The following op-ed ran in the Albuquerque Journal on March 6th.

Taxpayer compassion is reaching its limits.

U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) has sponsored HR 4540, a bill that permits states to drug-test beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as food stamps.

“If a welfare recipient has the money to buy drugs, then they have the money to buy food,” Aderholt said. “The federal government should not be enabling people to fund their drug addiction at taxpayer expense.”

Maine’s governor is asking Washington to allow his state to waive the rules that allow the purchase of candy and soft drinks with SNAP benefits.

“Multiple Red Bulls in one purchase, Rock Star energy drinks, 1-pound bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and 3 gallons of Hershey’s Ice Cream in one purchase,” an official with Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services testified at a hearing last year. “We have all seen these types of purchases occur — and it’s unacceptable.”

Here in New Mexico, Ty Vicenti, president of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, claims that “the New Mexico Human Services Department implemented a harsh federal penalty in most of the state that limits unemployed adults without children to just three months of SNAP benefits in three years unless they do 80 hours of unpaid work activity each month.”

Wrong and wrong.

The Martinez administration’s “harsh federal penalty,” as the SNAP website explains, “has been part of the law since 1996.” Welfare reform was sponsored by U.S. Rep. John Kasich, now a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and signed by Bill Clinton, a Democrat.

As for “unpaid work activity,” the able-bodied adults without dependents being asked to step up can be either employed, in job training or perform community service. The requirement does not apply to those who are pregnant, disabled, addicted to drugs, under 18 or over 50.

Unreasonable? Cruel? Onerous? Hardly.

In 2009, at the height of the Great Recession, New Mexico and many other states asked D.C. for permission to grant unrestricted SNAP benefits to the able-bodied. According to a Human Services Department spokesman, the request “was only temporary and was never intended to stay indefinitely.” On Jan. 1, limits were restored.

New Mexico is hardly alone in returning to standard SNAP practice. According to the Pew Research Center, only California, Louisiana, Nevada, Michigan, Illinois, South Carolina and Rhode Island have yet to lift requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents. Forty-three states now require work/training/community service, either entirely within their borders or in certain regions.

As the press secretary for Wisconsin’s governor put it, “We aren’t making it harder to get benefits — we are making it easier to get a job.”

In New Mexico, that goal is imperative. The labor-force participation rate in our state is disturbingly low and welfare has become a way of life for far too many of our neighbors.

Dependency is rampant, in part because New Mexico’s taxpayers are more than generous to the state’s low-income community. Medicaid, housing subsidies, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, energy assistance, food stamps and other welfare programs have stitched together a sturdy safety net. A 2013 Cato Institute analysis found that the “hourly wage equivalent” for major welfare programs was $13.41 — within striking distance of the state’s median hourly wage.

No one would argue that New Mexico’s economy is strong. But that’s no reason to continue incentivizing SNAP benefits for the able-bodied. As the Foundation for Government Accountability explained: “Fewer than three percent of all non-disabled, full-time, year-round workers are in poverty, compared to nearly a third of non-workers.”

With revenue shortfalls mounting at the state and federal levels, welfare programs are facing increased scrutiny. More requirements, rules and eligibility limits are likely in the future.

Asking able-bodied New Mexicans to work, or prepare to work, in order to obtain food stamps is neither mean-spirited nor unworkable. It’s a step toward individual dignity, economic development and fiscal responsibility.

D. 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.

The 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.”

In February, of 9,591 projected jobs, 7,276 — 75.9 percent — were slated for right-to-work (RTW) states:

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

RTW prevailed in foreign direct investment (FDI), too. Nine projects are headed to RTW states, with seven to occur in non-RTW states.

Marquee RTW wins included a manufacturing facility for Rhode Island-based Textron Specialized Vehicles in Georgia (400 jobs), the decision by New York-based NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises to build its new headquarters in Florida (150 jobs), and Swiss-Canadian startup GF Linamar’s pick of North Carolina to make “light-weight powertrain, driveline and structural components” (350 jobs).

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 from additional sources.

* 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.

Supporters of the new bus system are grasping for straws and making ridiculous arguments even though others claim the project is a “done deal.”

According to an opinion piece written by a UNM student in today’s Albuquerque Journal:

I believe the closer we can get to a no-car zone the more attractive this part of town and this city will be for the younger generation.

Central doesn’t need more cars, it needs to be urban. The ART will show Millennials that Central is safe, urban and easily accessible area for them to be, learn and grow into contributing members of Albuquerque’s working population.

What is UNM itself but a relatively large area free of cars? And, while college students undoubtedly enjoy the bars, restaurants, and other offerings along Central, those will certainly go away if cars on Central are eliminated. The increased traffic and general difficulty of getting from place to place along Central is the primary objection of business owners already. I’m at least glad to see someone clarify where this new bus system is taking us.

And, while we in Albuquerque know it as “Central,” people the world over know it as Route 66. Sad to see Albuquerque’s elected leaders deforming “the Mother Road” into a “safe space.”

Albuquerque Business First had an interesting quote from Sherman McCorkle earlier this week. Back in January, the chairman and CEO of the Sandia Science & Technology Park Development Corporation observed that “for many legislators, more than half of their campaign funding comes from unions. So they’re not going to vote for right-to-work unless each of us … talks to their legislator and reaffirms that something like a third of Fortune 500 companies in America will not even look at New Mexico unless it’s right-to-work.”

