I recently wrote an article explaining that my family which includes me, my wife, and two small children, saw our health insurance canceled due to the new health care law known as “ObamaCare.” We had an “individual” health savings account (HSA) which covered the four of us and cost $344 a month. That plan was supplemented by a savings account funded by my employer with pre-tax contributions.

I have had an individual HSA through Blue Cross since I began with the Rio Grande Foundation in early 2006.

We were very happy with our plan. It wasn’t perfect, but it covered our family at a reasonable cost and it gave us strong incentives to control costs and prioritize our health care spending. Of course, things happen and we did use the plan. Earlier this year, for example, we had two emergency room visits within a short time period to take care of a gall bladder issue. Thankfully, because our plan had a savings account component, we had pre-tax savings in place to take care of these bills.

Unfortunately, like thousands of other New Mexicans, in early October, we got the news that our health insurance policy was being cancelled at years-end.

The cancellation of our policy meant that starting on November 15 we had to start the search for a new plan. We had heard the nightmares about the glitches with Healthcare.gov and, thankfully, didn’t experience any of those. That website and the others relating to our search for a new health insurance policy worked well.

The bad news is that when we finally did find health insurance policies that made sense for our family, the prices were far higher than our current plan. The “bare-bones” plans started just north of $500 (an increase of about 50 percent).

Ultimately, we settled on a Presbyterian HMO “Silver” plan costing $722 per month. The plan is better than our current plan in some ways and worse in others. Of course, with a price that is more than double that of our current plan, this represents a significant additional financial burden on me and my family.

The Rio Grande Foundation opposed “ObamaCare” and further federal involvement in America’s health care system for principled philosophical reasons. It was impossible to know at the time just how personally costly this law would end up being.

Unfortunately, our experience is undoubtedly not unique in New Mexico or across the nation.

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

While RGF has spent a great deal of time since Election Day discussing the likely benefits of a Right to Work law, such legislation is by no means the only potential policy reform that has been made more likely in the wake of the Republican takeover of New Mexico’s House.

Another such reform is the expansion of school choice options for New Mexico students. As Albuquerque Journal columnist Winthrop Quigley rightly pointed out recently, New Mexico’s education system and poorly-prepared workforce are major impediments to economic growth.

The good news is that there are solutions for our education woes that don’t involve turning the massive, bureaucratic, education system around. Tax credits for school choice are one of them and they have been enacted by 14 states on a bi-partisan, cross-ideological basis. From conservative strongholds like Alabama and Arizona to liberal Rhode Island and center-left Pennsylvania, children have gained access to school choice tax credits.

In 2015, New Mexico will once again have legislation introduced to create a tax credit scholarship program the basic outline of which is explained here. We know that the primary opponents of school choice, the teachers’ unions, have less power than they did before, but there is no way to know at this point whether the Legislature, particularly the Senate, will stand up for kids or for the status quo.

In the wake of the 2014 elections, New Mexico has a unique opportunity to enacted long-overdue economic reforms. The goal of those reforms must be to wean our struggling economy off of an increasingly-unreliable Washington by developing a strong private sector.

At the top of the agenda is a “right to work” law which, far from being “anti-union” would simply prohibit so-called “closed shop” agreements that require workers to pay union dues as a pre-condition of employment. Forcing workers to pay dues for any organization is simply wrong. Private sector unions can and should exist and they would be better advocates for workers if they actually have to prove they are worthy of membership.

It is worth noting that 20 of the 24 current “right to work” states have higher private sector unionization rates than New Mexico. In other words, due to the historical weakness of New Mexico’s private sector, these unions have had relatively few members. If New Mexico can strengthen its private sector with “right to work” and some other pro-growth policy reforms, private sector unions could see real growth.

Union growth took place in “right to work” states between 2011 and 2012 when those states saw an overall increase of 39,000 union members while non-“right to work” states lost 390,000 members, a 3.4 percent decrease.

Despite recent statements to the contrary by AFL-CIO president Jon Hendry a “right to work” law won’t kill New Mexico’s film industry. In fact, according to a report by Film Production Capital which ranked state film programs, the top three film-friendly states (Louisiana, Georgia, and North Carolina) are all “right to work.” New Mexico was ranked 7th.

The real reason New Mexico policymakers are looking seriously at “right to work” is the potential economic and job-growth potential. By any reasonable measuring stick, “right to work” states have been outperforming “forced unionism” states for years. In 2013, 8 of the top 10 states in job growth were “right to work.”

