The fallout continues from the recent “Kids Count” report. A couple of liberals penned an article discussing a “paradigm shift” needed for New Mexico children. I couldn’t agree more, but disagree on the shift being towards even bigger government.

We’re dead last. That’s the sorry news according to the latest “Kids Count” report. The gist of the report is that in terms of health care, education, economic conditions, and family unit cohesiveness, New Mexico children are worse off than kids in other states.

The report was co-released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and New Mexico Voices for children. While Voices and Rio Grande Foundation would generally be considered the opposite ends of the political spectrum, the report itself was data-driven and informational.

While the news is not good, it is refreshing to see the political left decrying New Mexico’s serious economic and educational problems. After all, within the last year, we at the Rio Grande Foundation have pointed out that New Mexico is 50th in economic freedom, was named the number one “death spiral” state by Forbes for its poor maker/taker ratio, has the lowest graduation rate in the nation according to the Diplomas Count report, and was named by United Van Lines as the only state west of the Mississippi to be a “top-outbound” state in 2012.

New Mexicans can be forgiven for losing hope that things can improve. But, for the sake of our children and grandchildren things MUST get better, even while our leaders must wean our state from our historical dependency on Washington largesse.

The negative results boil down to a poor economy and a poor educational system. There are other issues including family cohesiveness and health, but if you improve the economy and educational outcomes, you go a long way to improving everything else.

Fortunately, economic and education policies are the central focus of Rio Grande Foundation’s work and we have several policy ideas that must considered if New Mexico is to get out of 50th place.

1) Adoption of a Right to Work law: Such an initiative costs taxpayers nothing and can have positive economic results. Such laws are not “anti-union,” rather it simply ensures that workers can choose whether or not to join a union and they cannot be coerced into joining as a condition of employment.

In addition to respecting individual rights of association, such laws have spurred economic growth where they have been adopted. Oklahoma, which adopted such a law in 2001, has seen a dramatic improvement in its economy in recent years;

2) Elimination of Personal Income Tax: There is an old saying in tax policy, “If you want more of something, tax it less, if you want less of something, tax it more.” Turning around New Mexico’s economy requires going beyond “job creation” to focusing on “wealth creation.”

Creating wealth means incentivizing business formation and entrepreneurship. New Mexico needs more of its people in the work force. In part this means creating jobs for them, but these jobs must create real wealth and should not necessitate business-specific tax breaks or outright subsidies designed to cover for the fact that New Mexico’s labor, tax, and work force are less competitive than necessary.

According to Arthur Laffer, “in any 10-year period since 1960, the no-income tax states consistently outperform the equivalent number of the highest income tax states.”

3) “Rampant” School Choice: While the aforementioned items directly impact poverty in our state, choice-driven education reform is the most direct means of improving the lives of young people in New Mexico.

School choice empowers parents and students to choose the educational option that best serves them and not bureaucrats or “the system.” In just one example of their success, African-American kids in New York were 24% more likely to attend college if they won a scholarship to attend private school.

In states where aggressive school choice programs have been adopted, graduation rates have soared. According to the Diplomas Count report, between 1999 and 2010, Florida and Arizona saw their graduation rates rise from 52.5% and 48.2% to 72.9% and 67.2% respectively. New Mexico, in the meantime, saw its graduation rate go from 58.1% to 59.4%, an insignificant increase by comparison.

The latest in a string of negative news for New Mexico families must be a wake-up call for its political leaders that the time for half-measures has passed. Tough decisions and dramatic reforms are needed to improve our economy, reduce poverty, and ensure that our children and grandchildren have the opportunity to succeed here in New Mexico.

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, I wrote an article that appeared in several papers statewide on the need for New Mexico to re-assert control over land within its boundaries that is controlled by Washington (not tribal, national park, or military, but much of the rest). Not surprisingly, given the dramatic nature of the problem and the paradigm shift that such a process would entail, that article drew a response.