McCorkle’s statement was gutsy, but it’s accurate only to a point. Campaign cash is nowhere near the determining factor that Common Cause and its allies claim. (Ask Jeb Bush.) In New Mexico and elsewhere, unions use their forced dues in far more politically effective ways, including newsletters, lawn signs, phone banks, precinct work, voter-registration drives, and get-out-the vote efforts.

That kind of electoral muscle contributes heavily to unsustainable spending and higher taxes. For example, in a 2014 analysis, the National Institute for Labor Relations Research found that of “the nine states with the most debt relative to personal income, eight (Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon) lack Right to Work laws. Mississippi is the only Right to Work state among the nine most indebted. In stark contrast, of the 11 states with the lowest percentage debt-to-income burdens, 10 (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia) have Right to Work laws on the books.”

So while a RTW law is a key tool to attract businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs, it’s also a means to de-fund a coercive political apparatus that hurts New Mexico’s competitiveness through relentless advocacy for bigger government.

At its Mojave Desert facility recently, Virgin Galactic unveiled its newest spacecraft which someday may take paying tourists to the edge of space from Southern New Mexico.

This was cause for celebration at the Albuquerque Journal’s editorial board which editorialized that Spaceport “critics should cool their jets” about wanting to de-fund or sell off the facility.

The  Journal’s editorial board are usually fiscally-responsible folks, but I’m not sure how the unveiling of a new, completely untested prototype is some kind of success for New Mexico or how it at all validates the $220 million and counting that New Mexico taxpayers have spent on the facility. I hope Branson and company have a winner with their latest spacecraft, but nearly five years after the facility opened, New Mexicans are at least $220 million in the hole for an largely unused facility that is tied to the success of one company that has yet to successfully achieve the type of space flight (even in testing with their previous ship) it promises its customers.

Oh, and New Mexico is facing a budget gap of 12% of its general fund (between $700 and $800 billion). It would be nice to have all that Spaceport money lying around to balance the budget.

Yes, someone should “cool their jets.” Anyone who believes that New Mexico’s Spaceport is anything but a costly white elephant should realize that New Mexico may someday see tourist flights to space, but that day is unlikely to be anytime soon. And even if/when it does happen, there is zero evidence that New Mexico’s economy will experience benefits in line with its significant and growing investment.

Analee Maestas, vice president and audit committee chair of the board of Albuquerque Public Schools, has denied submitting “a doctored receipt for $342.40 to the New Mexico Public Education Department in an attempt to get reimbursement for cleaning that took place at her home, not La Promesa Charter School, where she is executive director.”

The outcome of the scandal is anyone’s guess, and Maestas should get the same presumption of innocence that we all would in similar circumstances. But there’s no question that waste, fraud, and abuse is a severe problem in government education.

There is, literally, a book about the subject. School Corruption: Betrayal of Children and the Public Trust is worth a read for anyone working to reform primary and secondary education in America.

Written by Armand A. Fusco, Ed.D., a retired school superintendent, the book contains several anecdotes about New Mexico:

* In 1996, the business manager for Taos Municipal Schools misappropriated $11,236.

* In 1997, the contract for the business manager of Hondo Valley Public Schools was “altered to reflect a $2,524 salary increase without obtaining required approval.”

* In 1998, the state took over financial control over Santa Rosa Consolidated Schools due to a $100,000 deficit.

* In 1999, the Santa Fe Independent School District suffered the same fate.

* in 2000, a Gadsden Independent School District employee was put on leave after a “substantial sum” went missing from a fundraising event.

School Corruption was self-published — no surprise there — in 2005. It’s available from Amazon.

If you haven’t already heard, SandRidge Energy which had applied for a permit to drill in Sandoval County, has pulled its application. Certainly, low oil and gas prices may be an issue, but so was strident and vocal opposition.

As I wrote in an opinion piece published awhile back in the Rio Rancho Observer, “it’s not like New Mexico can afford to simply kick investors out. We have the nation’s highest unemployment rate. The state budget is flat due largely to the decline in oil and gas prices. And, in recent years, despite the self-evident beauty of our state and its great weather, New Mexico has seen more people — especially young ones — leaving than are coming in.”

Recently, investors looking to do business in New Mexico, bringing jobs and economic development to our state, received a harsh lesson in NIMBY (Not in my backyard) politics.

Unfortunately, while we’ve come to expect anti-oil and gas hysteria in places like Mora and Santa Fe counties, relatively conservative Rio Rancho and Sandoval County are apparently not immune.

I’m referring, of course, to SandRidge Energy’s plans to drill an exploratory well in the county on privately-owned land west of Rio Rancho. The NIMBY crowd was out in full-force with one man saying he “only” lives eight miles from the proposed site and that it was simply too close.

Yes, oil prices are down right now. And, SandRidge Energy will probably give the mob what it wants and walk away from the project.

But oil prices will rise again in the future. Whether any other investors will want to deal with the emotional and misinformed NIMBY activists who apparently dominate Sandoval County’s politics is another question.

Perhaps if these people ever got out to Farmington or Carlsbad, they would see that oil and gas wells operate discreetly all over urbanized areas. Pump jacks quietly operate in parking lots and next to golf courses on a daily basis with few problems or complaints.

