Conservatives in Congress have a funny way of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. A recent budget agreement (not voted on by Congress yet) is the latest such example. For starters, it increases fees (taxes) on flying and, rather than any of those funds being dedicated to improving “service” by TSA at our airports, the money is simply going to the overall budget. It is thus a tax hike.

Arguably worse is the fact that with modest sequestration “cuts” in place that at least slowed the growth of federal spending, Congressional leaders including supposed fiscal hawk Paul Ryan are going along with higher spending. As Tim Phillips of Americans for Prosperity has said, this deal is both bad politics and bad policy.” I couldn’t agree more.

There’s no simpler way to create thousands of high paying American jobs in the immediate future than approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Of course, the far-left radical “environmentalists” who seem to be more anti-modern society than anything else continue to fight against it.

So, while the pipeline would not go through New Mexico, every little bit of support that can be generated for the project helps. To that end, the Canadian Consul General is visiting Albuquerque in a few weeks to help build support for the pipeline and that includes a public rally on behalf of the project that you are invited to. The event is co-sponsored by Rio Grande Foundation, but a union representative will be speaking at the rally once again proving that the Rio Grande Foundation is not inherently “anti-union.” See the flier below:

The following letter to the editor appeared in the Albuquerque Business Journal:

Kudos to the much-maligned Public Regulation Commission (PRC), specifically Commissioners Lyons, Hall, and Becenti-Aguilar for stepping up on behalf of New Mexico utility customers! I am not sure what the Sierra Club has against those on fixed incomes and the businesses that consume electricity in our state while creating jobs for thousands of our fellow citizens, but it certainly appears that “Big Enviro” cares little for the energy needs of average New Mexicans.

My organization has studied the Renewable Portfolio Standard and found that the mandates it contains will cost New Mexico’s struggling economy $2.3 billion between 2011 and 2020. We are on record as supporting a free market with no subsidies for any energy source, in electricity generation.

Obviously, the PRC did not go that far and yet the Sierra Club complains that “utilities will load up their grids on ‘cheap’ wind.” Suddenly, even wind is not “green” enough for these people? With solar electricity costing between three and six times that of wind (which in turn is more expensive than coal and natural gas), it would seem that at the very least, utilities should be free to use less costly, but still supposedly “green” wind to generate electricity.

Here’s hoping the PRC wins the inevitable legal wrangling with its well-funded opponents for whom wind is apparently no longer “green” enough.

Paul J. Gessing
President
Rio Grande Foundation

(Albuquerque) New Mexico’s Two-Year Institutes and their leaders have made headlines recently with the termination of President Ana “Cha” Guzmán by the School’s governing board. Regardless of the specific issues at stake, there is no doubt that a new President will be hired at the School.

In the interests of greater transparency, the Rio Grande Foundation has requested and posted online a useful comparison of the salary and benefits packages at the various independent, two-year institutes of higher learning around the state. Actual contract information along with brief analysis and comparison of the compensation packages is available now.

As Rio Grande Foundation President Paul Gessing explained, “When the board enters into negotiations on behalf of taxpayers and the public has a chance to weigh in, we believe that all parties, including the public, should have an understanding of the compensation packages available at similar schools around the state.”

These compensation packages might include a base salary, performance/retention bonuses, a car, a house, retirement contributions, and paid leave.

Each contract is posted below (please note the addendum for New Mexico Junior College)

Central New Mexico Community College (CNM);

Clovis Community College;

Luna Community College;

Mesalands Community College;

New Mexico Junior College plus addendum

New Mexico Military Institute (NMMI);

San Juan College;

Santa Fe Community College;

After a close analysis of each contract, in terms of overall benefits, Gessing concluded, “The presidents of Mesalands, Luna, and NMMI are at the low end of the spectrum compensation-wise. The middle of the pack is represented by San JuanCommunity College and Santa FeCommunity College. The most generous packages are at CNM, Clovis, and New MexicoJunior College. Notably, however, CNM is by far the largest two-year institute in the state with a student population far bigger than any other similar school in the state.”

You simply can’t make terrible headlines up like this one from the Albuquerque Business First. It would get too depressing. A few nuggets from the article:

New Mexico’s economy nosedived between May and October, shedding thousands of jobs and labor force participants. And the state’s labor force participation rate, a measure of how many working-age residents are employed or looking for work, was the fourth-worst in the nation in October, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Also, “Between April and October, the state lost 20,382 jobs, or 2.4 percent, and nearly 24,000 labor force participants, according to preliminary BLS figures.” You can read the whole sickening thing at the link above.

Also, we are the ONLY US state where home prices continue to decline. While home price reductions are not inherently a bad thing, they may be an indicator of a weak or shrinking economy and of people leaving the state.

2012 was a bad year economically for New Mexico with only 0.2% growth. The corporate tax rate cuts take five years to phase in and represent a relatively minor reform. Perhaps they could be accelerated? That would be a start.

We know the Democratically-controlled Legislature is not particularly interested in embracing policies that have generated economic growth like reduced taxes on income, regulatory reform, or right to work. They haven’t done a very good job over the last 50+ years they’ve been in control of the Legislature. Unfortunately, the “jobs council’s” new plan doesn’t provide much hope either as it is consultant-driven requests for more spending. The plan includes:

Creating a discretionary “closing” fund that could be used to help entice out-of-state businesses to relocate to New Mexico.
Increasing funding for the state Department of Tourism’s marketing and outreach programs.
Increasing the amount of money from the state Severance Tax Permanent Fund available to be invested by the Small Business Investment Corp.
Coordinating the efforts of state agencies with regional council of government districts to improve data gathering and economic planning.

Spurring economic growth and promoting economic freedom is not even mentioned among Gov. Martinez’s top priorities on her website:

MY PRIORITIES:
Educating Our Children
Balancing the Budget
Ensuring Transparency and Ethics in Government
Keeping New Mexicans Safe

The sorry state of New Mexico’s economy provides both opportunity and peril for Gov. Martinez. If she takes the lead and explains that our economic situation is to a significant degree the result of poor policies enacted by the Legislature over the long-term. If she doesn’t get in front of the issue, however, Democrats are going to do everything in their power to blame her for New Mexico’s poor performance under her leadership.

Travis Brown of How Money Walks, a website that vividly illustrates how wealth and people move around the country using IRS data, has put together a map illustrating how money and people move throughout New Mexico and to/from what states people and money are coming to/leaving our state.

Check out the full series of charts here.

Mr. Brown’s original presentation along with an interview by Capitol Report New Mexico can be found here.

It would seem that taxes play a larger role in how people move around the nation than they do within New Mexico where the phenomenon is one of people leaving rural areas, even booming ones in the oil patch, to live in the Rio Grande Valley.

Also, people are moving to Bernalillo County, but their money is moving out of the County.

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!