In essence, the author notes the large number of wild fires taking place in New Mexico and elsewhere and claims that our state could not afford to fight such fires absent assistance from the federal government. I believe that this article misses the point entirely and is quite simply not a good reason for New Mexico not to reassert control over its own land. Here are some reasons:

1) The author assumes that existing land practices would continue much as they have in the past. That is not the case. For a variety of reasons, the federal government has badly mismanaged many of these lands. Absent thinning and a variety of other management to reduce the likelihood of raging fires, we have seen the intensity of those fires increase dramatically. See this article for details.

2) States can increase revenues from activities on federal lands. The federal government does not have the same incentive to maximize revenue on its lands while also preserving those lands. It is quite likely that states could generate a great deal more revenue to more than offset the additional cost of managing these lands. As the following chart shows, in recent years, oil and gas production has declined on federal lands while it has increased dramatically on privately-held lands in the US.

3) While the federal government does fight Western wildfires, it is by no means the only entity to do so and Washington has been cutting funding for such efforts while states are exploring ways to cooperate and share resources. Washington gets money from the same place as the various states do (taxpayers) and it makes sense for regional and local leaders to step up to the plate as Washington steps back. At the same time, shouldn’t we get more say in how our lands are used?

While residents of the west are hoping for more water in the form of rain, the arguments outlined in this article won’t hold any water.

There is a disturbing trend that I’ve noticed in recent years. That is, government officials choosing which laws they will enforce. Just yesterday, the Obama Administration decided not to enforce the employer mandate part of ObamaCare for at least a year until 2015. This may be a good or a bad policy in and of itself, but ObamaCare is one law. How can you take a law that is still on the books and just not enforce it? As Michael Cannon over at Cato Institute notes, if you delay one part of the law, you really have to delay the whole thing.

The issue has arisen recently in the debate over gay marriage as well. Back in 2011, the Obama Administration made the decision not to enforce DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) which passed Congress with large bi-partisan majorities and was signed by then-President Clinton.

And then there is the recent Supreme Court decision which essentially allows Jerry Brown, California’s Governor to pick and choose which laws relating to gay marriage he wishes to enforce.

Ultimately, this is not about health care or even gay marriage, but whether the law is the law and whether government officials must obey and uphold the law as written (like the rest of us) or whether they can pick and choose when and whom it is enforced upon. Dangerous precedents indeed, particularly in light of the IRS abuses of conservative organizations that have recently come to light.

With the IRS in charge of enforcing so much of the new health law and Obama now able to pick and choose which portions to enforce and upon whom, it is only a matter of time before his political opponents are targeted, no?

With another debt ceiling debate around the corner, we at RGF have made the point time and again that Washington spends way too much money. That said, in any discussion of tax reform or sensible tax policy, there are several tax breaks and deductions that need to be reduced or eliminated in their entirety. Preferably, this would be done in a revenue-neutral way, but if real spending reductions or entitlement reforms are on the table, the following tax breaks should be the first to go:

1) Tax exempt bonds for local governments: This tax exemption reduces annual federal revenues by $37 billion and simply subsidizes over-investment in infrastructure projects by local governments (including stadiums and arenas). Regardless of revenue generation or lack thereof, local governments should pay full-freight for debt. They’d be less likely to take on such debt which would be another benefit.

2) Home ownership tax deduction: This policy distorts the housing market and encourages homeowners to take on debt for homes they cannot afford. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the effective tax rate on owner-occupied housing is negative, while the effective tax rate on rental housing is around 18 percent. Interestingly, by tying people to a specific geographical area, home ownership may increase unemployment.

3) Employer health insurance deduction: While ObamaCare will take effect soon, we likely would never have had it shoved down our throats were it not for the misguided tax policy that encourages employers — rather than individuals — to purchase their own health care/insurance. While Republicans talk a lot about “defunding” ObamaCare — something that appears to be unlikely if not impossible — the reality is that a individuals could be given the same tax benefits as their employers (through a system of large HSAs) and we’d likely see dramatic improvement in US health care and the demise of ObamaCare.