The worst thing about the NIMBY crowd is their hypocrisy. They live in a state where 31 percent of the budget comes from oil and gas. They drive their oil-fueled car on blacktop made with petroleum products (and maintained with a healthy dose of oil- and gas-derived tax revenue) and take their kids to schools that are largely funded by the oil and gas industries.

As long as oil and gas production is done somewhere else, they are perfectly happy to reap the rewards.

Of course, it’s not like New Mexico can afford to simply kick investors out. We have the nation’s highest unemployment rate. The state budget is flat due largely to the decline in oil and gas prices. And, in recent years, despite the self-evident beauty of our state and its great weather, New Mexico has seen more people — especially young ones — leaving than are coming in.

This may not be of concern to the relatively affluent and politically active NIMBY crowd, but a lot of people could be helped by this project.

That’s not to say that every proposed oil and gas project should be approved. After dispassionate discussion and real research, perhaps SandRidge would have been denied on its merits. But that is not what is happening. There is no acknowledgment by hysterical activists of the Obama EPA’s repeated findings of the safety of “fracking” relative to drinking water.

There’s also no discussion of the fact that the process has been commonly used to extract oil and gas since the 1940s. It’s all emotion.

In places like Farmington, Hobbs and Carlsbad, oil and gas are part of everyday life. Often it is what puts dinner on the table for middle class families. Sandoval County doesn’t have that history. Ignorance and hysteria fill the void.

Unfortunately, mindless opposition to private sector investment is a common trait in New Mexico. It is a leading cause of our systemic poverty.

Paul Gessing is president of the Rio Grande Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting liberty, opportunity and prosperity for New Mexico.

Last week, the Albuquerque Journal’s Business section contained an article touting the “job creation” impact of school construction on the local economy.

Of course taxing the citizens and/or oil and gas production do “create jobs” in construction, but as an economic development tool it represents nothing more than shifting money from one pocket to the other. We’re not even pilfering tax dollars from other states as that other “economic development” program Medicaid does.

Here is my article, published in today’s Business Journal explaining that school construction is not going to contribute to overall economic growth:

Sadly, the recent article about school construction providing the bulk of Albuquerque-area construction activity is just another indicator of New Mexico’s abject lack of a private sector (outside of the now-struggling oil and gas industries).

Legislators had a few small successes in Santa Fe with the passage of ride-sharing and worker’s compensation reforms, but they failed to deregulate New Mexico’s economy in any meaningful way. Another traditionally-poor state, West Virginia, raced ahead with passage of a “Right to Work” bill and repeal of “prevailing wage” laws that arbitrarily raise construction prices on public works projects like roads and schools.

The Associated Builders and Contractors, a free market construction trade association, recently rated New Mexico an astonishing 51^st nationwide in terms of construction-oriented state policies. That’s behind even the District of Columbia. New Mexico’s lack of a “Right to Work” law and the existence of arbitrary construction pricing in the form of “prevailing wage” were major factors in our performance.

Every industry in our State relies on construction. With 10,000 people showing up to interview for 290 jobs at a newly-opened Cheesecake Factory, it is clear that our economy is in dire straits. Government spending simply can’t save us.

This week, the Economic Innovation Group issued its “Distressed Communities Index,” which measures “seven well-being metrics” by zip codes, cities, counties, congressional districts, and states.

You know where this is headed.

New Mexico did poorly on the index. Some locales fared worse than others, but overall, the state’s performance was abysmal — sixth in the share of population living in distressed zip codes.

Four of our five neighbors beat us on high-school graduation. New Mexico tied with Arizona for the percentage of adults not currently employed, with Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Colorado doing better. All five beat us in percentage change of people employed and percentage change in the number of business establishments.

A special session for real economic-development policies, please?

Do they have to rub our face in it?

It’s bad enough that Arizona’s looking to implement an ambitious school-choice program. But as a recent article in The Arizona Republic outlined, the Grand Canyon State’s economy is surging.

The paper listed “more than 85 companies, government entities and non-profit organizations collectively advertising more than 27,000 open positions this month,” with each looking for a minimum of 100 new hires.

Yes, some of the positions are for restaurant workers, cashiers, and customer-service representatives. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) But many are not. Companies looking to hire include Raytheon, Aetna, Insight Enterprises, Anthem, Intel (ouch), Fresenius Medical Care, Technosoft, Lockheed Martin, Oracle, Mayo Clinic, and Wells Fargo.

In 1910, just before each state joined the union, New Mexico had a population of 327,301. Arizona lagged behind, at 204,354. A century later, much had changed. Arizona’s population is well over 6 million, while its neighbor to the east struggles to top 2 million. (And in recent years, New Mexico has lost population.)

Looking at more recent data, Arizona has soundly bested the Land of Enchantment in recovering from the Great Recession. Both states have gained jobs since their employment troughs, which both occurred in September 2010. But Arizona’s growth has been three times greater:

New Mexico has a lot to learn from Texas. But policymakers should look west, too. It starts with a right-to-work law, but regulatory reform, a simpler and less-burdensome tax system, and school choice have roles to play, too. When will the politicians in Santa Fe get it?