Between 2002 and 2012, fully 9 of the top 10 states in job growth were “right to work.” On the other hand, each of ten slowest-growth states over that time span lacked a “right to work” law.

Notably, while job growth is higher in “right to work” states, personal income growth is growing faster in these states as well.

Yes, but isn’t “right to work” really “right to work for less?” It is true that “forced unionism” states have higher median incomes, but once those incomes are adjusted for living costs, it is in the “right to work” states that a median personal income goes further. In fact, once cost of living is accounted for, the median income in “right to work” states is about $5,000 higher than in “forced-unionism” states.

If “right to work” were so awful and really meant the destruction of worker incomes, one might expect that such states would be losing population. The reality is, however, that Americans are moving in ever-greater numbers to “right to work” states. According to the US Census, between 2000 and 2010, “right to work” states saw their populations grow by nearly 16 percent while other states grew by about 6 percent.

Lastly, contrary to the hysterical statements of union leaders, “right to work” is popular. According to a national Gallup poll released in August, 65 percent of Democrats support “right to work” while an even more overwhelming 3 of 4 Republicans and independents supported it.

Those are enviable popularity numbers for any politician, but it is even more noteworthy that in the same Gallup poll Americans approved of unions 53-38 percent. In other words, Americans understand that one can support unions and support “right to work” at the same time.

Our children shouldn’t have to leave our state to find decent jobs. We can begin reforming our economy by making New Mexico “right to work.”

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

Paul Gessing recently interviewed energy expert Robert Bryce on the “New Mexico Freedom Hour.”

Gessing also spoke to Mike Jaxson on “This Week in the Pecos Valley” about the Spaceport’s problems and the recent improvement in unemployment rates both nationally and in New Mexico.

Robert Bryce is one of America’s foremost authors and experts on energy. Specifically, he is an optimist about America’s economic future fueled in part by affordable, reliable energy. Bryce is also a skeptic regarding the “politically-correct” sources of energy beloved by environmentalists.

He discussed his book and his views on some important energy issues including the “shale revolution,” coal, “renewables,” and his optimism about America’s future. Video is available below:

Robert Bryce discusses, Smaller, Faster, Lighter, Denser, Cheaper in Albuquerque, NM on December, 9, 2014 from Paul Gessing on Vimeo.

New Mexico’s political leaders have few tools available to make the New Mexico Spaceport a viable initiative moving forward. We the taxpayers have already dumped $220 million into the facility to build it (sunk costs). The question at this point seems to be whether the facility can at least generate enough revenue to pay for day-to-day operations.

I recently sat down with Channel 13 KRQE to discuss the issue (my comments come toward the end of the story):

Given the recent crash in the Mojave Desert, there has been an upsurge of interest both nationwide and around the world. I recently discussed New Mexico’s struggles with the Texas Tribune and was quoted by a reporter from the UK’s Guardian newspaper.

In the Wall Street Journal this week, Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute argued that state pension funds are violating basic rules of investing by placing too much of their investments in highly-risky investments. The article, “Public Pensions Need Gamblers Anonymous” noted that New Mexico’s pension system was the worst offender in the nation with fully 85% of its money invested in “risky assets.” According to the article:

Many individuals follow a rough “100 minus your age” rule to determine how much risk to take with their retirement savings. A 25-year-old might put 75% of his savings in stocks or other risky assets, the remaining 25% in bonds and other safer investments. A 45-year-old would hold 55% in stocks, and a 65-year-old 35%. Individuals take this risk knowing that the end balance of their IRA or 401(k) account will vary with market returns.

Now consider the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers), the largest U.S. public plan and a trendsetter for others. The typical participant is around age 62, so a “100 minus age” rule would recommend that Calpers hold about 38% risky assets. In reality, Calpers holds about 75% of its portfolio in stocks and other risky assets, such as real estate, private equity and, until recently, hedge funds, despite offering benefits that, unlike IRAs or 401(k)s, it guarantees against market risk. Most other states are little different: Illinois holds 75% in risky assets; the Texas teachers’ plan holds 81%; the New York state and local plan 72%; Pennsylvania 82%; New Mexico 85%.

In another unfortunate bit of news for the Land of Enchantment, the website 24/7 Wall Street ranked New Mexico the “2nd-worst-run state in America.”