While Social Security is indeed set up as a forced Ponzi Scheme that is reliant on finding an ever-growing pool of “investors” in order to be “sustainable,” the major problem with Social Security is the poor rate of return that it provides for recipients. The following video is one of the best I’ve seen explaining why Social Security is a poor investment and what can be done to improve it (hint, fiddling with chained CPI is not the answer):

We at the Rio Grande Foundation have a lot in common with the Foundation for Open Government and have often worked arm-in-arm with the organization in order to improve government openness and transparency. Combined, our greatest achievement would undoubtedly be the Sunshine Portal (of course, kudos go to Sen. Sander Rue, former Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones and all of the other legislative champions of transparency over the years).

However, that was then and this is now. A few years ago Sarah Welsh left the Foundation. We maintained a working relationship with Gwyneth Doland who is undoubtedly liberal, but is also a credible journalist with a long track record as such in the state.

However, Doland recently left FOG and, to say the least, the organization didn’t exactly move to the right with the hire of ardent left-wing activist Terry Schleder. Look here, here, and at his Twitter feed here for details. His most recent activity, a re-tweet: “”We have a retirement crisis and I cannot afford even a penny of my future benefits cut.” pic.twitter.com/r8zFxFqP1C”

Now, Schleder has every right to be liberal and FOG has every right to hire someone from the far-left. One only wonders how the liberals would react if the organization hired me or someone who used to work for RGF. I can’t imagine it’d be pretty. The situation reminds me of Jonah Goldberg’s point that liberals succeed in part by convincing the public and the media that they are non-ideological and that anyone who presents a contrary view (conservatives and libertarians) is inherently “ideological.”

Will FOG take up the pitchforks against conservatives? I hope not, but “you are who you hire” and this hiring decision leaves me with the uneasy feeling that FOG is going to get real political real soon.

Recently, over at Capitol Report New Mexico, Rob noted that education spending in New Mexico is 25th among the states while our results are near (or at) the bottom.

But what about the United States as a whole? Check out the following slide which is directly from the Organization for Economic Coordination and Development (OECD)

The United States spends more per-pupil than any other nation in the world, but our results….not so great:

We know that choice and competition work in all other areas of the economy, particularly the innovative high-tech sector where Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and others compete fiercely. Why can’t that process be allowed work in education as well?

Check out this fascinating website called How Money Walks. It illustrates how wealth migrates around the nation. Believe it or not, according to data from the IRS that were analyzed and uploaded to this website, New Mexico has actually seen a relative influx of wealth from other states. According to the data, New Mexico:

Gained Wealth From:
$950.09 million California
$267.88 million New York
$141.86 million Illinois
$126.68 million Michigan
$115.30 million New Jersey

Lost Wealth To:
$534.12 million Texas
$459.64 million Arizona
$357.79 million Colorado
$98.12 million Oregon
$87.50 million Nevada

So, what does this all mean? For starters, all of the states that lost wealth to New Mexico are “forced-unionism” states (not Right to Work) while 3 of the 5 states to which New Mexico lost wealth are Right to Work while two of them do not tax personal incomes (all of the states from which NM gained wealth had charge personal income tax).

Regardless, the site is robust with a lot of great information.

Anyone who has followed this blog closely has probably read about the fact that New Mexico is the least economically-free state in the USA according to the Fraser Institute — a free market think tank based in Canada.

This week, to great acclaim and media coverage, we saw the release of the Kids Count report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Voices for Children. This report also found New Mexico to be 50th.

To be fair, while the “Kids Count” is mostly a reflection of poverty, we don’t necessarily agree with all of the report’s findings which were based on inputs that can be found here. After all, “children not attending preschool” seems to pale in comparison as a measuring stick when compared to poverty or failure to graduate when one considers that kids in Sweden — a nation that performs well on international tests and measures — don’t head off to school until age 6. Of course that nation also has rampant school choice via vouchers.

