Did RGF make a mistake by supporting legal reforms for the Spaceport during the 2013 legislative session? I’ve already asked that question here, but the latest news is that Virgin Galactic has again postponed its initial launch combined with construction delays at the visitors center will result in the Spaceport Authority asking for $7 million from the taxpayers during the 2014 legislative session.

The experience of the Spaceport is a classic case of government mal-investment. Gov. Richardson was sure that human space flight would be “the next big thing” and he was willing to spend other peoples’ money to make it happen (and then take full credit). Unfortunately, there is a widely-acknowledged “spaceport glut” and the longer this process drags on, the more New Mexicans will be forced to spend and the less likely the Spaceport is to succeed.

So, do legislators pour good money after bad or do we cut our losses on what is quickly becoming a money pit?

I have long touted the Rio Grande Foundation as “New Mexico’s only free market think tank.” I stand behind that statement, but must admit that I am pleased with some of the recent work of Think New Mexico. Specifically, I urge readers to obtain a copy of the organization’s new report on New Mexico’s jobs crisis. The entire report is not available online at this time. We have certainly disagreed with Think New Mexico in the past, including their passionate calls for elimination of taxes on groceries which was enacted during the Richardson Administration in exchange for a higher gross receipts tax rate).

I have previously analyzed the report’s recommendations which were covered in the media (analysis here), but I didn’t get an actual copy of the report until recently. While the recommendations were okay, the research painted a clear picture of New Mexico’s failures to embrace free markets and limited government. Repeatedly, points explained in the report echo arguments and data brought to bear by the Rio Grande Foundation:

1) New Mexico is too reliant on an increasingly unreliable government in Washington (this is kind of a no-brainer, but good luck convincing our Senators that it is time to dial things back);

2) To thrive, New Mexico needs to embrace entrepreneurial mindset and policies that will generate private sector jobs;

3) Our higher education system must be more efficient and competitive (although Think NM recommends providing scholarships for foreign students, their research clearly illustrates that New Mexico’s higher education system is heavily-subsidized for in-state students and costly for out-of-state students to the point that our schools are not attractive for those students).

4) Industry-specific subsidies and corporate welfare are ineffective. They cite several examples that we have discussed including Schott Solar and Santa Fe Studios.

In other words, Think New Mexico, at least in terms of its critiques of the status quo, is echoing stuff we’ve said for years. The major difference is that our recommendations, Right to Work, tax reform, regulatory reductions/reform, and a less-subsidized, more competitive higher education system, are even more politically-challenging than their proposals (which face their own political challenges with the current Legislature). Of course, our recommendations also attack the problems more directly.

In conclusion, we may disagree on policy prescriptions and tactics, but we welcome the organization’s free market critique of New Mexico’s policies.

Join the Rio Grande Foundation at this Albuquerque luncheon event on November 21st featuring Travis H. Brown, author of the book How Money Walks.

Click here for event registration form.

About the author:

How Money Walks author Travis H. Brown is a Missouri-based entrepreneur with a passion for helping cities and states grow via smart tax policies. He's a frequent contributor to Forbes.com and has appeared on various radio and television broadcasts such as Fox Business Network, CNBC, Newsmax.com, the American Entrepreneur, and CSPAN. As a state lobbyist who has advocated across 25 states over the last 20 years, his unique experience led his firm, Pelopidas, LLC to find a way to share how working wealth was moving nationwide.

Tackling tough issues that often miss their moment is a source of pride in Brown's issue-based work. Civic leaders such as the late Lamar Hunt, then the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs Football Club, hired his firm to pursue funding solutions for restoring Arrowhead Stadium. Medical doctors across the fields of anesthesia, cardiology, and orthopedic medicine have worked with his team to improve patient safety and tort reform laws. Over the last several years, Brown has applied his attention to increasing tax policy awareness through the passage of several statewide ballot initiatives related to earnings taxes and city governance. Brown now serves as president of Let Voters Decide, a coalition that supports state tax reform and the protection of voters' rights at the ballot box.

