According to recent news reports, Congress is working on a deal that would eliminate half of the sequestration cuts AND result in higher taxes on Americans in the form of higher customs levies and airport charges.

The more-Pentagon-spending-at-any-cost crowd is eager to restore slight reductions in military spending even if it means raising taxes on airline passengers.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

Republicans would be wise to stick to the Budget and Control Act’s spending caps, which have been highly effective in controlling discretionary spending. Federal outlays declined to $3.45 trillion and 20.8% of GDP in fiscal 2013 from $3.6 trillion and 24.1% of GDP in 2011. In 2010 discretionary spending peaked at 9.4% of GDP, but in 2013 it was down to 7.6% and in 2014 will fall to 7%. A testament to the success of the caps is that nearly every Democrat and spending lobby in Washington is desperate to get rid of them.

Our friends at the National Taxpayers Union are enlisting the support of regular Americans who want to continue common-sense fiscal restraint.

It says a lot about the mentality of many New Mexicans that the easiest way to slur your opponent is to call them an “out of state, for-profit.” This slur was on full display on the editorial page of today’s Albuquerque Journal which included columns by Sen. Tim Keller and Democratic Party Chairman Sam Bregman.

To be sure, I have a great deal of respect for Sen. Keller and RGF has not taken a position on the Gov.’s teacher evaluation program, but in making the case against this program Keller uses the “slur” “for-profit companies” three times and “out-of-state” twice to make his case. Bregman, on the other hand, discusses the recently-defeated abortion measure that appeared on ballots in Albuquerque and states that “outside groups came in and tried to take over our city.” Setting aside the fact that outside organizations played an overwhelming role in defeating the abortion measure, what is so bad about people from outside New Mexico? And, what is wrong with making a profit?

New Mexico is an isolated state and culturally rather different from any other state in the nation. It is also poor and has low educational attainment levels (even relative to the United States as a whole which performs poorly on international tests) One would think that out political leaders would be eagerly looking for new and proven ideas from elsewhere that might improve our state while preserving its unique cultural attributes.

Interestingly enough, for these “out of state bashers,” Keller left New Mexico to pursue his higher education at Notre Dame and Harvard. Bregman, on the other hand, comes to us from Washington, DC, by way of New York City. Apparently, he is suspect as well because of his “outsider” status. Full-disclosure, despite family ties to New Mexico, I grew up in Ohio and was educated there and in the DC area, but I don’t constantly harp on where people or ideas are from, just whether they are good or bad.

Of course, the term “for-profit” is much more obvious and much more troubling. Keller mentions this one twice in attempting to denigrate the Gov.’s teacher evaluation regime, but it has also been used as a slur against school choice.

Teachers are “for-profit” or they wouldn’t accept salaries, Bregman is “for-profit” or he wouldn’t have sold the Thunderbirds basketball team and allowed them to move out of town. Economically-speaking, profits are the best known means of allocating resources in a free market economy. Undue suspicion of profits either illustrates an ignorance of basic economics or are simply pandering to those who are economically-ignorant. With these attitudes so prevalent among our leaders, it is no surprise that New Mexico faces the economic and educational challenges it does.

Rio Grande Foundation president appeared recently on KRQE Channel 13’s newscast to discuss his organization’s concerns over Albuquerque Mayor Berry’s proposed wi-fi system along Central Ave. Video of the interview can be found below:

In case you missed it, New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands Ray Powell has joined the chorus of people and organizations calling for federally-managed lands within the State to be returned to New Mexico control. See his full proposal here.

Although some details of the Commissioner’s plan differ from what the Rio Grande Foundation would prefer, this is a huge, positive step in terms of building support for the concept and the possibility of legislative action to at least look at the issue in Santa Fe and the Governor’s office.

To be sure, we don’t believe that funding early childhood education is a wise use of the tax dollars generated by oil and gas (and other, multiple uses) on these lands. But, control over these lands would mean more jobs for New Mexicans, more money staying here in New Mexico (and not going to Washington), and better stewardship of those lands (fewer wildfires).