Also, while the head of a household not having a high school diploma is not a positive indicator, it pales in importance to whether that parent is engaged in productive work as opposed to sitting at home waiting for government handouts.

We often hear about parental responsibility when it comes to educational success and the overall health of children. But how about personal responsibility when it comes to our broken health care system?

I found this recent article on obesity and health fascinating. Obviously, there are many factors that lead people to be thinner or fatter as a group, but as the author points out, we ultimately have the ability to lose weight or not. Calling obesity a “disease” is thus more of a political designation than a descriptive term relating to health.

And then I saw this article which explained that what American health care lacks is some entity that says “no” when it comes to health care spending. The author makes a compelling case that government really won’t do a better job than the current US system, but that so much health care consumption has no relationship to life expectancy that the US wastes more money than other nations.

Of course, as we have repeatedly argued here and here (for example) that market forces and personal choice will solve the problem of “no” while also achieving high-quality care when it actually matters.

This article appeared in the Albuquerque Journal on 6/24/13 and in several other papers state-wide.

Washington can’t seem to manage much of anything these days. Even before the myriad scandals started to take their toll on the Obama Administration, the government’s inability to manage money and resources was clear to even the most passive observer.

Notable among recent policy failures has been Washington’s inability to find even the smallest reductions in a $3.8 trillion budget – a budget which more than doubled in size in just over 10 years. This failure led directly to the hated “sequester” which, while not actually cutting year-over-year spending, did slow Washington’s growth somewhat.

By and large, Americans have gone on with their lives giving little thought to the over-hyped sequester. However, in an effort to inflict some pain on state governments, the Obama Administration saw fit to cancel royalty payments to the various Western states earlier this year. Royalties are the fees paid by companies that engage in certain activities on publicly-owned land. A vast majority of this money in New Mexico and around the West is derived from the various extractive industries.

For New Mexico, the loss amounts to $26 million this year. $109 million in total was cut from the budgets of the several Western states (New Mexico had the second-largest cut to Wyoming). Sen. Tom Udall and a bi-partisan group of Western senators recently penned a letter to the Obama Administration urging that such cuts not be made again next year.

While I appreciate efforts to stop future cuts by our delegation, this is not a discussion that should even be taking place. These lands are part of the respective states. They are supposed to be managed by the federal government on behalf of the states, but the funds are rightfully ours. Unfortunately, Washington doesn’t play by the rules.

If Washington did obey its own rules, many of these lands – excluding National Parks and Tribal lands – would have been transferred to the various Western states decades ago. After all, this was the pattern set up at the founding of our nation. Dating back to 1780, the Continental Congress designed a process by which the national government would “dispose of” lands under its control for the benefit of the nation. That process held true for two centuries, but was not allowed to work when it came to Western states like New Mexico which remains more than 40 percent federally-owned.

Whether federal or state government owns land may appear trivial at first blush, but we already have seen that federal budgetary mismanagement has resulted in the withholding of funds meant to support the activities of New Mexico government. And, of course we have well-documented problems with federal management of lands, including the lack of willingness to extract dead and dying trees, thus creating a “tinderbox” in New Mexico’s mountainous regions that have regularly caught fire in recent years.

Lastly, there is the basic reality that government’s functions are best managed locally. Washington instead enforces “one-size-fits-all” management policies that don’t work well for anyone.

The individual states, unlike Washington, have both the incentive and the local knowledge to manage local lands. They can often do so more effectively, without jumping through the hoops of Washington’s bureaucracy. The “rights of way” used by utilities on federal lands are but one recent example. The fact that these areas are too narrow and allowed falling power lines to start several of the fires burning in New Mexico has generated consternation from our Congressional delegation, but any federal action to expand or alter these “rights of way” is likely years away.

The good news is that New Mexico policymakers have seen the problem and are in the midst of working on solutions. HB 292, the Transfer of Public Lands Bill, was introduced on a bi-partisan basis by Reps. Yvette Herrell and Richard Martinez during the 2013 legislative session. Although it failed to pass, it began the discussion about who is best able to manage New Mexico’s public lands. Utah and four other states have already passed similar legislation.