I’m not saying it will do anything to stop the project. Mayor Berry seems dead-set on shoving bus rapid transit down Albuquerque’s collective throat and most city counselors of both political parties are not responding to constituent concerns. Nonetheless, there is a series of public meetings being held over the next several days. Feel free to attend and ask lots of questions including:

Why is Cleveland a model for Albuquerque when it comes to bus rapid transit?

Why is the City adopting a bus system that the City’s own consultants, Parsons Brinckerhoff (see page 110), say will reduce mobility along Central?

Overall, this analysis concludes that in the Build Condition, the operational performance at several

intersections would be deteriorated. Several segments would have diminished operational performance,

thereby increasing queuing and congestion along the Central Avenue corridor. This can clearly be

attributed to the reduction in capacity of the general purpose lanes along the majority of the corridor.

Here is the meetings schedule:

Wednesday, Feb. 24, 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m., Special Collections Library, 423 Central NE (at Edith)
Thursday, Feb. 25, 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m., Immanuel Presbyterian Church/Fellowship Hall, 114 Carlisle SE (at Central)
Tuesday, March 1, 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m., Albuquerque Police Community Substation, 2060 Central SW (at Rio Grande)
Wednesday, March 2, 5:30 p.m.-7 p.m., Patrick J. Baca Library, 8081 Central NW (at Unser)
Thursday, March 3, 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m., Alice K. Hoppes African American Pavilion, EXPO New Mexico (San Pedro and Copper-across from the Expo N.M. Pavilion Stage)

ABQ RIDE representatives will be available to answer questions and provide project details. Participants at these public meetings will also get to review plans for:

The latest station renderings and their lighting designs
Lane configurations
Cross sections of lane alignments along neighborhoods of Central Ave served by ART
Landscaping and streetscape plans

Take a cursory glance at the results of the Foundation’s 2016 Freedom Index, and you might make the mistake of thinking that our scorecard exists to promote Republicans and bash Democrats.

This session, the Index’s top ten legislators are all Republicans, with Rep. David Adkins repeating as champion. The bottom ten are all Democrats, with Rep. Christine Trujillo landing at rock-bottom.

But there are 112 member of New Mexico’s legislature. Examine all the scores. You’ll find Democrats who clustered near the top — e.g., Rep. Stephanie Garcia Richard, Rep. Dona Irwin, Rep. Patricia Lundstrom. Republicans who voted in rather disappointing fashion include Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort and Rep. David Gallegos.

Check your legislators’ scores, as well as their votes on individual bills, and let them know what you think about what you found. It’s an election year, and lawmakers should know why you’ll be voting for or against them in November.

During the recently-completed New Mexico legislative session, no progress was made in improving our State’s bottom-dwelling education system. The school choice tax credit bill, HB 207, did not make it out of the Ways and Means Committee in the House (a similar bill did pass the House last year). Fortunately, not all states are as beholden as New Mexico to teachers’ unions and the education establishment.

Take Arizona where their Senate just passed legislation that, if it becomes law, would allow every one of the more than 1 million students in Arizona the opportunity to attend private and parochial schools with tax dollars. Arizona’s plan mirrors reforms enacted first — and subsequently tied up in the courts — in Nevada.

School choice is showing results that are increasingly being verified by the empirical evidence. According to a new report from Louisiana (another school choice innovator):

* The Louisiana Scholarship Program has closed the achievement gap with the statewide average by almost half (44 percent gap reduction) over the last five years for students in grades 3-8 achieving at least “Basic” proficiency.

* Additionally, the report notes that the percentage of students in grades 3-8 receiving nonpublic school scholarships and achieving “mastery” on state assessments increased 4 percentage points, compared to a 3 percentage point increase for all students statewide. Likewise, the percentage of Scholarship students achieving at least “basic” increased 3 percentage points, compared to a 4 percentage point dip statewide.

* Program-wide, the Scholarship program’s increases in student achievement outpaced the majority of districts. If the Louisiana Scholarship Program were considered a school system with a system-wide performance score, the Louisiana Scholarship Program’s 4.7-point growth from 54.3 in 2014 to 59.0 in 2015 would have ranked 9th among all school systems for annual performance improvement.

Perhaps someday soon New Mexico will truly embrace school choice. Until then, I expect the State’s educational outcomes to lag.

One of the disappointments of the 2016 regular session was the failure of HB 191, a bill that would have allowed dental therapists to provide routine care such as drilling and filling cavities.

Occupational-licensing tyranny in the healthcare field is a target-rich environment for reforms that are sure to benefit both consumers and taxpayers. Last week, the Pew Research Center profiled another promising deregulation: permitting pharmacists to supply contraceptives to women without a doctor’s prescription.

“California pharmacists will begin writing their own prescriptions for birth control next month,” Pew reported, “and lawmakers in Hawaii, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington are considering legislation that would give pharmacists the power to prescribe contraceptives.”

Let’s add New Mexico to that list. Pew’s research shows that the Land of Enchantment ranks #9 in unintended pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15-44, and #11 in unintended pregnancies as a percentage of all pregnancies.

In New Mexico and throughout the nation, the welfare-industrial complex is founded on illegitimacy. An enormous cohort of children born to, and raised by, single mothers acts as a force multiplier for all manner of social pathologies. Letting pharmacists sell prescription-free contraception is no cure for unwed pregancies, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Your (the government’s) stated goal is to get food stamp recipients to eat healthier food.