In other words, you could take all the new tax money intended for early childhood programs, take it out into the desert and burn it and you still have a winning concept here because of all the other positives associated with this plan. The leftists who have been pushing for early childhood don’t like alternative ideas like Powell’s, less costly, but more effective ideas like parent coaches, or anything else that diverts them from tapping the Permanent Fund pot and controlling your kids from an even earlier age, but average New Mexicans need to understand that if we’re serious about improving our economy and educational outcomes, Powell’s idea should be a starting point and taxpayer-funded pre-k is not the best path to improvement.

The tremendous costs of the Rail Runner were outlined in grave detail recently in the Journal. Annual costs are currently about $50 million between operations and payments on the original infrastructure. A portion of these costs are currently being shifted to the federal taxpayer, but there is nothing “sustainable” about the Rail Runner’s long-term finances.

New Mexico taxpayers will face significant additional financial burdens if the Legislature and Governor decide to spend taxpayer dollars to keep both the Rail Runner and federally-owned Amtrak trains heading down the tracks here in New Mexico.

Worse, what Washington gives us in the form of operating subsidies, it can also take away. New federal regulations costing up to $30 million are being imposed by Washington on the entire railroad industry, including the Rail Runner. Those costs which were completely unexpected will be borne directly by New Mexico taxpayers above and beyond the current operating subsidies which themselves come to nearly $20 per passenger, per trip.

And then there is Amtrak. The federally-owned passenger network receives over a billion dollars annually in taxpayer subsidies. Now, it is asking for up to $200 million – a significant portion of which the passenger rail network is hoping will come from New Mexico taxpayers – in order to improve tracks through New Mexico that are owned by the BNSF railroad. Outside of the Northeast, Amtrak doesn’t own the tracks it runs on; rather it demands use of tracks owned by private-sector freight railroads.

Rail advocates will undoubtedly tout the supposed benefits of having Amtrak service in our state, but the reality is that Amtrak is barely a drop in the bucket when it comes to our transportation network. How often, dear reader, do you pick visiting friends and family up from the train station?

Neither the Rio Grande Foundation, nor other free market transportation analysts who criticize publicly-owned and managed projects like the Rail Runner and Amtrak, hate trains.

Advocates often charge that roads are subsidized, so there is nothing wrong with subsidizing trains. The scale of subsidies is totally different. Roads are subsidized at .5 cents per passenger mile while transit receives 61 cents per passenger mile nationally. Roads may not pay for themselves completely, but they receive few subsidies compared to costly projects like the Rail Runner and Amtrak.

It is not that trains can’t make money. BNSF made over $20 billion in profits during 2012 with little in the way of government subsidies. Nonetheless, I would be outraged if BNSF or any other railroad operator came to the New Mexico Legislature asking for taxpayer dollars to pad their bottom line. There’s no reason not to hold Amtrak and the Rail Runner to a similar standard.

In tough economic times with slow revenue growth, we should not divert limited taxpayer dollars from schools, needed tax reforms, and other economic development priories to fund economically superfluous passenger rail systems. How much money is the Legislature going to throw at Amtrak and the Rail Runner before saying “enough?”

To the best extent possible, all modes of transportation, including roads, should compete on an even playing field free of taxpayer subsidies. Freight rail does this successfully throughout American and has so for years while passenger rail has not.

I don’t envy Governor Martinez or legislators and the tough decisions they face when it comes to pouring more money into these systems to keep them going or cutting them off and letting them fail completely.

If there is a silver lining to all this it is that, hopefully, the next time someone starts selling massively-expensive dreams of a transformed transportation network, voters and elected officials will remember that government-led “transformations” come with steep price tags.

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

The Rio Grande Foundation has generally supported Mayor Berry’s leadership as Mayor. Obviously, large numbers of Albuquerque voters agree with his fiscally-conservative, personally moderate style of leadership as the Mayor was re-elected with 68 percent of the vote.

