Especially if you have kids, the story below from KRQE Channel 13 will make your blood boil. It details how a planned playground was killed by one politically-connected individual (former Lt. Gov. Diane Denish) who used her friendship with Gov. Lujan Grisham to kill funding for the park in the recent capital outlay bill.

The episode highlights several issues:

1. Diane Denish is not a nice person. This is not an ideological issue. We disagree w/ retiring Sen. Ortiz y Pino (also featured) on many issues, but he has always been gracious and friendly. Not Denish and not the Gov. and we’re willing to say it publicly.
2. This was part of New Mexico’s capital outlay process which is deeply flawed (as we’ve discussed). The idea that one friend of the Gov. can call and get a project killed highlights the hyper-political nature and lack of vetting and accountability of the capital outlay process.
3. Of course, the kind of power wielded by the Gov. and her close friends is the kind of thing that will continue unless or until New Mexicans decide they are sick of this kind of petty politics.

When is the last time you heard Sen. Martin Heinrich talk about the desperate need for education reform in New Mexico? I certainly haven’t and would encourage to check the Senator’s Twitter feed to see for yourself. Heinrich loves to talk about his pet environmental issues like “electrify everything.” He talks abortion, attacks Republicans, and touts the porkbarrel spending that has run wild in Washington.

Perhaps it is unsurprising that Heinrich doesn’t discuss education because the State is ranked 52nd and his party has controlled the State for decades. That’s why it was so refreshing to see his election opponent Nella Domenici’s work on education reform in New Mexico touted in a recent Albuquerque Journal opinion piece written by her husband.

Along with Domenici’s real-world hands-on experience working for education reform the opinion piece includes support for Mississippi’s educational success (documented in this space) and the support for charter schools provided by Excellent Schools New Mexico. Getting New Mexico’s education system moving in the right direction is primarily a state, not federal responsibility, but it is also an “all hands on deck” situation.

One of many problems with government regulations is that politicians who embrace them often postpone their impact in ways that push the actual costs of those policies into the future. That way people forget about them and move on to more immediate concerns and sometimes the worst issues with the policy don’t even take effect until after the politicians who enacted it no longer occupy that office.

Specifically, the Energy Transition Act of 2019 will do great harms to New Mexicans, but those harms are only starting to be acknowledged. Here’s an article from the Albuquerque Journal.  The entire article is worth a read, but here are a few:

So how can the electricity companies afford to pay for new renewable energy facilities or acquire the clean energy otherwise? A University of New Mexico finance professor thinks the solution will likely be price increases and mergers.

“They have to retire plants that aren’t producing clean energy. They have to build plants that produce clean energy or acquire that electricity from somewhere else,” he said. “All of that costs money.”

He said raising money is more expensive right now, too, because interest rates are higher.

“It is a very, very challenging scenario for utility companies to achieve these targets,” he said.

The investor-owned utilities will likely push harder for price increases in the next decade or more, White said.

A second article also from the Albuquerque Journal notes that so-called “community solar” will have steep costs for rate payers as well. According to the article:

While we disagree with New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard about her effort to coerce the Legislature into raising taxes on the oil and gas industry which already funds most of New Mexico’s government, she is right about something. You see, unlike the Legislature which has seemingly been convinced that the industry is on the verge of a collapse, Garcia Richard apparently believes that oil and gas will continue long into the future.

After all, if the industry were somehow not sustainable, Garcia Richard would be looking for ways to offload oil and gas leases ASAP for whatever she might get, not hold onto them in the hopes of future, higher rates of return.  As the Albuquerque Journal noted recently, “Garcia Richard said it makes sense to her to temporarily forgo a few million dollars in exchange for billions more down the road.”

We have no idea when she expects the Legislature to raise royalties. All 112 members are up for election in November (and we happen to believe that the “progressives” have hit their “high water mark” for the time being. The election will likely determine whether a royalty rate increase will be likely in 2025 or not.

Regardless of what happens, we are pleased that New Mexico’s top elected Democrat with first hand knowledge or the oil and gas industry is so bullish on the industry’s future. Hopefully the 2025 Legislature will be more willing to make needed economic policy changes as well.