Do you:

A) Limit the foods that food stamp recipients can purchase to healthier options or perhaps (using the electronic cards) require a certain percentage of food stamp purchases include fruits and vegetables? or

B) Require any store (including convenience stores) that accept food stamps stock at least three types of food in each of the four food groups making no demands on the food stamp recipients themselves?

If you are the federal government, you chose “B” (see the Albuquerque Journal story linked above or the federal comments page). Remember that grocery stores are a relatively low-margin business and that especially in densely-packed urban areas shelf space is at a premium. How many convenience stores clinging to existence will be driven out of business by this ridiculous regulation? Also, is there going to be a new corps of USDA employees checking store shelves to make sure they have adequate offerings in each food group? How much will that cost?

Lastly, while the idea of government micromanaging dietary choices is generally repugnant, if the government is going to regulate anyone, it should be recipients of a government program, not store owners.

According to a new report from ABQ Biz First, 10,000 people applied for 300 positions at the City’s new Cheesecake Factory. This is the kind of statistic that screams for interpretation and there are a slew of them:

1) The obvious bad news (we already knew this) is that Albuquerque’s economy is in the tank and that competition for low-wage, low-skilled positions is really tough. Approximately 9,700 people applied for but were rejected from cooking, waiting tables, and greeting people at a restaurant.

2) The good thing is that lots of people still want to work and find jobs even at low pay. This speaks to the fact that despite all the obstacles to work and government handouts, a lot of people still want to work, they just can’t find a job.

3) If they care about these working class people who want to work, but can’t find it, our city and state leaders should allow more of those people to work by eliminating arbitrary wage floors.

4) We know “right to work” states generate jobs more readily than “forced unionism” states. Liberal opponents of “right to work” claim that wages are reduced in such states. There is plenty of research to the contrary, but New Mexicans need jobs and they need them now. Hundreds of people in the State’s largest City were TURNED DOWN work at a restaurant!

5) The “happy talk” about the local economy should cease until relatively low-wage businesses like restaurants actually have to compete for workers rather than having 10,000 to choose from.

The 2016 regular session is over, and before we lament the inevitable, budget-cutting special session that is sure to follow, let us rejoice. The worst of this year’s anti-taxpayer, freedom-hostile bills did not pass.

* Each of the minimum-wage increases (HB 125, HB 154, HB 323, SB 236, and SJR 18) died.

* All three gasoline-tax-hiking bills (SB 251, SB 284, SJR 22) crumbled.

* SJR 2 and SJR 3, attempts to tap the Land Grant Permanent Fund for “early childhood education services,” fizzled.

* All three tobacco- and vaping-tax hikes (HB 300, SB 4, SB 77) failed.

* Rep. Miguel Garcia’s bill to extend “public financing” to legislative candidates was ignored.

* The “Gender Pay Equity Tax Credit,” sponsored by Rep. Nate Gentry and Sen. Mimi Stewart, went nowhere.

Sometimes, failure is success.

The New Mexico Legislature has adjourned for 2016. There were several major disappointments including lack of action on “right to work,” “Prevailing wage reform,” and school choice, (to name just a few).

But it is too easy to focus on the negatives because a few economically-helpful bills got through this session. These include (finally) legislation to reduce worker’s compensation benefits for workers who show up drunk or stoned on the job. This year’s bill was sponsored by Sen. Jacob Candelaria, but past efforts were sponsored by Rep. Dennis Roch. No matter what, this is a long-overdue reform and we are glad it finally passed.

Another positive from this session is that New Mexico’s Legislature has brought ride-sharing companies like Lyft and Uber under a reasonable system of rules and regulations. They will now be able to operate legally in New Mexico without threats from the Public Regulation Commission that they are operating illegally. Ride-sharing can improve transportation and mobility throughout our state while also reducing our State’s serious DUI problem. Kudos to Rep. Monica Youngblood who sponsored the ride-sharing bill.

Finally, being that this was a 30-day “budget” session, the Legislature passed a budget. The fast-changing (declining) revenue picture calls the viability of this budget into question, especially considering media reports indicating a 12% decline in general fund revenues. In other words, unless the price of oil rebounds dramatically later this year, we expect the Legislature to be called back for a special session to make further cuts later on in the year.

This will especially painful given that 2016 is an election year, so legislators of both parties are keeping their fingers crossed for higher oil and gas prices. We expect them to be disappointed.

If you haven’t heard the news, the Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently held a well-attended public hearing in Farmington on the issue of “venting and flaring” of methane from natural gas wells. Droves of Four Corners residents came out in opposition to the costly new regulations being considered by the Obama Administration.

This is a huge issue for Farmington, NM, in particular, as the city saw the biggest jump in unemployment last year among 387 US cities. The San Juan basin is a major producer of natural gas and, while “venting and flaring” are not optimal for the industry, the amount of “venting and flaring” in recent years has declined.

The BLM is currently accepting comments and will do so until April 8, 2016. The Rio Grande Foundation has submitted the following comments and encourages you to submit comments (click here to do so) (or at the email or mailing address below) in opposition to the proposed “venting and flaring” rule.

