Kevin Robinson-Avila, in today’s Albuquerque Journal, had a good overview of the state’s two permanent funds. As usual, they’re under siege by liberals who seek to siphon more revenue for “public investments.”

The two funds are mighty tempting targets. Together, they are worth nearly $20 billion — more than state government spends in an entire year.

But as the left dreams of using New Mexico’s “sovereign wealth” on another round of doomed-to-fail programs, attention may turn to another fund. The state’s budget reserve, according to the governor’s spending plan for the 2017 fiscal year, is $505 million, or 8.1 percent of “recurring appropriations.” As Medicaid costs balloon and the oil-and-gas industry continues to suffer, look for that share to dwindle, even though the Legislative Finance Committee prefers that the rainy-day kitty be kept at 10 percent.

With “new money” predicted to be just $30 million in the 2017 fiscal year, look for pols to start eyeing the budget reserve. A half-billion dollars can make a big contribution toward successful denial of fiscal realities.

The Journal’s Winthrop Quigley had an interesting column over the weekend in which he detailed how New Mexico’s history of colonization and violence make it “anti-business.” While we’ve had our disagreements with Quigley, he hits on a number of truths in his article. Nonetheless, I want to weigh in with my own thoughts here:

1) It is interesting to me that Quigley almost constantly uses “right to work” to as an entree to discussing what he believes doesn’t work in terms of economic reforms. He’d never launch into a fatalistic discussion of New Mexico’s long and challenging history by denigrating the potential of early childhood programs or Medicaid expansion. He also fails to address more than a dozen other reforms that the Republican-controlled House has passed in recent years only to be killed without so much as a vote in the Senate. He just dismisses “right to work” as “not a solution” and moves on.

2) Quigley notes the lack of trust for outsiders in New Mexico. Interestingly, free market capitalism, despite its “dog-eat-dog” reputation, requires a great deal of trust. That trust usually results in benefits for all parties involved in a free exchange, but trust is nonetheless required. Trust is indeed lacking in New Mexico due in part to its history of colonialism and political corruption.

3) Cultures change. A recent report noted that New Mexico’s corruption has been enabled by the federal government. The loss of federal spending and now, significant oil and gas revenues, mean that change is imperative. The old ways never worked particularly well. Now, they are being exposed as a total failure. It is time for New Mexicans to embrace free markets and build the trust necessary to create a robust private sector.

The story is split in two with Gessing’s story starting at approximately the 2:40 mark:

Missed yesterday’s celebration of National School Choice Week in Santa Fe? Don’t go looking for media coverage — there wasn’t much.

The Santa Fe New Mexican‘s Robert Nott wrote an article — and dutifully mentioned the recent, and specious, Legislative Finance Committee that concluded that “charter schools cost more for similar results.”

The Foundation was proud to participate in two National School Choice Week events. In addition to speaking at the capitol rally, research director D. Dowd Muska presented an overview of the past, present, and future of school choice to the New Mexico State University chapter of Young Americans for Liberty.

For more on the subject, visit the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.

Just in time for School Choice Week, the American Federation for Children working with Beck Research, LLC, has released polling on Americans’ support for school choice.

Key findings from poll:
· 70 percent fully support the concept of school choice, including 42 percent who strongly support it, while 24 percent oppose it.
· Last year, 69 percent supported and 27 percent opposed.
· 65 percent support private school choice (32 percent oppose), when those surveyed were asked if they support, “opportunity scholarships, also known as school vouchers.”
· Support among Democrats has increased from 60% in 2015 to 65% in 2016 while Independents’ (66%) and Republicans’ (80%) preference for choice remains steady.
· 53 percent of voters support “school vouchers” (without using the term “opportunity scholarship”).
· 65 percent support Education Savings Accounts with only 29 percent opposed.
· 75 percent support public charter schools with only 21 percent opposing it.

School choice tax credits legislation (HB 207) has been introduced in the New Mexico House. Similar legislation passed the House during the 2015 session but never received a vote in the Senate.

The poll, conducted January 19-24, 2016 surveyed 1,100 likely voters, including an 800 person national sample, on questions related to educational choice, vouchers and charter schools.

Earlier this week, the latest unemployment numbers were released and New Mexico remained stuck with the highest rate in the nation (6.7%). That’s obviously not good news.