As the site noted:

New Mexico struggles with poverty and low incomes. Nearly 22% of New Mexico residents lived in poverty last year, the second highest rate after Mississippi. A typical household in New Mexico earned less than $44,000 in 2013, below all but a handful of states. The state’s crime rate was also higher than in all but one other state, with 613 violent crimes reported per 100,000 residents in 2013. Like several other states at the bottom of the list, people left New Mexico faster than they moved into the state. Between the middle of 2010 and July 2013, the state lost 9,750 residents to migration alone. S&P recently revised its outlook on New Mexico’s credit rating to negative from stable. The revision was based on New Mexico’s weak economic recovery from the recession and over-reliance on government aid and the energy sector.

Notably, as this article points out, most of the worst-run states (including New Mexico) happen to be governed by liberal policymakers.

Clearly, New Mexico’s elected leaders face some very thorny issues. The question is whether policymakers in Santa Fe, specifically in New Mexico’s Democratically-controlled Senate, make needed changes or follow the status-quo path to failure?

HT: Charles Sullivan

Great article from today’s Albuquerque Journal which discusses how New Mexico is too reliant on federal government jobs. It is well worth a read.

There are a few points, however, that I think were missed or that need to be corrected in the article.

For starters, while it is definitely the case that New Mexico is uniquely-reliant as a state on Washington (and that needs to change), seven of the wealthiest 10 counties in America are wealthy because of their close proximity to government. Six of the 10 are in the DC suburbs with Los Alamos also found in the top-10. Wealth due to proximity of government is a serious problem in America and an indicator that Washington plays too big a role in our nation’s economy.

While “activists and economists” in the article blame New Mexico’s poor performance on poverty and low education levels, it would seem that the real culprit is our State’s poor economic policies. After all, the residents of all states were poor and ignorant at some point. It is the natural state of man. But those states worked hard, built businesses, grew prosperous, and invested in the future (in part by creating a functioning education system). New Mexicans just did less of those things and I don’t think it’s because we’re naturally less hard-working or less intelligent. It has to do with public policy.

And lastly, in what amounted to almost a “throwaway” line at the end of the article, “having a huge police force” is cited as a reason Los Alamos is a safe place to live. I disagree. Los Alamos is safe because the people living there intuitively respect the rule of law and understand how that respect benefits everyone in a given society. They have a large police force in Los Alamos because they can afford it.

Tonight on some television stations at 6pm Blaze Dish Satellite Channel 212 or 202 or online here, there is a special discussing land management issues of particular interest to New Mexicans.

The producers were in NM for three days in June.

Day 1 – Impact of U.S. Forest Service fencing cattle off water in the Agua Chiquita in the Lincoln National Forest to protect the habitat for the endangered Meadow Jumping Mouse.

Day 2 – Impact of Obama’s Proclamation of the Organ Mountain Desert Peaks National Monument on ranchers in Doña Ana County.

Day 3 – Impact of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s biased management of Chiquita in the Lincoln National Forest to protect the habitat for the endangered Meadow Jumping Mouse. National Monument on ranchers in Doña Ana County. Mexican wolves on ranchers and rural communities in New Mexico and Arizona who bear the brunt of the economic burden.

A short preview of the show can be found below:

(Albuquerque, NM) — In the wake of the 2014 elections, it appears that New Mexico’s Legislature may consider making the Land of Enchantment the 25^th “right to work” state in the United States. The new policy brief, “Top 10 Misconceptions about Right to Work in New Mexico,” Rio Grande Foundation president Paul Gessing corrects some of the popular misunderstandings about what a law will and won’t do for our State.

As a starting point Gessing notes that “right to work” laws are first and foremost about free association. Individuals should be able to join or not join unions as they wish and should not be coerced into joining them or paying dues to them as a condition of employment.

This principle of free association is not “anti-union.” Rather, a “right to work” law means that unions have to provide real, tangible benefits to their members. It is worth noting that, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, 20 of the 24 states with existing “right to work” laws have higher private sector unionization rates than New Mexico.

Said Gessing, “Given New Mexico’s historical lack of a strong private sector, adopting a “right to work” law would be a logical first step for economic development.” In the paper, Gessing notes that “right to work” states have seen faster growth in jobs, per-capita income, and overall population than their “forced-unionism” brethren.