Every day mayors and other politicians face the temptation to join the latest fad in the hopes of finding a dramatic way to use government on the theory that expanding government beyond the basics will result in improved economic growth.

Back when Mayor Berry took office, the idea being pushed by some was a new taxpayer-financed events center/arena. Thankfully, we convinced the Mayor not to go down that path which would have significantly worsened our city’s economic condition.

The newest idea is for the City to spend up to $1 million to create a public wi-fi network around Central Avenue. While well-intentioned, municipal wi-fi efforts have a long track record of failure to achieve technical goals (speed and coverage), they also have a long track record of cost overruns.

Consider nearby Rio Rancho which canceled its municipal wi-fi service with service provider Azulstar in 2007 over $33,000 in unpaid electrical bills. Azulstar was never able to come up with a viable business plan.

Lest you think that problems are unique to Rio Rancho or New Mexico, Houston, Chicago, St. Louis, and even technology-happy San Francisco have had colossal wi-fi failures.

Of course, Mayor Berry is only proposing wi-fi for a portion of Albuquerque. That may mitigate against cost overruns and some of the more serious technical problems, but as someone who lives adjacent to another one of the City’s busiest roads, it seems a bit unfair that my neighbors and I are paying upwards of $60 a month for something that taxpayers could soon provide to a chosen few for free.

The idea that this “free” wi-fi will perform better than the services provided by for-profit businesses like Comcast and CenturyLink defies every economic principle and reality. A truly world class free and open network will quickly succumb the demands of the heaviest users of Internet services (those who download movie files and play bandwidth-intensive games) and will bog down the network.

Worse still, what about the numerous businesses – Flying Star and Starbucks being just two – that have invested thousands of dollars in free wi-fi systems for their businesses? Why would local government impose its own taxpayer-financed system on top of the services provided to customers and non-customers alike by these and other businesses?

Lastly, as a conservative, Mayor Berry should respect the private investments of businesses like Comcast and CenturyLink have made in their Internet infrastructure. It would be economically-foolish for government to step in and attempt to take hundreds or thousands of paying customers from these businesses.

Our City and State suffer from a public policy climate that is relatively unattractive to business. Using City tax dollars to crowd out investments being made by private businesses is bad policy.

The good news is that just like the events center four years ago; municipal wi-fi is just a proposal at this point. Mayor Berry has proven himself a sensible man who is open to persuasive arguments. I hope this time will be the same.

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

Recently, the Rio Grande Foundation recently hosted Travis Brown of How Money Walks for a luncheon talk in Albuquerque. The website which is linked above, is fascinating and easy to use.

Watch Brown’s full luncheon presentation here:

Travis Brown of How Money Walks Speaks at Rio Grande Foundation event on November 21, 2013 from Paul Gessing on Vimeo.

Brown also did a shorter interview with Rob Nikolewski of Capitol Report New Mexico:

Signed books are still available for purchase from the Rio Grande Foundation and make great stocking stuffers. Call 505-264-6090 or email us at: info@riograndefoundation.org for details.

I recently talked to Bob Bowdon of Choice Media to discuss the controversial teacher evaluation issue and what New Mexico SHOULD do to get out of the bottom of the 50 states in terms of education achievement. Click here to listen to the short podcast or go to the Choice Media interview page here.

I have previously written about the extraordinary reliance of New Mexico upon federal spending. That spending may have pulled us out of the “dark ages” as a state, but it has not led to prosperity either.

Another indicator of that over-reliance comes to us from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. As the analysis from Mercatus Center notes:

The combined total of federal contract-funded jobs and public-sector employment serves as a more accurate indicator of each state’s labor market’s reliance on government spending than direct public-sector employment alone. This map combines these figures. In seven states (Alabama, Alaska, Maryland, Mississippi, New Mexico, Virginia, and Wyoming), government-financed jobs account for more than 25 percent of nonfarm payroll jobs. On the other hand, six states (Delaware, Indiana, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin) have labor markets in which less than 16 percent of nonfarm payroll jobs are directly or indirectly financed by the federal government.