We know that oil and gas production in New Mexico and nationwide continues to grow. 

On this week’s show Paul interviews retiring Democrat State Senator Bill Tallman. Tallman and Gessing discuss his long track record of public service prior to coming to New Mexico and serving as a State Senator. Tallman is a critic of New Mexico’s capital outlay system and economic development approaches and Paul and Sen. Tallman discuss those. Tallman is also a supporter of electric vehicles and their subsidies and mandates which Paul questions him on.

Paul was in Alamogordo last week speaking to a Rotary club. He also had an opportunity to tour the New Mexico Museum of Space History.

A few Texans move to New Mexico & this is news?

Why do New Mexicans even pay taxes?

Despite Biden’s hostile policies toward the industry American oil production hit record levels this year amidst record global demand. You can find New Mexico data here.  

NM ranked 2nd-most-dependent state on federal government by Wallethub.

City of ABQ begins taxpayer-funded “ride share” service.

Democrat Sen. Tallman (Bernalillo County) takes on New Mexico’s broken capital outlay system in ABQ Journal op-ed.

Are you running for office and confused as to what the gross receipts tax is and why it causes problems? What is the right income tax rate for New Mexico? What regulations need to be reformed and how should we talk about education reform? As is well known New Mexico’s Legislature is composed of unpaid volunteers. Running for any office can be an overwhelming challenge requiring understanding of numerous complicated issues. To assist candidates regardless of party, the Rio Grande Foundation has produced a candidate guide with brief, easily digestible set of talking points regarding some of the most important economic, education, and constitutional issues facing New Mexicans.

Click the link to find RGF’s candidates guide. The guide includes hyperlinks to various websites which provide background and context for each bit of information. The guide is of course also available to anyone who wants some bite sized talking points about some of the critical issues facing New Mexico policymakers that COULD result in improved outcomes for our state.

According to a new Wallethub report “smaller is better” when it comes to government and return on investment. Big-government “blue” states California and Hawaii were the only two states with worse ROI’s than New Mexico (another blue state) while the top performing states were small-government bastions New Hampshire, Florida, and South Dakota (none of which have personal income taxes).

New Mexico ranks dead last in the school system category as well as violent crime. It had the 3rd-highest poverty rate. If New Mexico’s incredible oil and gas wealth were factored in and not just taxes paid by residents of New Mexico, the ROI would look even worse.

Recently none other than the liberal Vox analyzed the way in which the Biden Administration is reacting to the fact that American oil and gas production has hit record levels. It is absolutely true and the Biden Administration is not thrilled with it. In fact, they have tried to thwart the industry in numerous ways (killing Keystone XL, slowing permitting, stopping LNG permits, and subsidizing alternative energy to name a few).

But, the world demands energy and oil and gas have filled the bill.

And of course New Mexico, the 2nd-leading oil producing state in the nation, continues to increase oil production. December of 2023 saw a record 60 million barrels of oil produced in New Mexico according to the Energy Information Administration.

This not only highlights the ultimate futility of shoveling subsidies into other energy sources, but how misguided New Mexico policymakers truly are when they refuse to embrace bold tax and economic reforms due to some future decline in the oil and gas industries. 

Based on a recent story in the Albuquerque Journal one might be led to believe that large numbers of Texans are moving to New Mexico for reasons including lower tax burdens to weather and LBGT rights. The story smacks of a journalist attempting to find a trend where none exists.

In reality according to the Census Bureau’s 2022 data, the number of people moving to NM from Texas virtually matches the number moving the opposite way. As the story notes, NM has superior weather and is generally more pleasing in terms of its scenery. Property taxes are high in Texas, but lower overall than New Mexico.

The story DOES note, “Despite its high property taxes, Texas has been experiencing a higher population growth than New Mexico. While their population is growing at an annual rate of roughly 16%, New Mexico’s population is growing at a rate of 2.8%.” That really illustrates that the overall trend is actually people moving TO Texas, not as often to New Mexico.

While New Mexico SHOULD be favorably positioned to benefit from the trend of America’s aging population and retirement boom (bad schools and relatively limited job pools aren’t factors while good weather is) That likely won’t happen until New Mexico eliminates its Social Security tax. It is one of only a handful of states to charge such a tax and that constantly places New Mexico on lists of places that are unattractive retirement destinations. 