Brown's career advising governors, chief executives, legislatures, mayors, and venture philanthropists got started by lobbying for his alma mater, the University of Missouri-Columbia. His undergraduate degrees were in agricultural economics and political science from Mizzou, with an MBA from Washington University in Saint Louis. His corporate work in sales, marketing, and government affairs has included such companies or clients as the American Home Products Corporation, the Monsanto Company, the Oracle Corporation, the American Petroleum Institute, and Procter & Gamble.

By bush flying America to spread the results about where our growth is going, Brown hopes to inspire new small business champions, non-profit charities, and community leaders to prepare their regions for our highly-mobile age. Brown remains a serial small business owner at heart with his wife and co-owner Rachel, but applies his passions for flying, bird hunting, sports, and wine collecting every chance that he gets.

Click here for event registration form.

Book only:

If you can't make the event but would love a signed copy of the book, click here.

I recently dove into the hunger controversy (more on that here). There was a lot of back and forth about the relative seriousness of the hunger situation and whether government programs meant to address the problem are effective.

One research item from the Cato Institute argues that the SNAP (food stamp) expansion seen in recent years has done little to reduce hunger.

According to the report:

Even setting aside the growing cost and doubtful effectiveness, SNAP is an inefficient, fraud-ridden, and deeply troubled program.

For example, SNAP’s administrative costs are considerably higher than those of most other social welfare programs. In 2013, the program’s total administrative expenses at both the federal and state level are expected to top $7 billion, more than 9 percent of program costs. The federal share of administrative expenses alone is more than $4.5 billion, and that is expected to increase to almost $6 billion by 2023.

So, perhaps hunger is a serious problem in our state, but SNAP doesn’t seem to be a very efficient way to mitigate the problem. I remain convinced of the merits of the old “you give a man a fish…vs. teaching a man to fish.” We need to boost New Mexico’s economy and alleviate poverty, thus reducing hunger.

After all, government programs are not a long-term solution to poverty as they can only cure the immediate lack of food, but not the long-term issues.

Ezra Klein, a writer and blogger at the Washington Post is a liberal guy and a supporter of the ObamaCare health law, but he’s independent-minded enough to state the truth, even when it hurts. That is why this piece from Klein detailing the myriad and deep difficulties with the law is so important. Of course, as an opponent of the law, my belief is that the law’s flaws boil down to basic economics, but Klein’s analysis details the very real issues facing the Obama Administration’s failure to successfully implement the systems upon which ObamaCare depends.

Klein’s final line sums up the situation nicely, “Obamacare isn’t a political abstraction any longer. Its success doesn’t depend on spin or solidarity. What matters for the law — and for the people who are depending on it — is how well it actually works. So far, it’s not working well at all. If and when that changes, our coverage of the health-care law will change, too.”

HT: Michael Cannon

The following chart appeared in the Albuquerque Journal on Monday. It largely tracks with what we already know: Our state is incredibly reliant on the oil and gas (and to an extent other extractive) industries. Second, that government plays a major role in our economy, and that we are not much of a manufacturing or “headquarters” state.

I managed to track down the source of the report here. It’s an interesting read. Noteworthy is the fact that the numbers in the chart above represent national averages and that due to the smaller overall size of the energy and mining sector in most states, New Mexico’s mining/logging sector is much larger than the national average. Conversely, despite government being a far greater percentage of the economy in each state, our government sector is an astonishing 46% greater in terms of employment than the national average.

You really can make data say anything if you torture your assumptions enough. A liberal think tank has come up with a new study claiming that fast food companies are costing taxpayers more than billions of dollars annually.

How can businesses that employs hundreds of thousands of Americans annually actually harm the economy? That’s easy, just assume that every American already has a “living wage” and then subtract any shortfalls created by fast food workers’ low incomes. After all, if these workers require ANY government assistance at all, this is inherently the responsibility of their employer, right?

Reminds me of the old joke about economists: A physicist, a chemist and an economist are stranded on an island, with nothing to eat. A can of soup washes ashore. The physicist says, “Lets smash the can open with a rock.” The chemist says, “Let’s build a fire and heat the can first.” The economist says, “Lets assume that we have a can-opener…”

Sorry folks, but the default status of humanity in this world is not a living wage. It is poverty. And, to the extent that a minimum wage job raises someone above abject poverty, it is a good, not a bad thing (not to mention the experience you gain). For example, I worked at a Wendy’s back in the day. This was useful in my professional growth.