February 17, 2016

U.S. Department of the Interior, Director (630)
Bureau of Land Management
Mail Stop 2134 LM
1849 C St. NW.,
Washington, DC 20240

OIRA_Submission@omb.eop.gov.
Attention: OMB Control Number 1004-AE14

To Whom it May Concern:

I am the president of a free market policy research organization called the Rio Grande Foundation. We are based in Albuquerque. Our research focuses on New Mexico’s economy which is uniquely-challenged among US states. Our unemployment rate has been the highest in the nation for two months running. Our poverty levels are among the highest in the nation. As a state, New Mexico is the third-most dependent on the oil and natural gas industries as a percentage of our budget.

Given that the Bureau of Land Management controls 13.5 million of New Mexico’s surface acreage, approximately 2 million fewer acres than are occupied by the State of West Virginia, federal regulations have a tremendous impact on New Mexico’s economy.

On a statewide basis:

 There are 54,457 operating oil and gas wells in New Mexico
 The oil and gas industry employs 69,000 people in New Mexico;
 The average salary is $71,500 compared to the overall state average salary of $39,660
 56% of the oil and 63% of the natural gas is produced from Federal (BLM leases)
 In fiscal year 2014 the industry provided $2.1 billion of the state of New Mexico’s $6 billion general fund revenues (35%)

I should also note that while my organization is based in Albuquerque, we study the entire New Mexico economy. A recent report from the US Department of Labor labeled the Farmington area as suffering “extreme economic duress,” noting that it had the largest increase in its unemployment rate among 387 metropolitan areas nationwide in 2015 .

The northwestern New Mexico city saw its unemployment rate rise 2.1 percentage points last year, to 7.3 percent. The last thing New Mexico’s Four Corners area needs is a new set of costly federal regulations that negatively impact the region’s economy.

Methane Emissions are the object of the proposed regulations

 Venting and flaring of large amounts of methane represents lost profits to industry. While it is sometimes unavoidable, there are efforts already under way within industry to curtail the amount of emissions.

 Methane is both a product and by-product of oil and natural gas production. Onshore oil and natural gas operators are becoming more efficient at capturing methane emissions, and at reducing methane emissions from production activities. The national trend of methane reduction is supported by GHG reporting data, and it holds true despite a historic increase in oil and gas production over the past several years.

 Without regulations overall greenhouse gas emission in the San Juan Basin have decreased from 10.7 million metric tons in 2007 to 7.3 million metric tons in 2014.

 Vented methane emission in the San Juan are down due to cost effective and efficient practices including:

o Better operating practices that are decreasing the number and duration of venting events.
o Reduced pneumatic device emissions by reclassifying, removing, replacing and retrofitting high-bleed pneumatic devices.

Good Regulations vs. Bad Regulations

 Good regulation practices:

o Single and appropriate entity responsible for regulation;
o Effective in meeting public policy goals: environmental, health and safety;
o Based on science;
o Cost effective: the overall benefit of regulation is greater than the cost.

 The proposed venting and flaring rule is bad regulation for the following reasons:

o Redundant and contradictory with other federal regulations and state regulations;
o Requires extensive capital and operating expenses with little or no additional benefits;
o Not based on science and in fact, locks in operating and technology solutions that have been shown to be inferior;
o Cost prohibitive especially in era of low community prices will force existing wells to be plugged with the loss of future production, jobs, taxes and other revenues.

 What are weaknesses in the BLM’s approach?

o The BLM has attempted to understand economic impacts of these rules in isolation and has overestimated the benefits and underestimated the costs;
o We believe the cumulative economic impacts of the proposed changes should be considered in total across all their proposed rules;
o As proposed, these changes are significant and will have major impacts on investments in new and existing projects on federal and Indian lands, with the potential for job losses, premature well closures and significantly lower federal and tribal revenues;
o The BLM should conduct a more thorough economic impact analysis rules in isolation and has overestimated the benefits and underestimated the costs should be considered in total across all their proposed rules.

I am very concerned with the proposed BLM rule because as currently drafted it will lead to wells being prematurely plugged and devastating loss of jobs and needed economic activity in the Four Corners region and New Mexico as a whole.

New Mexico’s budget is in free-fall (along with oil prices). Yet politicians of all stripes in Santa Fe have expressed a desire to pay (especially young and new) teachers more.

The case for higher teacher pay is questionable. According to the somewhat dated information over at the website “Teacher Salary Info,” New Mexico teachers are paid 16th-most in the nation.

Nonetheless, IF your desire is to pay teachers more, pensions must be reformed. In a recent article by Marcus Winters of the Manhattan Institute, he discusses a recent paper for the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research which found that 10 percent of the earnings for an average public school teacher goes toward paying for pension liabilities accrued on the behalf of prior cohorts of teachers. That’s money they could be taking home in salary.

As Winters continues, “most teachers earn very little retirement compensation for each of their first two decades of teaching and then suddenly accrue large amounts of pension wealth during their late career years. The vast majority of teachers leave the system before they receive the large payouts. The money those who exit leave on the table goes to fund the comfortable retirements of the few who stuck around for their entire career.”

Obviously, reforming teacher (and other government pension systems) will be challenging and potentially-expensive in the short-term, but in the long-term, a defined-contribution (401K-style) system will attract more young, highly-qualified teachers who may want to do the job for a few years before moving on to other career opportunities.

For further research on teacher pensions in New Mexico, check out this report from the National Council on Teacher Quality. The report gives New Mexico a “D” grade for its teacher pensions and overall has a great many concerns bout their funding and fairness.