Not surprisingly, noted Gessing, “Given the fact that more and more people are voluntarily moving to live and work in ‘right to work’ states, once living costs are accounted for, residents of those states enjoy median incomes that are more than $5,000 higher than those in ‘forced-unionism’ states.” In other words, while median incomes are somewhat lower in “right to work” states, Americans continue to move to those states due to the greater worker freedom and because the reduced cost of living more than makes up for the slightly lower pay.

Lastly, according to polling data collected in August 2014 from Gallup, while Americans support unions by a 53-38 percent margin, they support “right to work” laws by much wider margins and across party lines. While it is difficult to find such widespread agreement on any issue, 77 percent of independents, 74 percent of Republicans, and 65 percent of Democrats support “right to work.”

States that currently are Right to Work are shown in red in the map below:

We at the Rio Grande Foundation believe that economic freedom is the most comprehensive and important single measurement of a particular economy’s likelihood of generating wealth and prosperity. If that is the case, New Mexico has experienced some rare good news via the free market, Canada-based, Fraser Institute’s Index of Economic Freedom of North America which was just released with 2012 data.

New Mexico which had been buried in 50th place for two straight years has risen to a tie for 40th alongside South Carolina and Hawaii. The states which New Mexico beat out include Maine, Vermont, Mississippi, New York, Rhode Island, West Virgina, New Jersey, and California.

It is a bit of good news although there is no doubt that 40th place is not good enough. Certainly, more work is needed to turn New Mexico’s economy around.

Also of interest, the Fraser Institute included Mexican states in the rankings for the first time ever. The full report can be found here.

The following was submitted to the Albuquerque Journal in response to Amtrak’s desire to saddle taxpayers in New Mexico for a significant portion of track upkeep costs.

The author, far from being anti-rail, is a member of the Northeast Kansas Garden Railway Society, Railway & Locomotive Historical Society, Oregon Rail Heritage Center, Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic RR, Colorado Railroad Museum, and Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad and Museum Foundation.

Dear Editor,

The citizens of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas are being asked to subsidize both Amtrak and BNSF to upgrade and maintain the rail route from western Kansas, through southeast Colorado, to Albuquerque via Raton Pass to passenger train standards so that the Southwest Chief can continue to use the route. If the dollars are not forthcoming, Amtrak is threatening to cancel the Chief, or route it on the BNSF Transcon, bypassing western Kansas, Colorado, and northern New Mexico.

The only train currently using the Raton Pass route is the Chief, one east-bound and one west-bound a day. BNSF does not operate freight trains on the route. The Chief’s normal revenue consist is three coaches and two sleepers, able to accommodate on the order of 320 paying riders at any one time. Data in a 2012 Brookings report shows that the federal government subsidized Amtrak $187 for each Chief’s ticket sold. For the last 12 months, the Chief’s on-time performance has been 57.6%.

To maintain the track for this insignificant contribution to the transportation of people, the states are being asked to provide $100 million up front for capital improvements and $10 million annually for maintenance. States, being unable to print money, will have to put the bite on taxpayers to be so generous to Amtrak and BNSF. With state budgets already under great pressure, it is not in the citizens interest to hand out dollars for Amtrak’s benefit – it will have no discernable impact on the ability of citizens to travel and the return on investment, if any, will be many places to the right of the decimal point.

Sincerely,

John D’Aloia Jr., Captain, USN (RET)

(Albuquerque, NM) —The Rio Grande Foundation today joined with elected officials and organizations from 50 states representing a wide range of industries to voice strong concerns with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) flawed “Clean Power Plan.”

For more than 70 years, New Mexico has exercised exclusive jurisdiction over its retail electricity markets. With the passage of the Federal Power Act in 1935, the Congress codified New Mexico’s—and all States’—prerogative to oversee their retail electricity markets, unencumbered by federal intrusion. EPA’s Clean Power Plan, by its very terms, would erase this “bright line” in jurisdiction between federal and state governments.

In addition to usurping the state’s authority, the rule adds insult to injury by imposing unreasonable costs on New Mexico ratepayers. Residential rates are projected to increase by 13 percent to 14 percent, while industrial rates are projected to increase by 23 percent. Making matters worse, the rule also poses a threat to electric reliability.