Also, unlike government programs that are supposedly meant to ameliorate poverty, fast food companies deliver desired products that create value. Government just taxes other productive areas of the economy including the fast food industry. Then they transfer that money to other programs which may or may not have their desired result.

Of course, if fast food chains took the economically-ignorant advice of increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour, more Americans would be unemployed because the industry would automate even more of its stores. I’m not sure how that would be good for workers. Lastly, if you do want to earn $15 an hour in fast food, check out North Dakota. Closer to home, I hear Midland, TX with an unemployment rate hovering near the lowest in the nation is also paying high wages to fast food workers.

To the extent that college graduates and other skilled workers are getting stuck in fast-food jobs, we need to look at national and state economic policies that are killing good-paying jobs…ObamaCare, lack of Keystone XL approval, just to name two…

Author and historian Amity Shlaes spoke recently in Albuquerque (and Tularosa) about our nation’s 30th president, Calvin Coolidge and her biography of him. Video of Shlaes’ talk is available below:

Author and Historian Amity Shlaes Discusses Calvin Coolidge in Albuquerque from Paul Gessing on Vimeo.

Also, if you are interested in purchasing an autographed copy of Shlaes’ book on Coolidge, they can be purchased online here for the cover price of $35 which includes shipping or by phone at: 505-264-6090.

For additional coverage of the event, check out Rob Nikolewski’s story and interview with Amity Shlaes.

I don’t know if Sen. Tom Udall is expecting a tough race from Republican Senate candidate David Clements or if he expects someone with deeper pockets to enter the race, but he seems to be covering his bases as the 2014 campaign approaches. The latest indicator that Udall is serious about getting re-elected by appealing to New Mexicans’ common-sense is this front-page story from the Farmington Daily-Times on Udall’s efforts to push for increased exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

As noted in the article, the Rio Grande Foundation did a report explaining the potential benefits to New Mexico’s economy of exporting LNG. Udall’s position in support of LNG exports is not a new one, much to the dismay of radical environmentalists like the Sierra Club who would like Americans to get “beyond natural gas.”

Glad to see bi-partisan support among New Mexico’s Congressional delegation for this common-sense policy, despite pressure from the hard-line “environmentalists.” It would be nice if the Obama Administration was more active in its support of LNG exports.

With all of the debate going on about testing and teacher evaluations, we feel that it is important to remind New Mexico’s education leaders of the importance of broad-based school choice and the importance of enhanced educational options for students. Here is a recent interview Paul Gessing did on the issue of education reform:

9-10-13 School Choice-digital learning from Paul Gessing on Vimeo.

Rob Nikolewski over at Capitol Report New Mexico had an interesting article this week about various ideas for weening New Mexico’s economy off of the federal teat. I offered some ideas as did Fred Nathan of Think New Mexico (I critiqued their proposals here).

Certainly, the Chamber is correct in noting that improving our educational system is an important part of turning around our economy as well, but my hunch is that getting economic reforms like pro-growth tax reform and a right to work law would do more for the economy right away.

And, as Rob noted, our friends at Voices for Children are proposing even more reliance on Washington. That is one reason liberals get so exercised about anything that threatens their precious government programs.

I find the mental gymnastics of left-liberals to be amusing and confusing sometimes. By now, we all know that Mayor Berry, a conservative, won re-election with 68% of the vote, thus overcoming efforts by the government employee unions both during the campaign and prior to the campaign when the election law was changed to force a runoff unless candidates received 50% or more of the vote.

The gymnastics come into play in this Albuquerque Journal article in which mayoral challenger Pete Dinelli and successful city council candidate Ike Benton complain about the public financing system. Said Dinelli, “I think public financing has pretty well proven to be totally ineffective.”

The article also included quotes from Timothy Krebs, a University of New Mexico professor who studies urban politics, said $362,000 probably isn’t enough for a mayoral campaign in Albuquerque. “What’s required is a sufficient amount of money to mount a credible challenge,” Krebs said.

