gov. Martinez should sign an executive order saying that state agencies need to delineate the federal dollars they receive so that lawmakers can be prepared for the next fiscal crisis from Washington.

We need to know today who will be impacted by the reduction or elimination of federal dollars tomorrow. Will it be seniors who depend on a home food service? Could it be law enforcement agencies who track down child predators using a federal grant? “Financial ready” would also include contingency plans to assist lawmakers in dealing with the unforeseen but rather inevitable consequences of Washington profligacy.

New Mexico has already had a close brush with real consequences from its reliance on Washington. When sequestration went into effect in Washington in 2013, New Mexico’s “payment in lieu of taxes” (PILT) money faced a dire threat. Rural communities unable to tax large swaths of federally-owned land faced a crisis situation.

Thankfully, our Senate delegation was able to get $34 million in PILT funding for New Mexico counties, but the consequences of blindly relying on Washington could have been dire.

Significant reforms to New Mexico’s economy are essential – as is tackling pension reform and funding. When it comes to relying on Washington, we should start with a healthy dose of transparency so policymakers and the public can better understand the full scope of our reliance.

Gessing is the president of the Rio Grande Foundation — an independent, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility.

Every other Saturday, on KKOB, the Rio Grande Foundation hosts the “New Mexico Freedom Hour.” We discuss our latest public-policy research, interview guests, and offer our perspectives on issues at the local, state, and federal levels.

The Foundation’s website has an archive of past programs. Our August 1 broadcast, in which Paul Gessing and Dowd Muska explore the City of Albuquerque’s proposal for bus rapid transit, was just posted. Enjoy.

According to the Center for State and Local Government Excellence, for the second year in row, “state and local governments are hiring.” The organization’s survey of HR managers found that 73 percent reported new hires in the past year, with 54 percent adding more employees than they did in 2013.

In an interview with the Pew Research Center’s website Stateline, Brian Sigritz of the National Association of State Budget Officers lamented that while employment is on the rise, he was “not expecting a surge in hiring. It’s definitely not back to where it was, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it never got back.”

In New Mexico, returning to “where it was” won’t be difficult. State employment peaked, not surprisingly, during Bill Richardson’s administration. The Great Recession imposed layoffs that reduce the workforce, from 2007 to 2012, by 13.5 percent. It stood at 45,250 in 2013, up just a bit from 2012.

At the local level, employment peaked at 81,798 in 2009. It fell to 78,559 — a drop of 4.0 percent — in 2012, and rose by a few hundred in 2013.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Note: Figures are for full-time equivalent positions

To be clear, the Rio Grande Foundation opposes and has ample data to illustrate the harms of government-mandated increases in the minimum wage. However, in recent years, some businesses have gotten into the act by increasing their own “minimum wage” rates.

Of course, the media naturally applauds such efforts, but increasingly, employers who enact arbitrary (as opposed to merit-based) wage hikes, are seeing unintended consequences. Take Wal-Mart for example which is in the midst of increasing all company wages to $10/hour by February.

According to a new article on the company’s wage hike, “Wal-Mart employees are calling the move unfair to senior workers who got no increase and now make the same or close to what newer, less experienced colleagues earn.”

“It is pitting people against each other,” said Charmaine Givens-Thomas, a 10-year veteran who makes $12 an hour at a store near Chicago and belongs to OUR Walmart, a union-backed group that has lobbied for better working conditions. “It hurts morale when people feel like they aren’t being appreciated. I hear people every day talking about looking for other jobs and wanting to remove themselves from Wal-Mart and a job that will make them feel like that.”

“Some workers also said they suspect their hours are being cut and annual raises reduced to cover the cost of the wage increase for newer workers.”

No surprise that an arbitrary, “across-the-board” wage hike isn’t pleasing workers who feel like they are harder working and better, more experienced workers than their peers.

An even more extreme example of a “minimum wage gone bad” is from a company called “Gravity,” the CEO of which slashed his own pay to $70,000 and raised all workers at the company to $70,000 annually. Immediately, according to the New York Times, “Two of Mr. Price’s most valued employees quit, spurred in part by their view that it was unfair to double the pay of some new hires while the longest-serving staff members got small or no raises.”

This only makes sense. If you are a highly-skilled employee working 60 hours a week, should you make the same as someone who works less than 40 hours a week or sweeps the floors? Wages are prices. As such they are powerful signals of supply and demand in our economy. A car dealer wouldn’t charge a “maximum price” in “fairness” to their customers that resulted in a 2015 BMW being sold for the same price as a 2000 Hyundai. That would be stupid, but for some reason wages are “different.”

I guess businesses will have to learn the hard way. Hopefully these mistakes can persuade economically-ignorant policymakers that government minimum wage policies are equally misguided.