In response to previous EPA rules, utilities already have announced the closure of 633 megawatts of coal-fired electricity in New Mexico. EPA modeling for the Carbon Pollution Rule projects that the regulation would cause an additional 1,001 megawatts of electricity generating capacity in New Mexico to retire.

The Rio Grande Foundation’s comments are available online.

Said Paul Gessing, president of the Rio Grande Foundation which organized and submitted the comments, “Reliable and inexpensive electricity is critical to creating a prosperous economy. Working class New Mexicans, small businesses, and those on fixed incomes, cannot afford to see electricity prices skyrocket due to unnecessary and ineffectual federal regulations.”

Gessing further noted that it is not just his opinion that the regulations will be ineffective, in September 2013 testimony before a House committee, EPA administrator Gina McCarthy conceded the agency’s climate-change regulatory regime would not affect the climate, because the preponderance of current and future greenhouse-gas emissions originate in Asia.

In conclusion, the EPA is imposing significant costs on New Mexico businesses and rate-payers for no net reduction in current and future greenhouse-gas emissions.

How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong

Albuquerque Luncheon Presentation

Click here for event registration form!

Join the Rio Grande Foundation at this Albuquerque luncheon event on December 9th featuring Robert Bryce, author of the book Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong.

The book shows how innovation and the inexorable human desire to make things smaller, faster, lighter, denser and cheaper is providing consumers with cheaper and more abundant energy, faster computing, lighter vehicles, and a myriad of other goods.

Robert Bryce will be speaking on the myriad ways in which improved technology applied to traditional energy sources are making our world a better place at dual events in Albuquerque and Farmington, New Mexico, on Tuesday, December 9, 2014.

Bryce will be speaking at a luncheon in Albuquerque from noon to 1:00pm at the Marriott Pyramid which is located at I-25 and Paseo del Norte.

Albuquerque luncheon seats are available for $40 per person if purchased before December 1. Tickets purchased on December 1 or after are $50. Call 505-264-6090 to ask about sponsorship or availability of tables of eight.

Robert Bryce has been a professional journalist for nearly three decades. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, National Review, Washington Post, American Conservative, and Counterpunch. His first book, Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron, received rave reviews and was named one of the best non-fiction books of 2002 by Publishers Weekly.

His second book, Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America’s Superstate, was published in 2004. His third book, Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of “Energy Independence”, published in March 2008, was favorably reviewed by more than 20 media outlets. A review of Gusher by William Grimes of the New York Times said that Bryce “reveals himself in the end as something of a visionary and perhaps even a revolutionary.”

In 2010, Bryce published Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy, and the Real Fuels of the Future. In a review of Power Hungry in the Wall Street Journal, Trevor Butterworth called the book “unsentimental, unsparing, and impassioned; and if you’ll excuse the pun, it is precisely the kind of journalism we need to hold truth to power.”

Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong was published on May 13, 2014. The book is an optimistic one. It shows how innovation and the inexorable human desire to make things Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper is providing consumers with Cheaper and more abundant energy, Faster computing, Lighter vehicles, and myriad other goods. That same desire is fostering unprecedented prosperity, greater liberty, and yes, better environmental protection.

A review in the New York Times said that Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper is a “book well worth reading.” While the Wall Street Journal called it an “engrossing survey.”

Bryce, who has been writing about the energy business since 1989, spent 12 years writing for the Austin Chronicle. From 2006 to September 2010, he worked as the managing editor of the Houston-based online publication, Energy Tribune. In April 2010, he joined the Manhattan Institute as a senior fellow in the think tank’s Center for Energy Policy and the Environment.

Bryce has appeared on dozens of TV and radio shows that have aired on variety of outlets including the BBC, MSNBC, Fox Business, CNN, PBS, and NPR.

An apiarist, he lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, Lorin, and their three children, Mary, Michael, and Jacob.

Click here for event registration form!

Forbes has a great article out today about the importance of “right to work” laws with specific mention of New Mexico and the coming battle during the 2015 legislative session for RTW.

I also sat down recently with Mike Cosgrove of KNAT TV on the topic of “right to work” and what it could mean for New Mexico’s economy.

rgf 2014-11 from Paul Gessing on Vimeo.

To say that Washington is full of hypocrites is to state the obvious. I ran across this article from the Huffington Post of all places which discusses federal opposition and subsequent threats to eliminate federal support for that State’s SNAP (food stamp) program if the state doesn’t eliminate what appears to be a voluntary effort to combat SNAP fraud by putting recipient photos on the SNAP cards.