So, what’s the problem here? Sour grapes because a conservative won the Mayor’s race? Are we looking at even more generous taxpayer-financed contributions to candidates if the liberals get their way? We always hear from the left about the harms of money in politics and Benton even personally attacked a private citizen who contributed money to defeat him.

I don’t know if Albuquerque’s public financing system will stay, go, or be reformed, but the whole debate over campaign financing seems to be more about politics than election fairness.

We’ve been writing a lot about the issue of transferring some federal lands to state control. After all, nothing leads to the realization that Washington can’t manage its assets like….well, Washington being unable to manage its assets.

Check out this excellent article from Dan Mitchell over at the Cato Institute. Also, there is an excellent video from PERC detailing how the private sector could manage many federal lands, including national parks, more effectively than Washington:

Momentum is building! Let Gov. Martinez know that you want her to put the Transfer of Public Lands Act on the agenda for the 2014 legislative session!

(Albuquerque) For all of the problems facing our elected officials in Congress particularly and Washington, DC, in general, a new Rio Grande Foundation paper details how the underpinnings of our republic are being undermined by the never-ending growth of the federal bureaucracy.

In the new brief, “No Legislation without Representation,” the authors detail how Congress has abdicated its responsibilities to legislate and has instead given the tacit go-ahead to bureaucracies to enact the equivalent of legislation with minimal discussion or input on the issues from elected officials or the voting public.

As the authors note, the ObamaCare health care law may be the “poster child” for this trend, but the trend goes back to at least the New Deal policies of the Roosevelt Administration.

While some may be sanguine about the trend toward ever-greater adoption of extra-democratic regulations, there are real economic impacts inherent in allowing a nearly unlimited number of bureaucrats “legislate” out of sight rather than demanding that 535 elected officials do so in public on national cable television.

The authors note that, “In 1949 there were 19,335 pages of regulations. In 2011 there were 169,301 small-typed pages, an increase by a factor of eight over a period of 62 years.” The financial impact of these regulations is reflected in a GDP that analyses suggest could be as high as $54 trillion instead of the $16 trillion we have today. As an example, the regulations created to support ObamaCare have had a direct effect on employment. The results of a survey on ObamaCare shows 41% of surveyed businesses froze hiring because of the health care law,

19% said they have reduced employees, and 38% said they have reduced growth plans.

Perhaps worse than the economic impact is the negative impact this change has had upon openness in government. Even the most interested of American citizens, it is impossible to know what is going on with their government.

As James Madison noted in Federalist No. 62, “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be to-morrow.”

Americans are limited in their tools for addressing the problem of nameless, faceless bureaucrats legislating from various agencies, but understanding that there is a problem is a first step to getting a grasp on the problem.

With so much of the attention related to the government shutdown focused on America’s National Parks, it is a welcome development that Washington is allowing states to pay to keep the parks within their boundaries open. Some states are taking the offer while others, including New Mexico, are not.

As I wrote recently, the message is clear: when Washington fails, the states can and often will step up to solve the problem. It was the intent of America’s Founding Fathers that states manage a vast majority of resources and economic policies that are not managed by individuals and their businesses. Check out the 9th and 10th amendments.

Of course, RGF is going to continue to support federalism in general and state control of federally-controlled lands and we recognize that this will be a long-term struggle. However, allowing the states to financially support the National Parks within their borders is a tacit admission by Washington that states are better, more responsible stewards of these resources.

The Las Cruces Sun-News has an article today about that city’s $26 million convention center. During the past year, the center hosted only six conventions and instead became taxpayer-financed competition for local businesses. Of course, the City’s leaders should have known better. Both Rio Grande Foundation and the national center-left Brookings Institute — to name just two organizations — have explained the many reasons not to pour taxpayer dollars into such facilities.

Which reminds me that upon his election as Mayor of Albuquerque, RJ Berry faced a decision as to whether or not to build a new taxpayer-financed convention and events center downtown. We all know now that he decided not to do this and instead has worked to rehabilitate the existing convention center. He also just got re-elected with 68% of the vote.

Avoiding dumb decisions is “the dog that doesn’t bark” in elections. Mayor Berry became a popular mayor in part by not wasting taxpayer dollars on expensive convention and events centers. Too bad the folks in Las Cruces weren’t more careful.