But, as we’ve pointed out in the past, unemployment numbers only tell part of the story. If people have dropped out of the workforce, they are not included in the unemployment rate. So, it is important to consider the workforce participation rate as well.

And, as the chart below which tracks US and New Mexico workforce participation rates dating back to 1976, New Mexico (finally) saw a rebound in 2015 after years of decline.

Before you get too excited, it is worth noting that New Mexico still trails every other neighboring state:

Is this just a “dead cat bounce” or is it a sign that more New Mexicans are getting back to work? It’s hard to say. What we know is that New Mexico’s economy needs some dramatic free market reforms that push our unemployment rate down and increase the numbers of New Mexicans who are “makers” as opposed to “takers.”

COMMENTARY: “States may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory.” Justice Louis Brandeis in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann

When it comes to economic policy issues, the states are supposed to be the dominant actors. This is the view laid out by Justice Brandeis. It flows seamlessly from the United States Constitution’s design which emphasizes “federalism.”

But this isn’t another article about how Washington is overstepping its bounds. Rather, it is about how New Mexico’s Legislature might want to keep closer tabs on policymaking activities of local governments.

Local governments derive their powers from the states within which they are located. In some states they are given broad latitude. In others, like Virginia, their power is strictly limited. Virginia’s minimum wage and other employment-related policies are set by the Legislature.

For simplicity’s sake, this is a good thing, regardless of your views on the minimum wage.

While my organization does not support raising the minimum wage on economic grounds, that has not stopped New Mexico and more than half of all U.S. states from raising their minimum wages above the federally-mandated level of $7.25. New Mexico’s rate is currently at $7.50.

The $7.50-an-hour rate is straightforward, but as things currently stand, the cities of Albuquerque, Las Cruces, and Santa Fe have their own wage rates. Separate rates are mandated by the counties of Bernalillo, Doña Ana, and Santa Fe. It’s not just the complexity of varying wage rates and jurisdictions; there are additional, complex rules over how tipped wage rates are calculated depending on the provision of certain benefits like employer-sponsored health insurance.

Complying with myriad tax rates and formulas can be a nightmare for any business, especially small ones. Seemingly well-intended efforts to raise wage rates are creating tremendous complexity and compliance burdens for the very small businesses that we need to create jobs and dig New Mexico’s out of the current economic malaise.

Statewide preemption

That growing complexity is a big reason that groups like ACI and the New Mexico Restaurant Association have gotten behind a “statewide preemption bill.” The bill has been followed in the 2016 session by Rep. Harper in the House and Sen. Moores.

The idea that state legislatures, not a mixture of cities and counties, nor far-off bureaucracies in Washington, D.C., should regulate New Mexico’s economy is self-evident. In fact, Brandeis, quoting further from his “laboratories of the states” argument said that the idea was to, “try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”

So, if California wants to adopt a $10.50 or even $15.00 per hour minimum wage, let them. If Texas would like to not impose legal wage floors at all, ideally that should be their prerogative. Of course, as things currently stand, the federal rate of $7.25 is the baseline for every state.

I believe that under such a system people and jobs will continue to move from heavily-regulated, high-minimum-wage states like California to less-regulated states like Texas, but I might be wrong. I’d love to give states the leeway to duke it out. Localities, not so much. It’s messy and convoluted with multiple jurisdictions at play. Local borders are unclear to all but the best-informed.

Lest supporters of high minimum wages think this is just an effort to kill minimum wages entirely, local minimum wage hikes give legislators a “pass.” After all, an Albuquerque legislator nowadays can say, “Why should the state raise the state minimum wage when Albuquerque has done it?”

The leading opponents of “preemption” might be rural legislators. They see “big cities” even here in New Mexico as a world apart from themselves and their more conservative constituents. Nevertheless, preemption makes sense. New Mexico’s cities and the businesses located there are engines for New Mexico’s entire economy. We are ultimately in this together.

Gessing is the president of New Mexico’s 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.

Legislation is moving through both New Mexico’s House and Senate that would provide a 10% state tax credit for rooftop solar installations for eight years with that tax credit reduced to 5% after that and the total credits offered by the state limited to $5 million annually.

This is bad policy for several reasons.