Interestingly, despite Nevada’s preponderance of federal land ownership, the state has less than half the number of federal workers relative to New Mexico.

According to 24/7 Wall Street (as received from Yahoo!), New Mexico is the 2nd-worst-run state in the entire nation, beating out only California. Astonishingly, the publication ranked us lower than Illinois a state that has been a basket case for years. According to the report’s entry for New Mexico:

The state’s debt load relative to its size was average, and its budget shortfall of 8.3% for going into fiscal 2012 was better than many states. Outside of fiscal management, however, New Mexico performed poorly in several areas in several areas. The state was among the worst 10 nationwide for violent crime, high school graduation rates among adults, and health insurance coverage. More than one in five residents lived below the poverty line in 2012, worse than all states but Mississippi. Last year, state GDP grew by just 0.2%, worse than all but a handful of states.

The specific rankings and tools contained int the report are relatively broad and somewhat unrelated, but when taken as a whole, they certainly don’t contain good news for the Land of Enchantment.

(Albuquerque) Just in time for the first meeting of the Criminal Justice Reform Subcommittee, the Rio Grande Foundation is providing an update on its original, 2009 report, which arguably started the ball rolling on criminal justice reform in the Land of Enchantment.

The new report, “Criminal Justice Policy in New Mexico: Keys to Controlling Costs and Protecting Public Safety (Updated),” which was authored by Marc Levin, Policy Director of Right on Crime with Paul Gessing, President of the Rio Grande Foundation, provides a variety of bi-partisan, but fiscally-conservative ideas for the Subcommittee to consider, including:

• Expanded use of drug courts;
• Introduction of courts similar to Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement Drug (HOPE) Courts where offenders are ordered to treatment and must call in a number every morning to see if they have to report to the court to take a drug test. If they fail, they are jailed for several days, usually weekend jail in order to preserve employment;
• Mandatory Probation, Treatment and Work Requirements for First-Time Drug Offenders: This policy should apply only to individuals caught with small quantities of drugs that are for personal use;
• Graduated Responses for Probationers and Parolees: Research indicates this approach reduces technical revocations to prison because the swift but proportionate responses effectively lay down the law, deterring future violations;
• Performance-Based Probation Funding: Under this incentive-based approach which has not been adopted in New Mexico, probation departments receive a share of the state’s savings from less incarceration when they reduce their revocations to prison without increasing probationers’ convictions for new offenses. The probation departments are required to reinvest the additional funds in victim services, substance abuse treatment, and strategies to improve community supervision and reduce recidivism;
• Modernize Sentencing Laws: New Mexico should revise its sentencing laws to ensure prison space is prioritized for violent and dangerous offenders;
• Utilize Victim-Offender Conferencing: Conferencing is often used in property offense cases, particularly for first-time offenders, and must be chosen by both the victim and the offender, since the offender is required to take responsibility for his conduct. New Mexico Attorney General Gary King recently called for similar efforts; and
• Reduced Barriers for Nonviolent Ex-Offenders to Obtain Occupational Licenses;

Many of these reforms have been introduced with great success in other states that can provide both data and a road map for successful implementation.

November 22nd, 1963 is a day that many Americans will never forget. I wasn’t around back then, but can only imagine what it was like to have such a young, optimistic, and charismatic president shot down in the prime of his life. Of course, that is the basis of the Kennedy myth. One of the myths perpetuated by liberals is that Kennedy was a standard “liberal.” This myth was given additional credence in a story in the Albuquerque Journal.

Certainly, the term “liberal” can be applied to a lot of different policy areas from foreign policy to race relations and the economy, but Kennedy was by no means an Obama-style big-spending tax-hiker. For starters, as I wrote a decade ago while at National Taxpayers Union, Kennedy’s tax cuts reduced federal spending by more than 12 percent. As a comparison, George W. Bush’s tax cuts reduced spending by only 8 percent. So, Kennedy was a bona fide tax-cutter.