Have you ever been part of a group that cared more about numbers than membership actually meaning anything? I think the Fiscal Leadership Council may have fallen into that trap with the addition of former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to its membership.

According to the group, it is a “bipartisan group of 41 former governors – 20 Republicans and 21 Democrats – from across the country united in the belief that our mounting national debt must be addressed to preserve America’s long-term fiscal health and prosperity.” Certainly, the debt and deficits are serious issues worthy of serious leadership, but Richardson’s track record as Gov. of New Mexico is hardly that of a fiscal conservative (I do wonder about the other 40 members of the group as well, but Richardson is the only one on the list from New Mexico).

As I noted in a 2007 National Review article, Richardson grew New Mexico spending by 11 percent in one year and by an average of 7 percent during his term in office. That’s hardly fiscally-conservative in a way that expresses concern about deficits or debt. Worse is Richardson’s deal to build and fund the Rail Runner. This commuter train was built with two hidden balloon payments of $230 million that come due in 2025 and 2027.

In other words, Richardson’s train deal allowed current voters to experience a tangible benefit that is to be paid for by future taxpayers. Thus, the Rail Runner deal resembles the fiscal design of Social Security and Medicare insofar as the program is “popular” with current recipients while their children and grandchildren who are either ignorant or cannot vote yet will have to bear the burden.

Perhaps Richardson has mended his ways and is now serious about not piling debt onto future generations. I certainly hope so. The situation is too serious to be otherwise.

New Mexico is sitting on an untapped gold mine. Well, not quite a gold mine (although we do have some), but in terms of natural resources, the oil and gas located on New Mexico’s federally-owned lands is about the same.

New Mexico is among the top oil and natural gas producing states in the nation. These industries are the foundation upon which New Mexico’s economy and budgets are built. However, we’re like a car that is only firing on four of six possible pistons. That’s because so much of our lands are owned by the federal government and thus, underutilized.

A whopping forty-one percent of New Mexico is controlled by Washington. Some of these lands are completely off-limits to economic activity as they are owned and managed by Native tribes and the DoD, but more than 20 million acres currently managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service, National Forest Service, and Bureau of Land Management, could be considered for oil and gas exploration.

At a time when New Mexico’s economy is struggling, the positive economic impact of accessing these resources would be tremendous. A new report from Dr. Timothy Considine, professor of energy economics at the University of Wyoming, the results of which were released by the Rio Grande Foundation, found that New Mexico could see an increase of 68,000 new jobs, more than $1 billion in new tax dollars, and $8.4 billion in additional economic growth if energy production was allowed on these lands.

To say that these numbers represent an economic game-changer for New Mexico is an understatement. We could go from struggling economic laggard to having plentiful jobs and economic-prosperity.

Look at North Dakota. That state’s economy grew by an incredible 13.4 percent in 2012 while the nation as a whole grew by only 2.5 percent and New Mexico grew by a paltry 0.2 percent. The unemployment rate in North Dakota is just 3 percent, lowest in the nation. This is the result of technological advances that have unleashed an energy boom in North Dakota. But having the land under state and private control has made a big difference. Only 2.7 percent of North Dakota is controlled by Washington as compared to New Mexico’s 41 percent.

Proposals to shift New Mexico’s federally-controlled lands to the state will undoubtedly set off alarm bells among the environmental community, but they shouldn’t. After all, in terms of environmental problems on New Mexico’s federal lands, the recent epic forest fires are among the most significant. They are being caused by federal mismanagement.

According to the US Government’s own Watchdog, the GAO, “The most extensive and serious problem related to health of national forests in the interior West is the over-accumulation of vegetation, which has caused an increasing number of large, intense, uncontrollable and catastrophically destructive wildfires.”

Under a regime where the state controlled these lands as has been proposed in the Legislature, a portion of the $1 billion in new tax money collected could be used to manage New Mexico’s federal lands in a way that prevents forest fires, allows for multi-purpose uses, and restores the lands to pristine conditions in the wake of any energy or other uses.