One would think that having a “free” ID given to some of the neediest people in a given state would be welcomed in light of the Obama Administration’s opposition to “voter ID” laws on the grounds that the poor and minorities are “disenfranchised” by such laws.

It would seem that having photos on SNAP cards could help deter fraud as well. Gov. Martinez’s Administration has of course been working to require certain SNAP recipients work or obtain job training to continue receiving the benefit, a proposal that has drawn the ire of welfare advocates.

In today’s paper, Dr. James Tryon questions our own Dr. Deane Waldman for his critique of the Think New Mexico proposal to mandate one form of health care prices transparency.

The thing Tryon doesn’t get and the reason we have serious concerns about Think New Mexico’s proposal is that meaningful prices don’t result from government mandates. They come from market processes. The importance of prices as a too for transmitting information was an important contribution of Nobel Prize-Winning economist FA Hayek.

Health care prices aren’t so mysterious by accident. We don’t need a government agency to mandate that restaurants, retail outlets, gas stations, or even car dealers publish their prices because ultimately those prices are driving by market forces. If government or insurance companies are paying for patient care, those patients aren’t going to care how much it costs. The only way to change this incentive is to restore the doctor/patient relationship which includes getting government bureaucrats and insurance companies out of the middle of our health care system.

As seen in the chart below, only about 12% of US health care spending paid out-of-pocket by consumers, it is no surprise that prices paid by consumers are not particularly relevant. There is a way to solve it, but it involves eliminating the tax advantage employers have over individuals in purchasing health care, repealing much of ObamaCare, and dramatically-reforming Medicare and Medicaid.

The Albuquerque Journal has endorsed “Right to Work” for New Mexico. This is welcome news. Hopefully the Legislature will take notice and that efforts to bring this needed reform to New Mexico will be bi-partisan. Nationwide, at least, support is incredibly bi-partisan for “Right too Work.”

A few notes from the editorial: “Right to work doesn’t threaten unions; it simply forces them to compete for members rather than have captive, dues-paying members delivered to them.”

The editorial concluded saying:

And here is the polling from Gallup on support for right to work across partisan lines:

The recent crash of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShip2 in the Mojave Desert was a tragedy for the pilot that lost his life in the accident. It was also a setback for Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic, and the entire private space industry. However, for New Mexico taxpayers, it was only the latest and most vivid sign that building a Spaceport was not a wise use of tax dollars.

The transition from publicly-funded space travel (NASA) to a competitive, private-sector model was destined to be choppy and unpredictable. It is very much an open question how humans will travel safely and regularly into space in private spacecraft.

Even NASA with its multi-billion dollar budgets never quite figured out how to get humans back and forth form space routinely and regularly. The Space Shuttle was originally intended to launch as frequently as once a week. That didn’t come close to happening even in the best of times.

This all leads us to New Mexico where, at the behest of then Gov. Bill Richardson, our Legislature embarked our state upon a spaceport construction project at a cost to taxpayers of $220 million and counting.

A decade after this project was undertaken we have no idea what technologies will be used to fly people to space, whether companies can make space tourism profitable, and whether New Mexicans will benefit economically even if the space tourism industry succeeds.

Unfortunately, while Branson, Rutan, and other space pioneers are putting their own money and reputations on the line to make their space enterprises successful, the folks who unwisely got New Mexico into this mess cannot be held accountable and will suffer no personal losses from their actions.

Bill Richardson is not lying awake at night wondering if New Mexico’s Spaceport succeeds and I know of no legislator or other elected official who lost their race due to their unwise “investment” in the Spaceport.

This is where the Spaceport goes from isolated mistake to cautionary tale. The Spaceport has proven to be a spectacular failure in large part because the people behind it didn’t have any “skin” in the game. This lack of consequences leaves politicians to make decisions based on all manner of personal and political desires.

That is not to say that private sector entrepreneurs don’t fail. Indeed, if you know anything about Steve Jobs, he failed time and again as do most entrepreneurs. But they have their own money at stake and thus have the incentive to make better bets and only make bets they expect to succeed.

Just as governments should not kill businesses through high taxes and onerous regulations, government should not attempt to place bets using tax dollars on favored industries or technologies.

The Spaceport is only the most vivid failure of such government overreach in New Mexico, but we see the Rail Runner piling up ongoing losses and massive “balloon payments” due in the not-too-distant future.