The 2016 legislative session is winding down, and we’ll soon know how lawmakers score on the Rio Grande Foundation’s Freedom Index.

For those placing wagers, though, Rep. David Adkins would be a safe pick as a repeat champ. So far, members of his chamber could score as many as +21 points. Adkins is atop the field, with all 21 points earned.

Here’s a sampling of the legislator’s votes:

* For HB 63, which limits worker-compensation benefits for intoxicated employees.

* Against HB 166, a bill to require the licensing of home inspectors.

* For HB 168, a bill to legalize transportation-network companies such as Uber and Lyft.

* For HB 200, which provides some relief from the state’s expensive and unnecessary “prevailing wage” mandate.

* For HB 206, a pro-taxpayer measure to permit the design-and-build method for government projects.

Adkins is a husband, father, small businessman, and pastor. He’s also a consistent vote for limited government and the free market in New Mexico. More like him, please!

The budget numbers are changing (for the worse) on an almost daily basis. The latest information calls for a 12% decline in General Fund revenues which means a reduction of $700-$800 million (not factoring in rainy-day funds etc).

The point remains, as I note below, that no matter how the budget gap is filled, there are some programs that should be eliminated in their entirety prior to cuts being enacted elsewhere.

Like spring follows winter, proposals to increase taxes on hard-working New Mexicans are flourishing in Santa Fe. Dozens of such proposals have been put forth, including several by Democrat Senate Finance Committee Chairman John Arthur-Smith. Gov. Martinez has repeatedly pledged NOT to raise taxes, so it is unlikely these proposals will be enacted, but what about the merits of the issue? Should taxes be raised in New Mexico?

One of Sen. Smith’s proposals that has attracted media attention is SB 281 which would re-impose the gross receipts tax on groceries. Groceries used to be taxed just like everything else bought in the store, but when he was governor, Bill Richardson decided to eliminate the tax on groceries. The broader gross receipts tax was hiked by half a cent. This all sounds simple, but was really a complex tax-shift that the Legislature has tinkered with since it was enacted.

And now, Sen. Smith wants to again tax groceries as a means of raising revenues in tight budgetary times. Taxing food is not an inherently bad idea, but it shouldn’t be done without reducing the gross receipts tax on other purchases.

That is only the start. Smith and his Democrat colleagues want to add taxes to everything from cigarettes to gasoline, to personal income, while also freezing New Mexico’s corporate income tax rate in place rather than continuing a scheduled phase-down to 5.9%.

The immediate concern for policymakers is New Mexico’s deteriorating budget picture. Due to declining oil prices, there is “only” $35 million in “new” money. Once $85 million in new costs for half-a-year of Medicaid expansion are added to the mix, everything else in New Mexico’s budget is being squeezed. Thus the calls for higher taxes.

Of course, New Mexicans are hard-pressed right now and it is shameful that politicians in Santa Fe want to increase taxes in a state with the highest unemployment rate in the nation and residents suffer from some of the highest poverty rates in the nation.

According to the Federation of Tax Administrators, New Mexicans face the 9th-highest state tax burden as a percentage of resident incomes of any state in the nation. The last thing we need is higher taxes.

New Mexico has some relatively easy solutions to its budget woes. The State spends approximately $50 million annually to subsidize film companies and the Rail Runner costs taxpayers another $25 million to operate. When times are good, these programs seem like nice things to have around, but are supporters really going to say that education, law enforcement, and behavioral health programs for the poor should be cut instead?

That’s ultimately their argument.

Of course many will come back with the “tax the rich” mantra, but New Mexico is poor. We have some rich people and some profitable businesses, but capital is mobile. They can leave our state anytime. And, as is plain to see, plenty of businesses avoid New Mexico.

We have one publicly-traded company (on a stock market) headquartered in the state (Public Service Company of New Mexico). We have seen our best-and-brightest moving to places like Texas for several years. Raising taxes isn’t going to help the cause.

It is time for tough decisions in Santa Fe. Alaska and Michigan recently eliminated their film subsidy programs. The Rail Runner is an epic money-loser even by mass transit standards. They are the fattest targets for policymakers, but there are plenty of others.

Gov. Martinez is right to avoid tax hikes. New Mexico’s economy faces enough challenges already.

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

This article was originally published at NMPolitics.net. Legislation along these lines was introduced in the 2016 session, but was not placed on Governor Martinez’ “call.”

New Mexico’s Legislature faces a plethora of duties during this year’s 30-day regular session. But a measure that should be a no-brainer, deserving of bipartisan support, permits dental therapists to practice in some rural and underserved areas of the state.

Dental therapists are trained to provide routine care, including drilling and filling cavities. Last year, a bill that would have allowed dental therapists to practice in New Mexico passed the Republican-held House, with Democratic support, only to fail in the Senate without so much as a floor vote.

However, a task force of legislators, along with supporters and opponents of dental therapists, came to a compromise late last year. The bill they’ve crafted, HB 191, isn’t perfect – the establishment of a state dental director isn’t necessary, and neither is a mandate that all children receive a dental exam as a prerequisite to school enrollment. Nonetheless, allowing dental therapists to work in our state would be a promising reform.