A more detailed analysis of New Mexico’s massive surplus and what is being done or not done with it would be much more interesting and worthwhile.

On this week’s Tipping Point interview Paul talks to Larry Behrens Communications Director of Power the Future, a pro-energy non-profit that works nationwide including here in New Mexico.

Paul and Larry discuss the start of the COVID emergency four years ago and their efforts to push back against the Gov.’s misguided and special-interest-favoring approach to COVID restrictions which destroyed numerous businesses and harmed New Mexico children (to name two impacts). Ultimately her policies failed to improve New Mexico’s COVID outcomes.

The rest of the episode is dedicated to energy topics at the state and federal level from the recent legislative session and “clean fuels standard” and NM’s ongoing boom. They also discuss the latest from the Biden administration and their lack of permitting for LNG projects.

RGF president Paul Gessing recently headed out on the road and gave a talk the Alamogordo Rotary club. Alamogordo is a great, conservative community and his presentation on the recent legislative session was well-received. Among the Rotarians was Bob Flotte (and his guest Mike Durler) of KHII Radio. Paul talks to Mike every Tuesday morning from 8:30am to 9am about issues facing New Mexico.

He also caught up with Mike Shinaberry who also frequently has Paul on as a guest on his radio show. Mike was kind enough to give Paul a tour of the New Mexico Museum of Space History. The museum is definitely something to check out if you are in the area.

If your Rotary or other civic organization would like to have Paul as a guest speaker, you can reach out to: info@riograndefoundation.org 

Among the items on display at the museum was a 3.7 billion year old piece of moon rock brought back by New Mexico astronaut Harrison Schmitt and a Tornado jet fighter used for training by the German military at Holloman AFB.

It is hard to quantify just how big the oil and gas surpluses are and how much the industry does for New Mexico’s economy (and how poorly the money is being managed by our Gov. and Legislature). But check out the graphic below from the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association. The State received a mind-blowing $7.5 billion in JUST the general fund in FY 2023. An additional $6.4 billion was sent to various permanent funds and other uses. That is simply future spending.

Simply put, as the chart below highlights, as of FY 2022, the oil and gas industry could have paid the entirety of New Mexico’s general fund burden. Given the current oil and gas revenue situation, it would be pretty easy for the State tax burden for ALL New Mexicans to be ZERO. Of course some fiscal restraint and reduction in subsidies/mandates etc. could improve upon that.

So, why ARE New Mexicans paying ANY State taxes?

Paul recently had a piece in National Review Online which details why New Mexico is a “Rich State with Poor People”

In a second op-ed Paul discusses the fact that after four years New Mexico Still has no limits on public health emergencies.

Paul experienced an electronic candidate nominating petition issue.

The 4 day school week saga continues.

No royalty rate increase was padded in the Legislature this session: Land Commissioner Garcia Richard reacted by taking her “marbles” and going home.

RGF recently requested cost information relating to County EV’s. These are costly equipment.

RGF provides comment on the Biden/Ben Ray Lujan vehicle kill switch.

The House approved the Laken Riley Act, mandating that immigration authorities detain non-citizens charged with crimes. All NM Dems voted “no.”

San Francisco voters recently (overwhelmingly) adopted Prop. F which will require single adults on city welfare to be screened for drug use. Paul wants to make New Mexico as conservative as San Francisco.

In the recent Texas primary only six of the 16 anti-school-choice incumbents who ran for re-election won. Six lost outright and four were forced into May 28 runoffs. Traditionally, incumbents enter runoffs as underdogs because a majority of voters have already expressed themselves against them.

Biden is wrong on shrinkflation of Snickers Bars. 

New Mexico has long been incredibly reliant on the federal government. Thanks to its high poverty levels, federal land ownership, AND the large number of federal installations (with a small private sector), New Mexico receives an astonishing $3.26 in federal funding for every $1.oo paid according to a new report from Wallethub. That makes New Mexico the 2nd-most dependent state in the nation trailing only Alaska.