Unfortunately, Washington lacks the focus to invest these resources and has mismanaged New Mexico’s lands to the point that each June massive new forest fires are expected.

There is no doubt that the current Administration in Washington will oppose any shift of federally-controlled lands to state control. But as New Mexicans, as we saw with the bi-partisan effort to restore the withheld $26 million in royalty payments, we can move mountains when we unite.

Environmentalists, outdoors enthusiasts, frustrated job-seekers, traditional users, and political leaders looking to goose the economy should come together to support efforts to restore poorly-managed federal lands to state control.

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

Hunger. What does it mean to be “hungry?” New Mexico’s HSD Secretary Sidonie Squier recently made some comments indicating that hunger is not a serious problem in New Mexico. Not surprisingly, liberal Albuquerque Journal columnist, Leslie Linthicum took Squier to task in this morning’s paper for her comments.

But, before we unpack the issue of “hunger,” it is important to define our terms. I was hungry before lunch today, but that’s clearly not what we are talking about. Linthicum relies on some national interest group measures of “food insecurity” and a group called New Mexico Appleseed that lobbies for increased government spending on anti-hunger programs. Of course, they are going to promote the concept that hunger is indeed a serious problem lest their funding dry up.

But let’s get beyond the fuzzy concept of hunger and look at some hard data:

According to the chart below, only 1.5% of poor families often had inadequate food to eat over the past four months. That’s a far cry from the 20% of New Mexicans deemed “food insecure.”

And, despite attempts to portray a massive gulf between rich and poor, when it comes to actual nutrition, on average the groups are quite comparable:

And, of course, we all know that obesity, not malnutrition, is the main nutrition-related problem among the poor:

<a href="http://www.heritage.org/~/media/Images/Reports/2007/bg2064/bg2064chart3.ashx?w=500&h=639&as=1"

Lastly, while hunger is tough to measure and temporary, stunted growth due to malnutrition is easy to measure and exceedingly rare in the US.

So, did Squier step in it? Anytime you make a blanket statement and say that hunger is not a problem in a state of 2 million people, you are bound to open yourself to criticism. But, with large numbers of anti-hunger programs now in place and little evidence of Americans who go without food for a significant amount of time to the point of impacting their long-term health, it would seem that Squier is closer to the truth than her liberal critics would like to believe.

As mentioned in yesterday’s post on a recent policy proposal from Voices for Children, today’s blog focuses on a proposal from Think New Mexico. As mentioned, they would qualify as “centrist” and we’ve agreed and disagreed with them over the years. Most recently, we worked closely with them (successfully) on legislation reforming motor carrier laws.

Their latest proposal is really four separate proposals that they are calling their “Job Creation Initiative.” One of their proposal is a “no-brainer,” something that we should already be doing. That is a one-stop business portal for all fees and filings. This is a nice start. Of course, RGF has already outlined some of the dozens of regulations that need to be eliminated or changed. Simplifying the attainment of those often wasteful and unnecessary government permission slips for work would be a start.

A second proposal would establish a post-performance incentive that offers businesses a rebate of up to 30% of the new tax revenue they produce when they relocate to or expand operations in New Mexico—but only after new jobs and new state revenues have been created. This one sounds great in principle and performance measures have been discussed before. The devil is certainly in the details and we wonder if the 30% rebate would last for one year or be permanent and how that would work, but it is a proposal worth discussing.

A third proposal involves seven special interest tax loopholes that the organization would like to close. The problem here is that one man’s “loophole” is another man’s tax increase. We believe that tax reform should be comprehensive and that this makes both the politics and the policy better. While closing “tax loopholes” always sounds nice, those industries got those loopholes through concentrated lobbying efforts. It would seem likely that more often than not, they will be effective in retaining those incentives unless they are part of a broad-based reform effort…think Reagan’s 1986 reforms which have been completely gutted by subsequent lobbyists and subsequent congresses.

The fourth and most interesting proposal involves incentivizing educated immigrants to come to the US through tuition scholarships. This one may be worth it’s own separate future blog posting, but there are a lot of moving parts. It is important to recognize that this idea represents an “end run” around New Mexico’s poor K-12 education system and business-unfriendly policies. By bringing educated, ambitious people here, the hope is that some fraction of them will stay put and build businesses in our state. One can hope.