It is not a government mandate. It doesn’t involve taxpayer subsidies. It’s working in other states, including Minnesota and Alaska. And it’s a solid step away from the ugliness of professional protectionism through government licensing.

Support for reducing or eliminating government’s role in occupational licensing has drawn support from such ideologically disparate people as Nobel-Prize-winning, libertarian economist Milton Friedman and President Obama.

Friedman railed against the evils of professional licensing in speeches and debates that can be found online. The president’s 2016 budget proposal “seeks to reduce occupational licensing barriers that keep people from doing the jobs they have the skills to do by putting in place unnecessary training and high fees.” Last year, the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers issued a detailed report questioning the benefits of occupational licensing.

The left-right agreement on dental therapists in the Land of Enchantment includes the free-market Rio Grande Foundation as well as the left-leaning Health Action New Mexico and New Mexico Voices for Children. Both of the latter support the “Affordable Care Act,” while the Rio Grande Foundation works overtime to expose Obamacare’s many disappointments and failings.

In many rural areas of our state, dental coverage is not the issue – care is. According to a 2013 report by the Legislative Finance Committee, over 63 percent of New Mexicans live in areas where there are shortages of dental-health personnel. Allowing these professionals to carry out some activities that have previously been only available under the direct care of dentists would improve accessibility in rural and underserved communities. It can also create new business opportunities for entrepreneurial dentists.

HB 191 allows dentists to supervise therapists from off-site. But remote management doesn’t apply to filling cavities, despite mounds of evidence that shows that dental therapists can do the job effectively and safely under off-site supervision. Fixing this flaw would give a dental practices more flexibility in setting up a satellite office in a small town, and/or extending their office hours to serve more patients.

Healthy teeth are in many ways the key to overall health. People with periodontal disease are two times more likely to develop heart disease and arterial narrowing as a result of bacteria and plaque entering the bloodstream through the gums. That’s not all. Poor dental hygiene is correlated with everything from dementia to diabetes and even cancer. Increasing the availability of dental care in New Mexico can have cascading positive benefits throughout our healthcare system.

New Mexico’s lawmakers and governor have a chance to bring the free-market solution of dental therapy to our state by stripping the extraneous mandates and costs out of HB 191, and expanding scope-of-practice capabilities throughout rural New Mexico. The clock is ticking on the 2016 session.

Dental therapy is good for patients, taxpayers, and the economy. Why let partisan rancor get in the way of smart policy?

Dowd Muska (dmuska@riograndefoundation.org) is research director for 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.

The Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) bond measures recently passed overwhelmingly, despite a slew of scandals and payouts leading to concerns from district leaders that voters might use the bond election to punish the district. With a total of $575 million at stake, this was not a trivial concern.

An outpouring of opinion pieces and editorials from community leaders urged voters to put their concerns about the district and its management aside and support the bonds “for the children.” This was seemingly effective, as turnout was nearly double what it normally is for similar elections (still low at 7 percent, but much bigger than normal).

There is no doubt that a rejection would have gotten APS’s attention. It was a blunt instrument indeed, but it would have generated a swift reaction from district leaders.

Since the blunt instrument was rejected by voters, what means do voters have of keeping APS accountable? Locally, it pretty much boils down to electing the “right” people to the school board. Since the main job of the school board is to hire a district superintendent who ultimately oversees the schools, this is another weak and indirect method of accountability.

The situation at the state level is not much better. We elect a governor and legislators based on dozens of issues (and personality traits), with their stances on education among them. The governor then hires a secretary of education who is in charge of implementing that governor’s education policies. This process is yet another indirect and slow means of holding our education system accountable. What if I like Gov. Martinez’s policies on taxes and the economy, but don’t like what Department of Public Education Secretary Hanna Skandera is doing? Or, I might strongly dislike the governor, but appreciate what Skandera is doing. How do average people communicate their concerns to these people?

This is not limited to the current administration. Accountability, specifically its absence, is endemic to government educational systems.

If businesses think accountability in education is a trivial matter, they need look no further than New Mexico’s worst-in-the-nation graduation rate, constant discussion of our “workforce preparedness/quality,” and the tremendous growth in education spending in recent decades.

An intermediate step toward improved accountability is school choice. Ironically, the week immediately prior to the APS bond election was celebrated as “National School Choice Week.” New Mexico has some choice, most notably charter schools. I’m on the board of a charter school and support them, but the approval or rejection of a school’s charter (a legal document granting from a charter-granting authority) is yet another blunt tool for reformers.

Other forms of school choice offer greater potential for success. These include: vouchers and tax credits, as well as education savings accounts, which were recently enacted in Nevada. These options – particularly tax credits in recent years – have been discussed in New Mexico’s legislature. In terms of accountability, they would be a huge improvement. If these schools don’t perform at a level that makes them significantly better than traditional public schools, those schools will go out of business. On the other hand, if more parents demand a particular choice than are available, someone will attempt to expand the supply of similar options.

That’s real, direct accountability – the kind that comes from the free market. Competition quickly allowed consumers to embrace, and then reject, Blackberry devices, while iPhones and Androids made (and continue to make) rapid advances and continually innovate in order to win greater market share.

Unfortunately, that is a level of accountability that is beyond the wildest dreams of even ambitious education reformers today. School choice is the best available option and New Mexico policymakers need to get on board with it now if our state is ever going to get out of last place both educationally and economically.

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.