The film industry which the economically-ignorant cite as a great success has actually lost $147 million for taxpayers since 2010 according to the New Mexico Legislature’s own study.

In recent years, taxpayers have also lost $16 million in subsidies for Schott Solar and $19 million Eclipse Aviation.

These wasted tax dollars could have been returned to real New Mexico entrepreneurs in the form of tax cuts to produce jobs and a real economic stimulus to our state. Instead, those scarce dollars have been – and in the cases of the Rail Runner and film subsidies – continue to reduce our prosperity by taking money out of entrepreneurs’ pockets and allocating it to less productive uses.

The good news is that Gov. Martinez doesn’t seem inclined to grandiose spending on spaceports and trains. Hopefully, New Mexicans have learned an important lesson about the promises of politicians and, rather than government micromanagement of our economy – a tendency that has led us to our impoverished state – will support government as referee, not coach.

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 following article by Dr. Deane Waldman appeared in the Albuquerque Journal on November 16, 2014. RGF president Paul Gessing offered his own thoughts on the Think New Mexico proposal in this blog posting.

Recently in the Journal, my friend and colleague Dr. Barry Ramo spoke glowingly of Think New Mexico’s plan to improve health care in the Land of Enchantment. Unfortunately, the plan, hatched by our own homegrown policy think tank, is off base.

In fact, it brings to mind the famous aphorism, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Think New Mexico is smoothing our way to a blisteringly hot place where we do not want to go.

Their plan advocates enactment of new rules and regulations to:

The people at Think New Mexico say they want to restore free market forces with its manifold advantages to the “market” of New Mexico health care.

Freeing the market in health care is a very good idea. What they propose is the opposite.

A highly regulated, tightly controlled free market is a contradiction in terms. You either control a market or let it do its thing. Note the action verbs in Think New Mexico’s first three proposals: require, outlaw and prohibit. They are about as controlling as any words I know.

In the free market, there are no external controls on the two players: Consumers choose to spend or not, and sellers compete. No third party makes decisions for them.

There should be some regulation of the market as a whole, but no mandates as to what specific consumers and sellers can do or cannot do. A free market does not have some who are required to follow the rules while others are exempt.

There are no free market forces when buyers are required by law to buy a specific, government-approved product and only that; where sellers are told what to sell and at what price; and where a third party pays the bill.

The people at Think New Mexico no doubt mean well. Nonetheless, the group is paving the road to hell.

They say they want to “free” the market, yet propose to do so by increasing the number of rules, regulations and restrictions!

You cannot reduce regulatory constraints on a market by adding more regulations. You cannot cure cancer using cancer.

Getting useful comparative shopping information into the hands of consumers would be necessary in a truly free market. But first, consumers need control of and responsibility for their own money. They need to be making the spend/not spend decision rather than the government.

It gets worse. “Price” in health care is a meaningless term.

Everywhere else, price is what the consumer pays to the seller. In health care, the consumer doesn’t pay, and no one pays what the price tag reads. Payment is decided by the federal government, rather than through the balancing mechanism of negotiation between buyer and seller.

So the consumer gets useless information and cannot economize because the spend/not spend decision is made by someone else. That is not a free market.

On the supply side of a free market, various sellers compete for consumers’ dollars based on the true price (cost to customer), features, and quality. Not so in health care, where the market is tightly controlled.

The government, not the seller, sets prices and quality standards. There is no competition between the various sellers of goods and services.

There is competition in one place in health care: between insurance carriers. They compete strictly on price and then make their profit by delaying, deferring and denying the care we need.

Health care is the antithesis of a free market. Think New Mexico’s plan will not make it one. Though the group’s ostensible intentions are laudable, their implementation plan is deeply flawed. It will only smooth our descent to an overly warm clime.

Dr. Deane Waldman, author of “The Cancer In Healthcare,” is an adjunct scholar for the Rio Grande Foundation.

I have been doing a lot of media relating to the crash of Spaceship Two and the future of New Mexico’s spaceport (much of it British and other out-of-state publications. My view of the crash has been that if it was pilot error or one, easily-fixed mechanical problem, we could see flights in the not-too-distant future, but if there were a series of problems, the situation may be completely un-salvageable.