1) It is a special-interest subsidy that complicates New Mexico’s broken tax code and will push additional tax burdens onto those who rent or can’t afford a solar installation on their roof. The state tax credit would be on top of a recently-extended 30 percent federal tax credit on the value of solar projects;

2) With oil and gas revenues declining, New Mexico shouldn’t be offering $5 million subsidies to particular industries. It needs to be fiscally-responsible;

3) Most importantly, New Mexico law already mandates solar. The “renewable” mandate requires solar for 20% of all “renewables” while “distributed renewables” (almost entirely solar) account for 3% of RPS requirement.

In general, governments at all levels need to get out of the game of mandating and subsidizing various energy sources. If solar is really cost-competitive with other sources, by all means let it compete.

(Albuquerque) The Rio Grande Foundation (along with a host of organizations that support educational choice) is pleased to participate in School Choice Week 2016.

The Foundation is scheduled to participate in two New Mexico celebrations of School Choice Week, one in the Capitol in Santa Fe and the second

• Join us at our State’s Capitol on Thursday, January 28, from 1pm to 3pm for speakers and performances relating to School Choice Week. Speakers will include Secretary Hanna Skandera, a representative of the Rio Grande Foundation, and performers that are coming together to celebrate school choice in our state. Hundreds are expected and all are welcome!
• A second event is being held in Las Cruces at 7pm on Thursday as well. The organizers are from Students 4 Liberty at New Mexico State (check back for details).

Said Muska, “Freedom of choice is at the very heart of the Rio Grande Foundation’s mission. Given New Mexico’s real struggles with educational attainment, it is high time we give parents and students the freedom to attain the education that makes sense for them.”

School choice is a broad term that includes, but is not limited to: magnet schools, inter-district transfers, charter schools, parochial and private schools, virtual schools, and home-schooling.

The Rio Grande Foundation is philosophically supportive of all forms of school choice, but approaches education policy from the bottom-up perspective. In other words, funding should follow the students giving them the power to make the educational choice that makes the most sense for them. After all, no one has a greater interest in the success of a particular student than that student’s parent or guardian.

For a complete listing of School Choice Week events and participants, go to the School Choice Week official website.

The Journal’s Winthrop Quigley is simply not liberal (or economically-ignorant enough) for our “friends” at New Mexico Voices for Children. I recently dissected Quigley’s (correct) assertion that Medicaid is NOT a significant economic boon for New Mexico’s economy. I gave Quigley credit for that while noting that the seminal Oregan Health Study found no significant health benefits from Medicaid expansion.

Of course, that is beyond the pale for Voices which seems to be based upon the view that any expansion of government is a good thing. So, Sharon Kayne, the group’s communications director wrote an opinion piece that appeared in the Albuquerque Journal defending the notion that Medicaid expansion is an economic boon for New Mexico. The piece boiled down to two basic points:

1) She personally benefited from a government program “similar” to Medicaid;
2) Every dollar NM spends on Medicaid brings in almost four dollars from the feds.

No consideration of opportunity costs, or the possible downsides of putting healthy, childless workers on welfare. Simply one data point and the usual “OPM” (Other People’s Money) argument. RGF at least looked at job growth in Medicaid expansion v. non-expansion states and found no discernible difference in terms of job creation despite all that “free money,” but why let pesky facts get in the way of a cash grab?

While he doesn’t come out and say it, that is the practical effect of a recent paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta that was covered by Richard Metcalf in Monday’s Business Outlook section of the Albuquerque Journal.

The “creative class” model is largely credited to Richard Florida, a demographer and author. The idea is that cities should attract young, highly-motivated, and creative people to make an area “cool” and thus economically-prosperous. He uses the “Three T’s” Talent, Tolerance, and Technology to explain what cities need. This concept has seemingly formed the basis of many “economic development” strategies in Albuquerque and New Mexico as a whole with Marc Lautman leading the charge.

You can see these concepts reflected all over: Rail Runner, Spaceport, Bus Rapid Transit, InnovateABQ, broadband, and more. But is this an effective economic development strategy? Here are some quotes from Metcalfe’s article:

The basic finding is a low level or sometimes lack of trickle-down benefits from the college-educated strata of a metro population to the less-educated, more blue-collar working class. Of the four labor market measures, the lowest impact was in reducing the poverty rate.