And, as the following chart shows, unlike George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Kennedy didn’t embrace massive increases in government spending either:

Undoubtedly, the Kennedy myth transcends his tax and fiscal policies and has a great deal to do with the way he died, but it is worth noting historical reality as we mark the 50th anniversary of this tragic occasion.

How long do you keep spending money on something before you quit and cut your losses? New Mexico’s Legislature will soon face some difficult decisions as to how much taxpayer money to spend on two high profile, Richardson-era projects, the Rail Runner and the Spaceport.

Let’s start with the RailRunner. The train already costs taxpayers nearly $50 million a year in payments on the initial infrastructure and operations. That doesn’t include two balloon payments of $230 million (made in addition to operations costs) which will come due next decade.

Now, due to a new federal regulation, New Mexico taxpayer could be on the hook for another $30 million to implement a federally-required safety system for the Rail Runner. It is worth pointing out that the federal regulation behind this requirement is a huge waste. Even Cass Sunstein who was President Obama’s administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has stated during testimony in the US House that the new “Positive Train Control” regulation produced benefits that are lower than its costs.”

The fact that this regulation is an absurd waste of money is of little consolation to New Mexico taxpayers who will nonetheless be forced to pay this $30 million in addition to the ongoing costs for infrastructure and operations.

A second project that just keeps getting pricier is New Mexico’s Spaceport. Taxpayers initially spent $210 million to construct the facility in hopes of bringing a new, private space industry to the state. Unfortunately, the launch schedule of the facility’s main tenant, Virgin Galactic, has repeatedly been delayed. These delays along with costly additions to the facility have led to a nearly abject lack of positive economic activity generated by the facility and have instead caused the Spaceport to suck up even greater amounts of taxpayer money above-and-beyond the original cost.

In 2012, taxpayers spent an unexpected $7 million to extend a runway at the Spaceport that was allegedly too short for spacecraft to launch. Now, as delays continue and Virgin Galactic continues to push back expected launch dates, the Spaceport will be requesting another $6.8 million to pave the road to the facility from the South. The 23-mile road is currently an unimproved dirt road maintained by Doña Ana County. The northern road, which connects to the Spaceport via Truth or Consequences, is paved.

Lastly, in terms of the Spaceport, taxpayers are on the hook for yet another $5 to $6 million required for management and operations for each year that Virgin Galactic delays commercial flights from the southern New Mexico spaceport.

Obviously, as New Mexico’s economy continues to struggle and tax revenue growth remains slow, the Legislature faces some difficult decisions on these two projects. Are there any limits as to how much taxpayers should be expected to pay to support these facilities before we decide to abandon them or take drastic steps to cut costs? If so, when is enough, enough?

What priorities are we giving up in order to attract a manned, private space industry that has yet to take flight and a train that can never come close to breaking even at a total cost of over $1 billion (before accounting for this new federal regulation)?

While it is easy to dismiss the additional money as just another cost of these publicly-beneficial projects, from a budgetary perspective, a dollar spent on spaceports and trains is a dollar diverted from schools, tax reform, and other economic development priories.

Regardless of how the Legislature decides to move forward regarding these two projects, I hope that policymakers in Santa Fe understand realize that the embracing the basics of government is tough enough.

The painful lessons here are that hitching one’s star to “the next big thing” or spending massive amounts of taxpayer money in an effort to change transportation patterns may prove a costly gamble.

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

The poorly-designed ObamaCare website is really the least of the health care law’s problems. Now, one of the program’s supposed “success-stories” has gone public to say that the program has not helped her get health insurance.

The Rio Grande Foundation hosted its latest event on ObamaCare with syndicated columnist and ideas-man Deroy Murdock speaking on the health care law’s myriad problems in Albuquerque:

11-20-13 Deroy Murdock ObamaCare from Paul Gessing on Vimeo.