Western states must act to put pressure on Washington to do the right thing by recognizing that local control of resources is not only sensible, but follows historical precedent. Local control was our birthright. It is time for Washington to restore local control of New Mexico’s lands.

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

First and foremost, I want to thank the folks at New Mexico Voices for Children and Veronica Garcia in particular for inviting me to their inaugural “Kids Count” rollout. I went because, while RGF and Voices don’t agree on much, it seemed like an interesting opportunity to learn about some new data and share views with those who may not agree with us.

There was a lot of useful data, albeit much of it depressing, as New Mexico is ranked 50th in the report. If you want some other unsettling information, check out my recent presentation on “How do we rate?”

So, the news is not good, we get it. But what does it all mean? Here are 4 points that encapsulate my take on the event and the poverty/educational system in New Mexico:

1) Poverty is the root cause of most of New Mexico’s problems. Liberals and conservatives certainly disagree on how to solve poverty. In fact, I recently debated Nick Estes (formerly of NM Voices) on inequality (which ultimately was about poverty). It goes without saying that the RGF perspective is that limited government, free trade, and the rule of law (not government programs) create prosperity. Left-liberals support more government spending on social welfare programs and increased regulations like higher minimum wages.

2) It is good to see the folks at NM Voices and the Annie E. Casey Foundation (which is behind the Kids Count report) discussing the importance of reading by 3rd grade. We have been talking about 3rd grade reading for four years (see presentation here and paper here.) We agree that learning to read by 3rd grade is important (as do Gov. Martinez and Education Secretary Skandera) and would love to see Voices step up to support accountability and choice measures that have been shown to improve 3rd grade reading scores in other states like Florida.

3) The keynote speaker at the event (from Annie E. Casey) repeatedly spoke of “a politics-free-zone” for education” and that this was somehow a goal that New Mexicans and people in other states should get behind. This sounds like a great talking point, but as long as the government is demanding tax money and then spending 12 or more years indoctrinating my child (whether for better or worse) in a program administered by no less than three government bodies (the federal government, the state, and the school board), how exactly is this supposed to be “politics-free?”

If you want politics-free education, leave the money with the parents and let THEM pick the school that is best for them and their child and let charities handle educating those whose families can’t afford it.

4) It is interesting when so-called “progressives” complain about the status quo in New Mexico as if they had no part in making our state 50th. After all, outside of the office of governor (which has flipped back and forth in recent years), New Mexico has been controlled from top to bottom by politicians of the liberal/progressive mindset. As I’ve written about before, the Legislature has been controlled by one party for nearly all of New Mexico’s existence with the exception of just a few years. The Courts and legal system have been under the control of the same people. And yet we are 50th in so many things that these very same liberal/progressives claim to want to change!!!

In conclusion, it is good to have these discussions. I don’t have to agree with the folks at Voices to have a discussion and learn something new. Now, if we can only get them to attend a few RGF events!

ADDENDUM: Leave it up to the hyper-political far-lefties at ProgressNow New Mexico to attempt to divert attention from the failure of New Mexico’s “progressive” public policies with a press release blaming Gov. Martinez and her vetoes for the fall to 50th. The same report put NM at 48th back in 2008. Perhaps the problem is the “progressive” left-wing Legislature?

The Rio Grande Foundation has led the charge in New Mexico on behalf of exporting liquefied natural gas, a potential boon to our state’s economy. We are encouraged that Gov. Martinez has seen fit to weigh in with the Obama Administration on behalf of LNG exports.

Rob Nikolewski broke the story at Capitol Report New Mexico and the letter is available here.

Kudos to Gov. Martinez for speaking out publicly in support of New Mexico’s economy. We wish our Congressional delegation were more outspoken (several Members have expressed support) and that President Obama would actually heed his own rhetoric about job creation.