There are two major problems:

1) The US immigration system does not cooperate with this model. Perhaps if we were in Canada where high-skilled immigrants are valued, eh?

2) Once these people get here and they have their educations, what is to stop them from starting their businesses in other states? After all, they can move across state lines just like any other American and there are plenty of more attractive places to start a business these days than New Mexico;

Is the immigration idea worth a shot? Perhaps. I think you’ll find a lot of people angry that someone who doesn’t pay and never has paid taxes to New Mexico is getting the benefits of a lower-cost education, but these ideas are all worthy of discussing even if I don’t think any or all of them will dramatically change our economy for the better. We need to make the tough free-market reforms like adopting Right to Work and reforming our tax code to emphasize growth.

Despite a an aggressive campaign on the part of the fire fighters union, Mayor RJ Berry won re-election as Mayor of Albuquerque with a record 68% of the vote, thus avoiding a runoff. Republicans lost one seat on Council and face a tough challenge getting Janice Arnold-Jones over the finish line in a runoff election. You can count on that being a boisterous election as Democrats simply need to retain all of the votes while Arnold-Jones needs to either boost Republican turnout or draw in more Democrats or Independents in the runoff. Since this will be for control of Council, it promises to be an interesting month.

Certainly, Berry’s success proves that common sense, center-right policies delivered in a low-key style are popular among Albuquerque voters. And, while labor unions may be very organized and have more signs, they can’t sway an election all by themselves. This is good news. The bad news is that he didn’t have very long coattails and may wind up losing City Council, thus making it tough to move a reform agenda. Also, the runoff system raises the bar facing conservatives for the future.

If Berry sticks to his pledge to only serve for 8 years, he won’t have to run for re-election. Given the fact that the unions have and will fight him every step of the way, it would seem to be a good time to continue and expand upon those public labor reforms.

The Rio Grande Foundation works with/against various other policy organizations around New Mexico. Voices for Children is one such organization that, while it is avowedly left-liberal and we are avowedly free market conservative, we occasionally work with but usually work against them. We have agreed with them in the past that eliminating New Mexico’s tax on groceries and raising the broader GRT was a bad idea. We’ve also noted their opposition to film subsidies.

Recently, Voices produced a very good report, Kids Count, which detailed some of the issues facing New Mexico’s children. While the report focused on problems facing our kids, it was somewhat light on recommendations for solving the problem. That is what we see in this new report, Kids are Counting on Us, from Voices.

I can’t call it a serious policy proposal. Rather it is a left-wing fantasy laundry list that would result in a dramatic increase in taxes and spending. I counted 51 separate policy proposals in the report, only one of which involves reducing harmful government regulations or eliminating a government program (treatment instead of incarceration for drug users).

As I wrote in an op-ed immediately after their “Kids Count” report was published, New Mexico’s problems are the direct result of poverty. Addressing them piecemeal with targeted government programs is not the solution. Rather, we need to bring economic growth to our state. Tax reform that emphasizes growth, education reform that creates choice (a glaring omission from the most recent Voices report), and regulatory reforms that increase individual freedom are all necessary components of reforms that would spur New Mexico’s economy. Getting some of our federal lands back from Washington would be great as well.

Clearly, when it comes to New Mexico public policies, Voices adheres to a far-left, government-driven agenda that has failed to bring New Mexicans economic prosperity.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at a new report from the more centrist Think New Mexico.

Throughout the spring and summer, United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has travelled the country to build support for President Obama’s “Preschool for All” program. He has made stops in Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota, Wyoming, and several other states. Recently, he began his weeklong “Strong Start, Bright Future” bus tour of the Southwest. To kick off the tour, Duncan spoke at United Way of Santa Fe County Early Learning Center and at Emerson Elementary School in Albuquerque.