Well, according to this new story from the Wall Street Journal, it looks like the latter is the case. According to the article, the problems at Virgin Galactic were significant, ongoing, involved the very basis of the a variety of the technologies being implemented, and often covered-up by Richard Branson who nonetheless repeatedly offered rosy launch timelines. This is most definitely bad news for New Mexico.

It is hard to say what, if anything, New Mexicans can salvage out of Spaceport America. The good news is that it will provide limited government advocates an ongoing reminder of government’s inability to predict the “next big thing.”

(Albuquerque, NM) —The Rio Grande Foundation today joined with 375 trade associations and chambers from 50 states representing a wide range of industries to voice strong concerns with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ flawed proposed rule to dramatically expand the scope of federal authority over water and land uses across the U.S. and called for the proposal to be withdrawn. The effort was led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The comments are available here.

The rule is simply an attempt by Washington, D.C., bureaucrats to take over the economies and the livelihoods of everyone in the western U.S. It has little to do with environmental protection, and everything to do with a political takeover of our most precious resource – making everyone in the west dependent and beholden to Washington bureaucrats.

As the groups’ comments state, “The proposed rule is really about the Agencies’ overreaching attempt to replace longstanding state and local control of land uses near water with centralized federal control. In light of the overwhelming evidence that the proposed rule would have a devastating impact on businesses, states, and local governments without any real benefit to water quality, the Agencies should immediately withdraw the waters of the U.S. proposal and begin again. The current proposed rule is simply too procedurally and legally flawed to repair.”

The comments detail several examples of the impacts of the proposed rule, including:

• Maps prepared by EPA show the rule could expand federal jurisdiction over waters from 5 million river and stream miles to well over 8 million river and stream miles;

• The rule would make most ditches into “tributaries.”  Routine maintenance activities in ditches and on-site ponds and impoundments could trigger permits that can cost $100,000 or more;

• These permitting requirements would likely trigger additional environmental reviews that would add years to the completion time for ordinary projects;

• Even if a project can get a permit, firms will often have to agree to mitigate environmental “damage” with costly restoration/mitigation projects;

• The proposal would likely also result in more stringent storm water management requirements, which would affect retailers, companies with large parking lots, “big box” stores, etc.

There is a lot going on when it comes to Right to Work in New Mexico. The head of New Mexico’s AFL-CIO chapter recently railed against such a law saying it could “harm the film industry” in an article in Albuquerque Biz First.

Union bosses hate Right to Work because it impacts their bottom-line and ultimately their political power, so this is not really news. I hate taxpayer subsidies for the film industry so I’d consider a bill that makes paying union dues and “fair share” fees optional and hits the taxpayer-financed film industry a “two-fer.” Alas, in the real world, Right to Work’s impact on the film industry is benign. According to Film Production Capital, the top three states for film production are all Right to Work.

The Albuquerque Journal had a front page article today on Right to Work. Carter Bundy, yet another union boss who was given ample opportunity to explain his opposition to Right to Work made several arguments that simply didn’t hold water in the article. Yes, unions must negotiate on behalf of everyone because they have asked for and received collective bargaining privileges. And, he has nothing at all to back up the statement that Tesla not coming to NM had nothing to do with Right to Work. At least one site selection expert cited Right to Work as an important factor in making NM more business-friendly in general and something needed to make our state more attractive to Tesla.

Finally, Grant Taylor of the Hobbs Chamber had an interesting take (in ABQ Biz First) outlining how unions are given substantial advantages over chambers of commerce in being able to collect dues from those who don’t wish to pay them despite the fact that they must represent them.

According to a report in the Albuquerque Journal, a new study estimated it would cost about $9 million annually to maintain the New Mexico portions of the line used by Amtrak to run trains through New Mexico. If that money is not spent, New Mexico stands to lose between $3.3 and $3.7 million annually.

So, in classic government fashion (especially for Amtrak which has loses about $1.5 billion annually and has lost money for years), repairing the track for Amtrak’s benefit will have a net negative impact of over $5 million annually.

Oh, and lest policymakers get carried away with concerns that a $3 million economic impact is significant, New Mexico’s overall economy is $79.7 billion. amounts to all of .00376% of New Mexico’s economy. In other words, according to the study, Amtrak’s economic impact on New Mexico’s economy amounts to a rounding error.

Rather than subsidizing an already-money-losing national passenger railroad, it would seem that New Mexico should focus its limited economic development attention and resources elsewhere.