What state and federal policies are needed to boost the economy? In particular, with median household wages down and pay increases meager or non-existent, what can be done?

Join us in studio on Thursday, August 13, at 12:45pm to ask your questions of:

Steve Fischmann, former state legislator and co-chair of the New Mexico Fair Lending Coalition

Paul Gessing, President of the Rio Grande Foundation

The taping will conclude by 2pm.

You may print a parking pass by clicking here.

The program will air on KRWG-TV Thursday, August 20 at 7:00 p.m., Saturday, August 22 at 5:00 p.m., and Sunday, August 23 at 11:00 a.m.

Last week the U.S. Senate’s Energy Committee “narrowly passed a bill to lift a 40-year-old ban on the export of crude oil.”

It’s the depth of summer, so the vote didn’t get much press in New Mexico, or anywhere else. But it was a major victory for what The Washington Post called “a simple policy that would spur economic growth, lower gas prices and please international allies.”

The Wall Street Journal agrees, explaining that the majority of the nation’s refineries were “built to process heavy crude that the U.S. has long imported from the likes of Venezuela and Mexico. But most U.S. drillers are producing light, sweet crude. Refiners are slowly retooling to handle more U.S. crude, but record amounts of oil are still piling up in storage.”

Among the states, New Mexico ranks fifth in onshore petroleum production. The Land of Enchantment’s contribution to the nation’s oil supply has risen every year since 2007.

New Mexico’s two senators have been conspicuously silent about where they stand on oil exports. Rep. Steve Pearce is backing a similar ban-the-ban bill in the U.S. House of Representatives. The lower chamber’s measure has over 100 co-sponsors, including 13 Democrats, but Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Rep. Ben Ray Luján are not on board.

With the price of crude sagging and layoffs occurring in New Mexico’s oilfields, lifting the export ban is key to preserving, and expanding, petroleum production in the state. It’s unfortunate that the congressional delegation can’t unify behind a policy that is unambiguously good for New Mexico’s economy.

The Rio Grande Foundation is tracking announcements of expansions, relocations, and greenfield investments published on Area Development‘s website. Founded in 1965, the publication “is considered the leading executive magazine covering corporate site selection and relocation. … Area Development is published quarterly and has 60,000 mailed copies.” In an explanation to the Foundation, its editor wrote that items for Area Development‘s announcements listing are “culled from RSS feeds and press releases that are emailed to us from various sources, including economic development organizations, PR agencies, businesses, etc. We usually highlight ones that represent large numbers of new jobs and/or investment in industrial projects.”

Last month, of 13,526 projected jobs, 9,381 — 69.4 percent — were slated for right-to-work (RTW) states:

Fifteen domestic companies based in non-RTW states announced investments in RTW states. Just four announcements went the other way.

There were two domestic relocations from compulsory-union to RTW states, and two RTW-to-non-RTW moves.

Foreign direct investment was highly skewed. Seventeen projects headed to RTW states, but only one is to occur in a non-RTW state.

With nearly 30 percent of jobs projected for non-RTW states, July yielded compulsory unionism’s best performance of the year. But the results were greatly biased, due to California-based ZenPayroll’s decision to hire 1,750 employees in Colorado. (The Denver Post reported that Governor John Hickenlooper hailed “the news as perhaps the largest single jobs announcement in state history.”)

Marquee RTW wins included the decision by Connecticut-based United Technologies to build its “Center for Intelligent Buildings” in Florida, the relocation of California-based LiveOps, a cloud-computing form, to Texas, and the selection of Arizona to build a research-and-development facility for a partnership between General Electric and Aviation Industry Corporation of China.

Methodological specifics:

* All job estimates — “up to,” “as many as,” “about” — were taken at face value, for RTW and non-RTW states alike.

* If an announcement did not make an employment projection, efforts were made to obtain an estimate from newspaper articles and/or press releases by elected officials and economic-development bureaucracies.

* If no job figure could be found anywhere, the project was not counted, whether it was a RTW or non-RTW state.

* Intrastate relocations were not counted, interstate relocations were.

Albuquerque City Council’s Finance and Government Operations committee is expected to take up the Fair Workweek Act on Monday, August 10 at 5 p.m.

The anti-business proposal would require employers to:

• Set work schedules three weeks in advance or pay compensation in the form of predictability pay;
• Provide paid sick leave;
• Allow employees to decide via secret ballot on “alternate schedule” (such as four-10 hour shifts or three 12 hour shifts);
• Force employers to offer additional hours of work to existing employees before hiring additional employees or subcontractors;
• Allow employees to trade shifts regardless of job descriptions or skill sets.

We encourage you to express your opposition to the bill with an email to all city councilors.

We have several sample email messages below to facilitate this request. If one aligns with your sentiments, please select it (or customize to your individual needs/preferences) and send to all city councilors starting Monday.