Secretary Duncan spoke mainly about President Obama’s early education program, which was introduced this past spring as part of the President’s fiscal year 2014 budget proposal. The program is designed to expand preschool access and would be funded with a mix of state and federal dollars. Over the first ten years of the program, the federal government has committed to spend $75 billion dollars, which would be raised by increasing the federal excise tax on cigarettes by 93 percent as well as increasing the tax rates on other tobacco products. The states that choose to participate in the program cover about ten percent of its cost in year one but their funding obligations increase steadily each year—rising to 50 percent in year five and a whopping 75 percent in year ten. So if our state participates in the program, New Mexico’s taxpayers will be responsible for funding the greater share of the program in the long-term.

Improving our nation’s education system, particularly for our youngest students is crucial to improving graduation rates and preparing our children to enter high school, college, and the workforce, however the results of pre-K programs already enacted in various states is decidedly mixed. More than a decade after offering students universal preschool, neither Georgia nor Oklahoma which have two of the longest-running pre-k programs has shown impressive gains in students’ academic achievement, as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Even if pre-k were a slam dunk in terms of student success, the program’s funding mechanism is incredibly problematic. Over time, the Obama proposal increases the financial burden on the New Mexico taxpayers in ways that make this expansion unaffordable.

Tobacco taxes, particularly cigarette taxes, have proven to be very unreliable sources of revenue. The non-partisan Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, calls the decision to fund the program with cigarette taxes “a recipe for increasingly large deficits” because the cigarette tax will not raise the necessary revenue after year ten.

The introduction of a new tobacco tax increase could affect non-smokers as well. According to the National Taxpayers Union, between 2001 and 2011, 70 percent of tobacco tax increases were followed by other tax hikes over the next two years. Cigarette tax increases have the effect of decreasing tax-paid sales because they encourage adult tobacco consumers to seek out the cheaper and oftentimes untaxed alternatives available online, in other states, or even on the black market. For example, in 2009, the federal government increased the per pack cigarette excise tax from $.39 to $1.01, and in the following year, tax-paid sales on cigarettes fell 8 percent nationwide. This precedent could prove to be problematic for the President’s initiative, as the federally financed portion of the early education program is entirely reliant on tobacco taxes.

In addition to potentially jeopardizing this program’s finances, the tax increase could have negative economic impacts on our state. It could hurt retailers, particularly convenience stores, who rely on the sale of tobacco products for nearly 40 percent of in-store sales and lead to increased smuggling. Furthermore, tobacco taxes are highly regressive, as they unfairly target adult tobacco consumers, most of whom earn incomes far below the state and national averages.

The low initial cost of entry into the new pre-k program is very tempting, but New Mexico taxpayers cannot afford to be left bearing the burden of an expensive new government program. If history repeats itself, as it likely could, these federal tobacco taxes may fall short of their revenue projections and New Mexico taxpayers could end up paying much more than expected. This is not fair to our children or the hardworking New Mexicans who will have to pick up the tab.

Ruben Pacheco is a Policy Analyst with 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

Even if he doesn’t actually “get it” when it comes to the Rio Grande Foundation, it’s ideas, or Gov. Martinez, it was nice of Pat Davis of the far-left Progress New Mexico to recognize our organization’s impact in a recent column he wrote for the Rio Rancho Observer. Not surprisingly, however, Davis needs to brush up on his facts.

Yes, RGF supports lower taxes including those on corporations. However, as I wrote immediately after the deal, the prospects for job growth from the legislation were unclear. Besides, after a five year phase-in (that’s 2018 folks), New Mexico’s corporate income tax rate will be 5.9%. That’s one-tenth of 1% lower than Oklahoma’s corporate income tax (assuming that they don’t cut theirs). Texas will remain at zero on both personal income and corporate income taxes and is a Right to Work state, so to say that we are doing anything to emulate Texas is ridiculous.

Also, Davis fails to understand that in a free market (as opposed to government), Intel must constantly innovate to remain competitive. They are struggling to adapt to the switch to smartphones. Of course, if government were in charge, we’d still be using phones like this.

The fact is that Intel received some pretty massive subsidies from politicians who were in office long before Gov. Martinez (Davis and I may even agree that such largesse is a bad idea). But eliminating so-called “corporate welfare” makes it all the more important to have competitive policies. To say the least, Davis and the left-wingers who still control the Legislature and have run this state for most of its 100 years, have failed miserably in terms of competitive economic policy.