I call Murdock an “ideas man” because unlike so many writers and pundits, he doesn’t just focus on the problems with the current system. Instead, he actually brings creative solutions to bear:

— Approach health care from an individual, not group perspective;
— Give insurance companies tax breaks for taking on high risk patients and people w/ pre-existing conditions;
— Give doctors tax benefits for treating charity cases/indigent care;
— Allow purchase of health insurance across state lines;
— Provide vouchers (like food stamps for health care) rather than reworking the entire health care system.

Click here for Deroy’s powerpoint presentation.

Recently, Rio Grande Foundation president Paul Gessing appeared in Silver City on a panel on Western lands issues and federal management alongside Rep. Yvette Herrell, economist Alex Thal, and rancher Hugh B McKeen to discuss what should be done with New Mexico’s federal lands (not including Native lands, military installations, and National Parks). See the footage below:

Federal Lands Panel Discussion in Silver City, NM from Paul Gessing on Vimeo.

Also, the Council of State Governments has covered the issue of what, if anything, should be done with certain federal lands in its latest Capitol Ideas publication.

With all of the division, controversy, and angst that splits our nation, it is worth thinking back 150 years to the split over slavery and the Civil War. Lincoln’s powerful words to commemorate the cemetery and heal the nation are worth reading and remembering.

The Gettysburg Address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

The Rio Grande Foundation doesn’t typically get involved in issues of race and ethnicity. It doesn’t mean that these aren’t real and important issues, but that our primary goal is freedom. That freedom has been negatively-impacted by misguided federal land use policies and we have pointed out the economic bonanza awaiting us if the state took over management of many federal lands now managed by Washington.

In terms of New Mexico’s federal lands, today’s Albuquerque Journal contained an article by an Hispanic advocate for changes to federal lands policies that would respect the historical Hispanic claims to those lands and their uses. The good news is that such concerns are shared across the ideological and political spectrum by people who think New Mexico lands should be managed by New Mexicans.

Average people who have been stewards of these lands for generations are losing access to those lands due to strict land-use policies out of Washington. That is sad and very frustrating both to the article’s author and to me.

One caveat: While the high-handed and bureaucratic approach of federal officials may be appalling and frustrating, I’m not convinced that it amounts to “racism” or “anti-Hispanic” as the author claims. The mentality of too many in Washington is to demean and marginalize anyone who stands in the way of their grand plans, regardless of race or ethnicity. It’s not that the US Government, The Forest Service, or its employees are racist, but that Hispanics are the primary group standing in the way of their control of ever-larger swaths of land and thus more power for themselves.

It is time for anyone concerned about this issue to support efforts in NM’s Legislature to return control of these lands to New Mexico!

Recently, the New Mexico Green Chamber of Commerce hired a high $ consulting firm to come up with economic data showing that the proposed wilderness designation of the Organ Mountains would be an unmitigated boon for the economy.

According to the Green Chamber’s report, “The expected annual economic impacts of National Monument designation could reach $17.6 million, which represents an increase of approximately $7.4 million in regional economic activity.” From the free market perspective, the idea of putting resources off limits to a large number of uses (as a wilderness designation would do) leading to increased economic activity, simply doesn’t make sense.

Unfortunately for the greens, as recently discussed in the Las Cruces Sun-News, two experts on the economics of such designations attempted to replicate the report. According to the experts, “We attempted to replicate these types of studies and failed. That is, using a careful methodology and making comparisons between counties through time, we find at best no effect on local economies and, more likely, negative effects of monument designations.”

Recent statements by Obama’s Secretary of the Interior indicate that President Obama may be looking to circumvent Congress by using executive power to name monuments. I’m certainly not a fan of such a move no matter the president, but purported “economic benefits” of such designations are tenuous arguments indeed.

ProgressNowNM, a far-left cookie-cutter (even down to their name) organization financed by George Soros and others is attacking the Rio Grande Foundation and members of the State Policy Network. The new attack campaign focuses primarily on money and where it comes from rather than any honest discussion over the issues and their merits.