For your convenience, the email addresses for all of the city councilors is as follows:trudyjones@cabq.gov; reygarduno@cabq.gov; kpena@cabq.gov; kensanchez@cabq.gov;ibenton@cabq.gov; dharris@cabq.gov; dgibson@cabq.gov; danlewis@cabq.gov;bwinter@cabq.gov

If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at: info@riograndefoundation.org

Dear Councilors,
I hope that you will reconsider your efforts to pass the Fair Workweek Act in its current or revised version. The Act is chock-full of terrible mandates for business and even as sponsoring councilors attempt to remedy the concerns of business, I don’t believe it’s enough to make this palatable for Albuquerque businesses. Please do what’s right for Albuquerque business people like me.

Dear Councilors,
Like many other small business owners, my family and I have sacrificed a lot for the dream of business ownership. We work long hours and have often gone without a paycheck so that our employees will have theirs. That’s part of the reason it’s so troubling to know that our city government would be so inconsiderate as to assume that small businesses like mine could integrate the mandates required by the Fair Workweek Act into their operations. Really? Do you truly realize the costs, not just financial, but managerial? This Act would take away much of my authority as a business owner and I ask you to vote against the adoption of this ordinance. Thank you.

Dear Councilors,
I’m writing to you today to express my opposition to the Fair Workweek Act. My industry requires that we have flexibility on our scheduling and if the Act is put into effect, a necessary piece of my business model will be compromised. This could effectively cause me to go out of business. I hope you will not adopt this ordinance.

Dear Councilors,
In a recent Albuquerque Business First article, Councilor Isaac Benton said, “I certainly agree with people who think it’s overly complicated,” when referring to the Fair Workweek Act. If Councilor Benton, the sponsor of the bill, agrees that the Act is overly complicated, how can you be sure that a few changes to the language in the bill can correct all concerns of business? You really can’t. The Act originally attempted to impose a set of one-size-fits-all mandates on business. Now that business has expressed concerns, there are efforts to mitigate those concerns. But the reality is that because the face of business reflects so many different sectors and an even greater diversity in business models, there is literally no way to make this bill palatable to business. I ask that you not modify it. I ask that you not study it. Simply stop it in its tracks. Thank you.

Dear Councilors,
The Fair Workweek Act isn’t fair at all! It’s harmful to business. Business is the economic engine of the community and if it passes, it will hurt Albuquerque businesses’ ability to be competitive. Please don’t pass it!

Dear Councilors,
I am writing in strong opposition against the Fair Workweek Act ordinance. This ordinance is not fair to Albuquerque businesses. This overreaching government regulation would do more harm than good. Please do not support this ordinance. Thank you.

Dear Councilors,
The Fair Workweek Act is an ordinance that has the ability to knock small businesses in Albuquerque to their knees. I am in strong opposition to this ordinance as a business owner, and I hope you are also against supporting this ordinance. Thank you.

Dear Councilors,
I am writing to express my concern over the Fair Workweek Act. This ordinance is not good for Albuquerque businesses. According to a study by Department of Numbers, Albuquerque has 17,100 fewer jobs today than when it reached its pre-Great Recession employment peak in 2007. We cannot afford another blow to businesses. Please do not support this ordinance.

Dear Councilors,
Please do not support the Fair Workweek Act. This ordinance only adds to the ongoing struggles for businesses in Albuquerque. It will only do more harm than good. Please vote against this ordinance.

Dear Councilors,
Businesses are already struggling to comply with many confusing and complex regulations. The city of Albuquerque should not create more problems like the mandates in the “Fair” Workweek Act. If businesses are forced into implementing all these new mandates, many employers will be forced to cut jobs and wages. Please do not put this burden on Albuquerque businesses.

Dear Councilors,
I am a business owner and I am strongly against the “Fair Workweek Act. With business costs on the rise, my business cannot afford additional costs and mandates. Please do not pass this ordinance.

Dear Councilors,
Councilor Isaac Benton said, “I agree. There were some things in there that were not reasonable,” when he was recently interviewed about the Fair Workweek Act that he and Councilor Klarissa Pena introduced to the City Council in June. If Councilor Benton believes that about his own bill, how can business owners be convinced that a few modifications will fix all that is unreasonable? We can’t. Please don’t entertain this Act in its original form or any attempt at a modified version. It’s not good for business owners or managers like me. There’s too much at risk for hasty bills and even hastier modifications. Thank you.

Advocates of market-oriented public policy rarely have anything complimentary to say about transit systems.

Government-owned trains and buses are fiercely protected by politicians and powerful lobbying groups, despite  consistently unimpressive ridership numbers and runaway costs. But in Albuquerque, at least lately, transit is a different story.