One of the conundrums of economic development, especially in the context of growing a knowledge-based economy, is that the advantage goes to “a smaller group of workers within a metropolitan area that have high levels of educational attainment and skills,” the paper says. The upshot is more income inequality.

On the other hand, data also suggest that, in some metros, economic growth precedes growth in the percentage share of college grads – not the other way around – the white paper says.

In other words, lavishing tax dollars on the wealthy and prosperous “creative class” is great for the creative class, but there’s no real “trickle down” effect from this GOVERNMENT SPENDING. And, strong economic growth often PRECEDES growth in the number of college grads. They move where the jobs are!

The Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce has produced an admirable exploration of the city’s “budgetary challenges.” The document asserts that “the option of raising taxes should not be considered prior to a detail level examination of operations, revenues and corresponding expenses.”

Recommendations for reform include:

* imposing a “hiring freeze in certain departments”

* reviewing overtime policy and limiting or eliminating “overtime compensation in all noncritical areas”

* examining the city’s “office space, including City Hall, and other infrastructure requirements to ensure efficiency”

* privatizing “certain … services such as solid waste management, parking, etc.”

* selling “land, real property, and water/mineral rights”

The chamber’s paper has applicability far beyond Santa Fe. Most New Mexico municipalities — and counties — need to fundamentally reexamine their expenditures. With the state’s fiscal picture worsening, the oil-and-gas sector slumping, and the national economy looking shaky, there’s no time like the present to right-size local government in the Land of Enchantment.

(Albuquerque) As the New Mexico Legislature moves into its final weeks and several important floor votes have been taken, the Rio Grande Foundation is launching an updated and easier-to-use “Freedom Index” legislative tracking tool. The goal of this tool is to review legislation impacting freedom in our state.

Lawmakers and the interested public can use the Freedom Index to get an independent, free-market view of pending legislation. Moreover, voters can see whether their legislators are voting for free markets or for bigger government. Votes tallied are “floor” votes. 

Users can see:

The relative voting performance of legislators according to the Freedom Index;
The relative voting performance of each party according to the Freedom Index;
The analysis criteria behind the legislation ranking;
Links to legislation detail;
Links to legislator information, including contact information;
And selections of legislation by relevant categories.

Our analysis will be available before final votes on those bills that are analyzed, and can be used by both legislators, legislative staff, and interested voters to debate the merits of a bill.

In short, the Index provides an excellent analysis of bills that will come before committees or a vote on the floor, and tracks each legislator’s score. The public will find our Freedom Index to be a tool to hold elected officials accountable for their vote and to gain a better understanding of the legislation being proposed by the House or Senate members.

Rio Grande Foundation president Paul Gessing said of his organization’s new legislative tracking web site, “We are thrilled to add the freedom perspective to the legislative process in Santa Fe. For too long, the special interests have run wild with the voice of taxpayers and those who pay the bills too often pushed to the side.”

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The Albuquerque Biz First newspaper has really come into its own in recent years making many useful contributions to the public policy discussions here in New Mexico. The latest, highly useful item that they have come up with is the “Recovery Index.” It is in a simple “infographic” format below.

Using a few very specific, but important metrics, it shows how various sectors of Albuquerque’s economy have recovered (or not) with the reference point being the recession. I follow this stuff pretty closely and none of it really surprised me with the possible exception of the fact that the government work force has expanded slightly. I’d be interested to know how the makeup of that work force has changed (what has grown or shrunk, federal, state, and local?), but it is a very interesting and digestible look at the real challenges Albuquerque (and New Mexico) face.

Senator Howie C. Morales (D-Silver City) has targeted the Land of Enchantment’s smokers. His SB 77 raises the per-pack price of cigarettes by a full dollar. (The revenue would be dedicated, of course, to “early childhood education.”)

At $1.66, New Mexico’s current cigarette-tax rate is already above the national average, and higher than those imposed by our neighbors in Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado. (It’s close to Utah’s, and lighter than Arizona’s.) As the Mackinac Center reported last year, cigarette smuggling is a serious issue in the state.

The chart below shows that smuggling, as well as a falling population and the shift toward vaping, are contributing to stagnant revenue from the state’s tobacco tax:

Terrified that legislators will have less revenue to spend this session, on Monday, Sen. John Arthur Smith (D-Deming) advised his colleagues: “Go find money.” Morales is listening. You’ve been warned, smokers.