Amusingly enough, however, ProgressNow has created alleged “fact sheets” on the Rio Grande Foundation and other SPN groups. To say that there are errors and downright falsehoods in the attack on the Rio Grande Foundation would be an understatement. Let’s go through them:

1) ALEC’s home in NM: Yes, the Rio Grande Foundation works with a wide variety of organizations including the American Legislative Exchange Council which we have hosted for an event. I once appeared alongside (on the same side) of an issue with Pat Davis of ProgressNowNM at a panel discussion sponsored by the Drug Policy Alliance of New Mexico. So what?

2) I am indeed on the board of New Mexico Connections Academy, an online charter school here in NM. Much like other schools contract with private, for-profit providers for textbooks, bus service, and technology, we contract with Connections. I am proud to play a direct role in increasing educational choice here in New Mexico!

3) My credentials in publishing in a wide variety of media outlets are strong. This accusation is just a rehashing of a blogger’s rantings from a few years ago. The original has been taken down. Wall Street Journal: here, here, here, and here.

Washington Post here, here, and here.

US News & World Report: here.

If you take a look at these press clips, you’ll notice that I have been advocating for free markets and limited government for well over a decade since my days at the National Taxpayers Union in Washington, DC. I’m clearly in this work because I believe in free markets and limited government, not because some big $$ donors are paying us off…and you know what, I believe that the folks at ProgressNow are principled in believing that government has all the answers for society’s woes.

4) Regarding our supposedly “extreme” agenda for New Mexico, again I’ll take it point by point:

a) Defund and privatize New Mexico’s public schools with voucher programs and virtual schools: We support the rights of parents and children to choose the education that makes the most sense for them. Funding for education should flow through the child, not through the bureaucracy.

b) Block access to affordable healthcare for New Mexican families: We oppose the health care law known as ObamaCare and expansions of government programs like Medicaid. Rather, we support reducing government-imposed regulatory and tax barriers to health care that come between patients and their doctors.

c) Oppose environmental and pollution protections: Simply not true, but we do support cost-benefit analyses of all government regulations and weighing them against the economic benefits of industries such as oil and gas that support New Mexico’s economy.

d) Destroy public pensions: This is another false statement. Rio Grande Foundation supports reforms such as “defined contribution” retirement plans that give government workers control over their own retirements (much like private-sector workers) and removes control over government pension investments from politicians who have proved repeatedly to be poor stewards of these resources.

e) Attack workers’ right to organize and bargain by pushing so-called “Right to Work” legislation: Right to Work does nothing to prevent workers from organizing. It simply makes it illegal to force a worker to join a union as a condition of employment.

f) Cut off funding and revenue for essential government services: This is so general as to be utterly meaningless. RGF has never urged the elimination or dramatic reduction of government funding for police, fire, or roads.

We are hosting a luncheon with Travis Brown of How Money Walks on Thursday, November 21 in Albuquerque. Prices have been reduced to $20 per attendee. You can sign up here.

Wondering what this is all about? Check out some recent interviews with Travis Brown below:

Register here right now!

I appeared on KRQE Channel 13’s news at 5:30pm yesterday (Monday) to discuss the case of an inmate who was allowed to stay LONGER than their sentenced time at taxpayer expense. An odd request under most circumstances to be sure, but taxpayers paid $128 a day to keep this individual incarcerated beyond their sentence.

We certainly don’t want this kind of thing to become a regular occurrence (as noted in the story), but as far as we can tell, this was a highly-unique situation were a potentially-violent, severely mentally-deficient person was kept longer because there was no other place for them to go and releasing them could have been dangerous for the individual and the public at large.

Problems could certainly arise if criminals simply wish to remain incarcerated to take advantage of the “three hots and a cot” or medical care that they are provided while incarcerated and that potential precedent is the primary concern we have. We don’t have any specific concerns with the Department of Corrections’ handling of this situation. See the story below:

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There has been an incredible amount of angst among the education establishment over New Mexico’s newly-enacted system of teacher evaluations. Unlike other aspects of Gov. Martinez’s education agenda including the A-F grading system, elimination of 3rd grade social promotion, and an emphasis on digital learning, these evaluations were not based on Jeb Bush’s successful reforms in Florida.