New Mexico is a “Davis-Bacon” state. Such laws require that workers who are hired for public works projects are paid a prevailing wage which is equal to collectively bargained union wages. This regulation holds despite the fact that only 8.7 percent of private-sector construction workers in New Mexico are union members. By negating the merit system which was used by 92 percent of the construction industry, the law places wage setting power among the 8 percent who do use collective bargaining agreements.

Economically speaking, this is a form of price fixing which pushes out competitors who are willing to work for lower wages. The federal Davis-Bacon law (1931) is estimated to raise costs to taxpayers by 15 percent on federally funded projects. It is believed that New Mexico’s law increases the cost of school buildings, roads, and transit projects by similar rates (other studies such as this one from Columbia University indicate the markup is 30%).

Believe it or not, even the “died-in-the-wool” liberal Democrats in Washington, DC government are concerned about the costs of “Davis-Bacon” prevailing wage laws to the point that they are suing Obama’s Department of Labor.

Which states are saving money by repealing their “prevailing wage” laws? Check out the map below:

[show-map id=’2′]

The Rio Grande Foundation, along with a large and growing group of supporters across the state, has moved the issue of lawyer reciprocity onto the agenda of New Mexico’s Supreme court (see the petition, an explanation of the issue from an attorney, and our original discussion of the issue which was included in our regulatory report in early January). Now, we are asking for the general public to weigh in to support this regulatory reform which would make New Mexico more competitive with other states. Please note the deadline for public comment listed at the bottom of this note.

The Board of Bar Examiners is considering whether to recommend proposed amendments to the Rules Governing Admission to the Bar for the Supreme Court’s consideration.  The proposed amendments would implement a procedure for reciprocal admission on motion, and the Court is seeking input from all segments of the bar before considering the proposal further.  Because the Board submitted a substantial amount of background material that is helpful to a full consideration of its proposal, the submission from the Board will not be published in the Bar Bulletin due to space limitations but instead can be viewed in its entirety on the Supreme Court’s web site.

Contemporaneously with the submission of the proposal from the Board of Bar Examiners, the Court also received a request from several state bar members to consider the adoption of another proposal for reciprocal admission.  Ordinarily, the Court would refer such a request to the Board of Bar Examiners for its review and recommendation.  But since the Board’s proposal is now open for public comment, the Court has decided to treat the alternative proposal as a comment on the Board’s proposal, which is also posted on the Court’s website for public review and comment.

If you would like to comment on the proposed amendments from the Board of Bar Examiners, or the alternative proposal mentioned above, before either is submitted to the Court for further consideration, you may do so by either submitting a comment electronically through the Supreme Court’s web site at:

http://nmsupremecourt.nmcourts.gov/rules/index.php

or by sending your written comments by mail or fax to:

Joey D. Moya, Clerk
New Mexico Supreme Court
P.O. Box 848
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504-0848
505-827-4837 (fax)

Your comments must be received by the Clerk on or before July 26, 2013, to be considered by the Court.  Please note that any submitted comments may be posted on the Supreme Court’s web site for public viewing.

In case you missed the big pageant over the weekend (my wife was watching it), you missed something newsworthy. Miss Utah was asked about the purported “wage gap” between women and men and gave a response that really didn’t make sense.

Interestingly enough, Texas Gov. Rick Perry recently vetoed legislation on this issue while Gov. Martinez signed legislation relating to supposed income inequality between men and women during the 2013 legislative session.

Thankfully, as the Independent Women’s Forum points out in the following video, when career choices, time in the work force, and hours worked are accounted for, there really is no gender gap.

We at the Rio Grande Foundation have had our differences with UNM Hospital for planning to invest a lot of taxpayer money into a project that we questioned.

However, the controversy, started by Rep. Michelle Lujan-Grisham over the Hospital’s outsourcing of transcription services is just silly. Another article appeared in the Albuquerque Journal with the headline “UNMH Outsourcing an economic decision.” Well, duh!

Of course, the author is with a union representing transcribers and Lujan-Grisham has a political interest in keeping those 57 people (and their families) happy. She’s got 100+ solid votes now. Who is going to vote against her BECAUSE of this effort? No one.