As the Foundation continues to scrutinize, and score, the bills being drafted for the 2016 regular legislative session, one thing has become distressingly clear: Lawmakers have no desire to simplify the tax code.

Republican and Democratic legislators alike are pushing all manner of tax credits and deductions. Here are a few:

* HB 34 creates a Thanksgiving-meal GRT deduction provided the restaurant had, “in the most recent five years … an average business income … of less than two million dollars ($2,000,000) per year.”

* HB 54 makes all health care practitioners eligible for the “Rural Health Care Practitioner Tax Credit.”

* HB 79 expands the “Working Families Tax Credit.”

* HB 107 reduces the severance tax rate on oil and natural gas obtained from “stripper” wells.

* HB 108 creates a “rural infrastructure tax credit” to “stimulate economic development.”

* HB 163 creates the “Home Energy & Water Efficiency Tax Credit.”

* HB 169 creates the “Capital Gain Reinvestment Income Tax Credit.”

* HB 174 permits local governments to suspend property taxes for “commercial enterprises.”

* SB 13 extends the “solar market development tax credit” until 2025.

* SB 16 creates an income-tax deduction for retired veterans and their spouses.

* SB 31 creates the “Technology Readiness Gross Receipts Tax Credit.”

New Mexico’s tax burden is far too high. Some levies need to be eliminated entirely, while the rates of others should be cut. But tinkering with the tax code — i.e., using fiscal policy to engineer outcomes that elected officials deem desirable — is an affront to fairness, simplicity, and liberty.

Regular readers of this site are likely aware of our frustrations with Albuquerque Journal business and economics writer, Winthrop Quigley. While Quigley does identify closely with the very liberal Voices for Children, in a recent column he (rightly) questioned their claim that “Medicaid is an economic engine” for New Mexico.

Back in November I testified before an interim committee of the Legislature saying much the same thing.

Does this mean Quigley suddenly “gets it?” Unfortunately not. While citing the groundbreaking Oregon Medicaid Study, he selectively cites the report’s conclusions. In fact, I posted a rebuttal to a previous Quigley column on Medicaid with further details on the study’s findings.

A central finding from the report was that “Medicaid has no statistically significant effect on employment or earnings.” This directly contradicts Quigley’s conclusion “It (Medicaid) helps keep people healthy, and healthy people are more likely to attend school and show up for work. Unfortunately, Quigley seems willing to embrace the obvious point that expanding a welfare program is no economic “stimulus,” but when it comes to the more fundamental question of whether Medicaid is worth its massive cost ($495.8 billion in 2014) or whether it it might be ripe for fundamental reform, that is beyond the pale.

“We have, over time, lost access to a lot of public lands.”

That’s Martin Heinrich, in an address to “conservationists” in Las Cruces on Saturday. (Look — he wore a camouflage vest!)

It was another admission of reality from a politician who stands firmly opposed to a solid solution to access squabbles: Transferring “federal” lands to state governments. In 2014, Heinrich penned a hysterical op-ed for The New York Times in which he claimed that doing so “would raise the possibility that some of the lands would be turned over to the highest bidder and that Western taxpayers would be saddled with the costs of overseeing the rest.”

Contrary to the claims of Heinrich and his deep-pocketed allies in the “green” lobby, the campaign against Washington’s distant, and agenda-driven, management of so much of the West isn’t an attempt to reward energy companies and despoil some of the nation’s most scenic terrain. It’s a logical reform of a system that isn’t working — a shift that promises better control of wildfires and more economic development (and tax revenue) for rural communities. And it’s been done before. As the American Land Council explains, in the 19th century, Congress relinquished its holdings in “western” states such as Michigan, Illinois, Alabama, and Florida.

Heinrich continues to peddle his “HUNT Act” as a tool to grant hunters and anglers better access to federal land. But the legislation is just more of the same. The answer is to get Washington out of the land business (excepting existing National Parks) altogether.

Thursday, January 28, 2016, at 11:30 a.m. MST
Doors open at 11:00 a.m.
A luncheon will follow the discussion.

Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town (Alvarado Room)
800 Rio Grande Boulevard NW
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87104
Map

About the Event

New Mexico’s action this past year to outlaw civil asset forfeiture is a promising example of the type of criminal justice reform that our system needs. Though there is much more work to be done to protect individual liberties, an examination of the state’s approach towards criminal intent could further help position New Mexico as a leader in justice reform.

Historically, a crime consisted of both a guilty act (actus reus) and a guilty state of mind (mens rea). The second requirement – the criminal intent – is now often absent from the growing proliferation of criminal statutes and regulations that carry criminal penalties. Laws at the state and federal levels classify thousands of ordinary activities as crimes, from shampooing a customer’s hair without a license to running a private daycare from one’s home. Worse still is that frequently the government is not required to prove criminal intent in order to obtain a conviction.

Legal tradition has long held that ignorance of the law is not a credible defense for criminal activity, but the sheer number of laws that currently exists makes knowing them all impossible. According to Harvey Silverglate, the average American commits three arguable felonies in the course of a given day. Have we have become a nation of accidental criminals? Can New Mexico lead the way for other states to examine their own penal codes and adopt measures that protect the innocent from harsh and undue criminal punishments?

Please join the Charles Koch Institute and the Rio Grande Foundation for a conversation with criminal justice experts who will explore these and other important issues.

Speaker Information

Moderator:

Paul Gessing, president, Rio Grande Foundation

Panelists:

Norman Reimer, executive director, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
Robert Alt, president and chief executive officer, The Buckeye Institute
Vikrant Reddy, senior research fellow, Charles Koch Institute

Click here to register!

Early voting for yet another election is underway in the Albuquerque area. What, you didn’t know that? It might be by design, or at least it seems to be hardly accidental (considering how pathetic turnout was in the last municipal election which was better-publicized by far). This election is for a series of Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) and Central New Mexico Community College (CNM) bond measures. Of course, people working for those institutes have an interest in voting, but how about the rest of us?

Unlike most bond measures which are sold to the public as “not raising taxes,” the CNM bond would increase the Capital Mil Levy from .55 to 1.0 and increase all property taxes in Bernalillo County and parts of Sandoval County. The impact of the increase would be approximately $29.10 per year on a house with a market value of $200,000. That’s a decent-sized increase.

Early voting is going on now at the following sites:

Early voting started on January 13 and ends on Saturday, January 30. Voting sites will be set up at the following locations (shown in green on the map). Election Day is February 2nd with sites listed at the link above.

• APS City Centre (map)
• APS Lincoln Complex (map)
• CNM Main Campus: BT2 (Basehart Temporary Portable 2) (map)
• CNM Montoya Campus: Building I, Room 111 (map)
• RFK Charter School (map)

I took time yesterday to vote at CNM’s main campus and, while it took me awhile because the information I had didn’t specify WHERE on CNM’s main campus the vote was being held, I did manage to find the lovely portable trailer voting area which is located on the East Side of University overlooking Milne Football stadium.

You should do the same. the local economy is as weak as can be and new taxes won’t help. While CNM does a better job than many New Mexico colleges and universities, it also has  7 different locations in the metro area. Of course, APS has also had its well-publicized issues with taxpayer-funded contract buyouts etc. Voting down bonds is one of the few means of holding these bureaucracies accountable.

Kudos to KRQE’s Matt Grubs for his investigation into sick-leave abuse at the Public Regulation Commission. He exposed two employees for taking “unusual amounts of sick leave immediately prior to quitting,” a practice that “runs counter to PRC policy, state personnel rules and state law.”

New PRC boss Valerie Espinoza wasn’t pleased, telling the reporter: “I mean, to pay somebody sick leave that’s not actually ill is a travesty. Because you’ve got to remember it’s taxpayer money we’re talking about here.”

The report is another reminder that life really is different in the world of state-government employment. The sick-leave abuse was approved by a supervisor, and it remains to be seen if the PRC will take corrective actions.

But the larger issue of unfair pay and benefits deserves attention from the state’s elected officials. In 2014, research by the American Enterprise Institute showed that the “total compensation differential” between comparable government and private-sector positions in New Mexico was 20 percent.

The Land of Enchantment’s economy is sagging, and Medicaid-driven expenses are putting the state’s treasury in further jeopardy. With the legislative session set to get underway next week, now would be a good time for lawmakers to examine how employee overcompensation contributes to fiscal stress.