In 2004, the city,s bus system began to add express routes along Central Avenue. “Rapid Ride” features “60-foot long, articulated buses that accommodate up to 86 passengers.” The service is “loaded with new technology,” including WiFi, automatic announcements, “a global positioning system to aid in the transit applications that help passengers locate their bus in real time,” and state-of-the art security cameras and microphones. In addition, most Rapid Ride stations have “a structure which allows passengers to wait in safety and comfort.”

Route 766, which runs from the Uptown Transit Center to the West Side, saw passenger growth of 25.8 percent since its introduction. Route 790, which links the University of New Mexico’s main campus to the Northwest Transit Center, experienced growth of 87.2 percent. Route 777, connecting Tramway Boulevard to downtown, saw growth of 135.6 percent.

In its “Futures 2040 Metropolitan Transportation Plan,” the Mid-Region Metropolitan Transportation Organization concluded that increased boardings on the Duke City’s overall bus system were “directly attributable” to the three “Rapid Ride” lines.

At least in terms of demand, express bus service appears to be working in Albuquerque. So why does the city want to scrap a good thing?

Transportation planners are seeking to replace Rapid Ride with “Albuquerque Rapid Transit” (ART), which combines “many features of rail transit with the flexibility of buses.” Next month, the city will request federal funding to cover 80 percent of the costs of Phase 1 of the project, which is slated to run between Louisiana and Coors.

ART would eliminate one lane, each way, in order to create a dedicated bus guideway. It’s a shift the Cato Institute’s Randal O’Toole believes is unwise: “Dedicating two entire traffic lanes on Central Avenue to buses and giving those buses priority at traffic signals will do far more to increase congestion than any relief provided by the few cars taken off the road by the bus. Why should a few hundred bus riders a day be given these privileges while tens of thousands of people in cars are forced to sit in traffic?”

Don Hancock, of the University Heights Neighborhood Association, believes ART’s plan to eliminate its route’s median strip will cause “bicycle/pedestrian safety problems … to increase dramatically.” Walkers and cyclists attempting to cross the guideway, Hancock said, are “continuous accidents just waiting to happen.”

Thus far, ART’s supporters have ignored questions about their project’s public-safety and congestion-creation issues, preferring to focus on transit’s alleged ability to attract professional Millennials. But polling data are beginning to show that young adults’ housing preferences resemble previous generations’ inclinations. Describing a recent survey, an economist for the National Association of Homebuilders wrote that two-thirds of Millennials “wanted to reside in a suburban neighborhood, compared to 10 percent wanting to own a home in a central city. Nearly a quarter of residents wanted to be outside large metropolitan areas entirely, preferring rural housing.” While recent college graduates continue to be drawn to places such as Washington, D.C., they are also flocking to “sprawling” metro areas such as Houston, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Orlando, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and Nashville.

Will ART be affordable? Check the record. In the words of Veronique de Rugy, a researcher with the Mercatus Center, “Infrastructure spending tends to suffer from massive cost overruns, waste, fraud, and abuse.” And while ART is not a rail line, building it will nonetheless be a complex undertaking, involving ripping up median strips, improving sidewalks, constructing stations, and relocating utilities.

Citizens in Abilene, Anchorage, and Atlanta shouldn’t be taxed to support a project of dubious benefit to Albuquerque. The federal government should deny funding to ART.

Dowd Muska (dmuska@riograndefoundation.org) is research director of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility.

Dr. Matthew Ladner spoke at the Rio Grande Foundation’s “Milton Friedman Day” celebration on New Mexico’s Impending Demographic Challenges and How Policymakers Can Cope. His slides can be accessed here.  

Ladner, an optimist by nature, had some sobering words for the event attendees. As Ladner made clear, so many things in our society are improving and our economy is more productive than ever, but our education system has seen growth in employment without similar growth in productivity or improved outputs.

As Ladner notes, there are successful education reform models including the one implemented in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The entire public school system was turned into charter schools with some significant, positive results:

Reforming and improving the education system, notes Ladner, is all the more important with New Mexico’s elderly population set to explode in the years ahead according to new demographic research by Ladner. According to Ladner. In fact, as Ladner notes New Mexico’s working age will shrink as a percentage of the total population, with the Land of Enchantment projected to have the highest total age dependency ratio in the nation in 2030.

In New Mexico’s case the increase in the total age dependency ratio projects to be entirely due to a near doubling of the elderly population between 2010 and 2030.

Dr. Ladner is Senior Advisor of Policy and Research with the Foundation for Educational Choice. He previously worked with the Rio Grande Foundation to bring the “Florida Model” for education reform to New Mexico.

Dr. Ladner has written numerous studies on school choice, charter schools and special education reform. Most recently, Dr. Ladner authored the groundbreaking, original research Turn and Face the Strain: Age Demographic Change and the Near Future of American Education, outlining the future funding crisis facing America’s K-12 public education funding.