In fact, New Mexico’s educators might be surprised to know that these hated evaluations came to our state via the Obama Administration. A few years ago, the National Education Association gave $60 million to candidate Obama to re-elect him to the White House. Ironically, these angry union members funded the very source of their considerable angst.

This background is worth noting, but the more important question for New Mexico’s families and children is whether they are good policy that will lead to improved educational results, or not.

Certainly, there is nothing wrong with evaluating teachers. Few private sector employers lack some form of evaluation system for their employees. It is worth noting, however, that in the private sector, there is no single evaluation system imposed upon businesses from the top down or the government (yet). Rather, independent, competing businesses work to create and implement their own evaluation systems which are then used to ensure that workers are serving the needs of customers and the business itself.

Unfortunately, from the perspective of free market education reformers, by their very nature, any one-size-fits-all, tightly-controlled teacher evaluation system imposed from the top down does not share the best characteristics of private sector evaluation systems. The missing component in education is choice. As a parent, I may not agree with what is being evaluated and how. In the private sector, I can choose another provider. This is not so easy when it comes to education.

In other words, the best way to introduce accountability is to allow parents to choose where to send their children. This will put pressure on those schools that the “marketplace,” (meaning parents) deem to be inadequate to improve their educational product.

Of course, to make any system competitive and to bring true accountability to the education system, school administrators must be empowered to make personnel decisions, including the hiring and firing of teachers. A one-size-fits-all teacher evaluation system has generated tremendous opposition from teachers, but these same teachers must understand that outside of government schools, those who fail to contribute to the success of an enterprise are let go.

The need to allow that small minority of underperforming teachers to be fired is not meant to disparage the teaching profession or the hard work that teachers do. In fact, our desire is to give teachers the freedom to teach and innovate in the classroom while balancing that with real accountability enforced by the customers. Such a system would effectively ensure teachers’ ability to innovate and diverse, quality options for students at the same time.

In fact, Jeb Bush’s successful reforms in Florida relied on a healthy dose of school choice. Florida has both a robust voucher system and a system of tax credits for school choice, both of which are geared to empower parents and students. It also has a large and innovative digital and online option.

The results are nothing short of stunning. Between 1999 and 2010, Florida’s graduation rate leapt by more than 20 percentage points (from 53 to 73 percent) while New Mexico’s remained stagnant at about 59 percent, according to the national Diploma’s Count report. Florida students also saw a rapid rise in NAEP reading scores among all income and ethnic groups with particular improvements among Hispanics and blacks. This led to a substantial closing of the achievement gap between whites and minority groups.

Study after study nationwide shows that increasing educational options leads to improved results. For example, in Washington, DC, recipients of a school choice voucher through a random lottery are 24 percent more likely to go to college than those who did not receive the voucher.

Any professional doing an important job must be evaluated and held accountable. Unfortunately, the education establishment’s long-standing opposition to systematic, dispersed accountability enforced by parents in a free education marketplace has led to this top-down, bureaucratically-enforced, one-size-fits-all accountability system that they have deemed unacceptable.

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

A few months ago, before the initial launch of ObamaCare, I noted a preliminary report from the Manhattan Institute that stated New Mexico would face some of the largest rate increases in the nation under the ObamaCare health law.

Now that ObamaCare has launched with all the buoyancy of a lead balloon, we have more details on actual rate increases. According to the latest from Manhattan Institute, New Mexico’s rate hikes will be second-greatest in the nation, second only to Nevada (see chart below). Read an article on the study from Forbes:

Supporters of the law will claim the report is biased against ObamaCare, but the reality is that the reports find that rates under the law will drop in a few states, including Colorado.

HT: Jack McHugh