New Mexico’s federal dependency seems to transcend its recent boom in oil and gas which has not been used by its political leadership to diversity its economy. The Wallethub report states the following about New Mexico:

Wallethub rates it a “high tax, high dependency” state as the chart below notes:

According to a news story from KOB TV, the City of Albuquerque Transit Department has created a new “ride sharing service” that is described as being “just like Uber and Lyft.” The system is touted as a year-long pilot program meant to serve “underserved areas” which currently include the South Valley and the North Valley areas. The service is set to launch on Monday, March 18. According to a separate story from KRQE the “service is free for customers, but it will cost the city about $26 per ride.”

This is exactly the type of government overreach Rio Grande Foundation takes issue with. We have already requested the budgeted annual cost and source of the funds for this program.

The following story from KOAT 7 is excellent. RGF’s president plays a small role in it, but overall the story explores how more and more taxpayer dollars keep being allocated to build on ostensibly “private” stadium for the NM United soccer team. We flagged the additional $16 million being allocated to “improvements at Balloon Fiesta Park” recently from the Legislature’s capital outlay bill. That comes on top of another $13 million already dedicated to improvements at Balloon Fiesta Park.

The team plans to put up $30 million for the stadium, so it seems pretty far-fetched that taxpayers are putting up about half the cost of the stadium just for “improvements” while the team is paying full-freight on the stadium for just $30 million.

Obviously, there WILL be improvements to Balloon Fiesta Park related to the stadium. Why weren’t those made before? The answer to that seems self-evident. Are taxpayer dollars going to be used to build the stadium itself? It is hard to believe how they won’t be and who will be accounting for those dollars in the construction process.

Watch the full story below:

New Mexico politicians have a tendency to tout “democracy” but only if they get their way. One might think that this would be simple since the entire State is “blue” and controlled by Democrats, but Gov. Lujan Grisham has repeatedly rejected the Legislature’s actions including her latest attempt to eradicate 4-day school weeks.

Now, New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard has decided that the Democrat-controlled Legislature’s refusal to increase royalty (tax) rates gives her the “green light” to refuse to lease certain prime oil and gas lands under her control. Someone who knew nothing about New Mexico politics might expect a standoff like this to occur in a state with a partisan split between the Land Office and the Legislature, but they are all “progressive” Democrats.

Will Garcia Richard relent or is she going to hold these leases “hostage” until she gets her way in the Legislature? Will legal action bring the Commissioner into line? While Garcia Richard claims to be acting for the benefit of NM school children to get the “best deal,” the reality is that oil and gas is taxed differently in different states. New Mexico, for example, imposes its gross receipts tax (levied at 7 or 8%) on numerous aspects of the oil and gas industry. This is only one of many differences that make direct royalty rate comparisons a challenge.

All 112 members of the Legislature are up for election this fall. A more moderate/conservative Legislature likely won’t give the Land Commissioner what she wants.

With New Mexico’s legislative candidate filing deadline looming on Tuesday RGF president Paul Gessing on Friday, March 8, attempted to login to the Secretary of State’s Candidate Nominating Petition. Sadly, as the brief video below highlights, Paul was unable to sign. You can see the screenshot below and a brief video of the failed attempt below. Gessing has contacted the SoS office and they achieved the same (failed) result. They have been very helpful and are working on the problem, but this is a serious issue as the electronic petition signing system is implemented.

Update: Gessing received a return call from the SoS office. They indicated that there was a “duplicate record” although it was clearly inactive and they are contacting Bernalillo County today to remove the duplicate record. We will update readers on the situation.

Update 2: The SoS office called back again this afternoon and has resolved the situation. Kudos to them for their quick action. Hopefully similar problems are rare and do not plague too many people or campaigns.

https://youtu.be/mo0UE-YkOLo

The Biden Administration (with the support of people like NM Sen. Ben Ray Lujan) has been pushing for a “kill switch” controlled by government to be included on your automobile. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) offered an amendment in Congress to eliminate the “kill switch” but it wasn’t adopted.

So, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently collected public comments on the issue. The Rio Grande Foundation offered the following comments in opposition:

I have serious concerns about the proposed regulation:

For starters, whatever technology is ultimately settled on, cars will become even more expensive: New car prices have already risen by
60 percent over the last decade, and this regulation will only increase costs.