But the outsourcing is saving UNMH (or taxpayers) $500,000!!! That’s a decent amount of money even at UNMH. Now, imagine hundreds of potential cost-savings decisions made throughout UNMH’s budget and the budgets of government entities around New Mexico. Unfortunately, you can always count on a concentrated group looking out for their own best interests, but who defends the taxpayer?

So, kudos to UNMH. Stick to your guns on behalf of taxpayers. To the Laid off transcribers, it is time to either find another job in the field or get trained to do something that is more economically-viable and doesn’t need the intervention of a Congressperson to preserve your job. That may not be easy in New Mexico, but may I recommend North Dakota?

The “we can never cut any government program” crowd was in full-force recently on the Albuquerque Journal’s opinion pages with the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty arguing that any cuts to food stamps would be a “profound mistake.” The arguments trotted out were very typical:

1) Welfare as economic stimulus;
2) Without food stamps, children will starve or won’t get enough food to eat and this will ruin their lives.

Of course, the implication is that food stamps are always and everywhere being used to benefit those who need them and that the doubling in food stamps since just 2008 is a direct result of the poor economy.

As Jim Scarantino reported, there has been widespread abuse of the cards given to recipients including in strip clubs. The legislation designed to curtail this situation somewhat was held up by Majority Leader Michael Sanchez. One wonders where the NM Center on Law and Poverty is on that issue.

The reality is that many of the funds allocated to food stamps do not go to poor people but the government is not eager to provide data that would allow analysts to better understand how the program is being abused and/or used to purchase junk food.

Of course, conservatives should not limit themselves to just attacking food stamps. They need to go after all of the wasteful agriculture subsidies in the farm bill (which is pretty much all $16 billion of them). After all, if you are perceived rightly or wrongly as being mean to poor people, you’ve got to take on the recipients of subsidies, most of whom are wealthy.

When discussing New Mexico’s graduation rates, we have always used “Diplomas Count”  from the Education Research Center. The latest report on national graduation rates was released earlier this month. Reports on the topic have noted that Diplomas Count and the State calculate graduation rates differently, but that New Mexico was at the very bottom in the latest report.

Obviously, this is not good news, but we wanted to put those findings into a bit of context. Using the Diplomas Count data, we looked back over more than a decade to see how graduation rates have evolved for New Mexico, its neighbors, and Florida (from whence Hanna Skandera came along with the “Florida Model” for education reform. Unfortunately (for New Mexico), as the data shows, not only is our state saddled with the worst graduation rate in the nation, our results did not improve much (at least relative to other states) between 1999 and 2010. The chart below illustrates the increase (or decrease) in graduation rates in the report.

This second chart illustrates the relative increase or decrease over the same time span:

Not surprisingly, Florida and Arizona have developed some of the most robust school choice programs in the entire nation.

The Rio Grande Foundation recently hosted a debate on the issue of inequality in America. Participants were Paul Gessing, president of Rio Grande Foundation and Nick Estes who recently worked as an analyst with New Mexico Voices for Children.

The footage of the debate can be viewed below:

“Rising Inequality in America … Should Government Respond? If so, how?” from Paul Gessing on Vimeo.

Nick’s powerpoint slides are available here while Paul’s are available here.

Leftists and their allies in the media are often very effective at portraying conservatives and libertarians as being heartless for their stances against massive government transfer programs. The reality is that government is the nastiest organization around because accountability is so elusive. Democracy, yes, but throwing the bums out is not the same as throwing them in jail and taking their ill-gotten gains.

George Will has a great column detailing how one person, Lois Lerner (most recently of the IRS) personifies in so many ways all that is wrong with government, especially the monopolistic and seemingly omnipotent federal government. Conservatives and libertarians have a golden opportunity to have an impact in terms of limiting government power if they approach the various scandals — NSA, IRS, and ObamaCare — from a principled position in support of limited government.