False positives will endanger consumers: Even with 99.9% accuracy, you could have a million false positives per day. This means your car won’t start or may automatically slow down or even pull over while you’re driving. This is not safe, especially in high crime or isolated areas of my state New Mexico (and other rural areas)
.
Personal privacy is at risk: Car thefts are on the rise, and now cyber thieves will potentially have hours of recording and monitoring of your car rides.

Your rights are compromised: This intrusive “Big Brother” technology threatens your personal freedom and presumption of innocence.

Even NHTSA doubts that such technology will work as intended, writing:
“Little data is available…on which combination of sensors and indicators of driver state, if any, would achieve greater accuracy and reliability of impairment detection.”

For all of these and other reasons, we oppose this proposal.

You can find this comment at Regulation.gov by searching for: lte-wiud-nr78

Few education policy issues can unite the liberal Searchlight NM, teachers unions, Republican legislators, and the Rio Grande Foundation, but apparently the fight to allow rural school districts to keep 4-day school weeks is it. In fact, the Searchlight article does an excellent job highlighting specific examples/stories, but Lujan Grisham took it upon herself to impose the 4-day week anyway.

Here is a fairly exhaustive list of why she is wrong:

• During the 2023 legislative session the Legislature debated and passed HB 130 which was signed into law by Gov. Lujan Grisham to add hours to the school calendar. Instructional time went from 990 hours to 1,140 hours.
• On a bipartisan basis the Legislature (this year) explicitly rejected mandating 5-day school weeks.
• The cost to taxpayers of adopting the 5-day seek would be in excess of $100 million annually.
• New Mexico parents prefer 4-day school weeks in districts that have them with 69% of elementary parents saying they “definitely prefer the 4-day schedule” and another 15% saying they “probably” prefer 4-days.
• While Albuquerque Public Schools does not have 4-day schools Albuquerque Federation Teachers President Dr. Ellen Bernstein spoke out on the issue telling KOAT the proposed changes are a “false solution” to a “complex problem.”
• Bernstein is right, teachers like 4-day school weeks.
• Students also like them overwhelmingly with 85% of students say they like the 4-day school week “a lot.”
• Socorro Public Schools Superintendent recently said the following, “Teacher morale has been off the charts since we started this (4-day week). Right now I have 22% of my teachers that drive in from other communities. I have another about 9-11% that can retire tomorrow if they wanted to, but they’re staying because of the four-day week,”
• Why would the Gov. or any bureaucrat in Santa Fe tell students in some of the most far-flung parts of New Mexico how many days they need to go to school per week?
• Some of New Mexico’s highest performing districts have 4-day school weeks. There is no serious evidence that 4-day weeks harm student outcomes.
• Athletes in rural parts of New Mexico often travel long distances around New Mexico for sporting events. “Friday Night Lights” (and other sporting events involving up to 5 hours of travel each way) don’t cause missed class time under a 4-day school week.
• One benefit of 4-day school weeks cited by parents, teachers, and students alike is the ability to schedule medical appointments and other essential activities on Fridays without missing time in class.

Unlike last year when the Gov. vetoed large swaths of the “tax omnibus” bill (HB 252), Gov. Lujan Grisham signed this year’s bill. Using FY 2026 numbers as the baseline (they change with time), the bill reduces personal income taxes by $159 million annually, increases capital gains taxes by $61 million, and raises corporate income taxes by $16 million annually.

So, overall, the bill is about an $88 million tax cut with numerous other subsidies and credits (some being worthwhile while others being abject wastes of money, like the EV tax credit). Meanwhile, the Gov. signed a budget that increases government spending by $653 million. With a $3.5 billion this is a lame effort (only 2.5% of the surplus is being returned in the form of tax cuts). It will certainly not “move the needle” for New Mexico in terms of economic standing. In fact, because the tax hikes will hit businesses directly one could argue that the tax bill actually makes New Mexico LESS attractive to business.

The Gov. also seems hellbent on forcing rural school districts into line with 5-day school weeks. She vetoed a provision inserted into the budget on a bipartisan basis that would have prohibited the Gov. from using the budget to force 5 day school weeks.