Check this story out from USA Today. While the competitive nature of sports and the large purses at stake make it unlikely that golfers will not give 100% in their professional efforts, athletes are not quite the same as businesses which may or may not decide to invest in certain areas based on heavy tax burdens.

New Mexico’s corporate taxes will go down from 7.2 to 5.9% in five years and our income tax rate has fallen from 8.2 to 4.9 in recent years, but the rates on both are still zero in Texas. This is one reason why Phil should probably re-consider his California residency and why many businesses have already done so.

In Sunday’s Albuquerque Journal, Winthrop Quigley wrote a reasonably positive piece about health savings accounts. As Quigley notes:

HSAs allow you to accumulate funds while avoiding or deferring some taxes. They are used in conjunction with high-deductible health-insurance policies, which come with lower premiums than other types of health insurance.

And, while I have an HSA and wouldn’t call them particularly complicated — they are indeed a bit more complex to set up, but are simpler in terms of allowing consumers to actually understand their health care expenses — health savings accounts are one of the very best things to happen to US health care in recent years. That’s because unlike traditional health policies and government programs, they put individuals in charge of their health care spending and give them very real financial incentives to control health care costs.

In fact, such plans are “bending the health care cost-curve,” which is supposedly the point of ObamaCare:

Companies with at least half of their workers enrolled in an account-based health plan report that their per-employee costs are over $1,000 lower than companies without an account-based health plan, according to Towers Watson and the National Business Group on Health.

Similarly, Aetna reported late last year that employers who switched to account-based health plans as their only plan option had saved $21.8 million per 10,000 members over the past five years. Earlier this year, Cigna published a study concluding that employers can save an average of $9,700 per employee over five years by switching to account-based health plans. This is hard evidence for “bending the cost curve” that is so elusive for the rest of our nation’s health care system.

This potential for reducing health care spending was recently confirmed when researchers at the RAND Corporation concluded that if enrollment in account-based health plans grows to represent half of all employer-sponsored insurance, U.S. health care spending could drop by $57 billion annually. If all of these people enroll in HSA plans, the annual savings would be as high as $73.6 billion.

Health savings accounts not only work for individuals who use them, but they work for the employers who provide them and for the nation as a whole which could see major costs savings in terms of health care if they are implemented in Medicaid and Medicare for example. The only problem is that as ObamaCare (inadvertently) pushes people to adopt consumer-driven plans, health care expenses will decline with Obama taking credit for the result due to ObamaCare which is the polar opposite of HSAs.

The Albquerque Journal at the behest of my favorite columnist Wintrop Quigley engaged in a bit of collectivist self-flagellation in today’s paper. Not surprisingly, given the question, the answers were all over the place. Some focused on educational attainment while others focused on the three cultures (Native, Hispano, and Anglo) that predominate. I just don’t see the point. How is it possible to gather 2 million people under any particular banner?

After all, if you are Black or Asian, are you not a New Mexican? New Mexico has among the highest dropout rates, but also the highest percentage of PHD’s. We have an inordinately large number of government workers as well. But do any of these things make one New Mexican or preclude one from being so? We do have great natural beauty in our state, but if you are not outdoorsy, are you not a New Mexican?

Anyway, coming up with any specific traits for 2 million people is pretty futile, but here’s what I’d like to see: “New Mexico is a state that uniquely embraces freedom, both economic and personal. Regardless of your ethnicity or background, whether you are a traditionalist or an innovator, New Mexico is a place where you can fulfill your personal vision as long as you don’t hinder others from achieving their goals at the same time. And, while New Mexicans care deeply for one another, they rely on the charitable impulse of their neighbors rather than the threat of force to care for each other.”

One can dream, right?

Lots of depressing news comes out about New Mexico’s economy and educational systems. We’ve certainly publicized the bad data ourselves. But we don’t do this to perform penance or because we love wallowing in despair, we do it because we want New Mexico to do better and we believe that policy reforms will create positive results. And, while we will wait for national data confirming the success of our A-F grading system’s positive results at the high school level, we do believe that properly-targeted reforms will work.

Unfortunately, according to a poll (albeit unscientific) conducted by Albuquerque Business First, 47 percent believe that “NM simply cannot make meaningful improvements to its economic standing.” Being 50th is bad, but this is downright depressing.

Needless to say, I’ve dedicated my life to proving that 47 percent wrong. I believe that the right combination of policies and incentives will inevitably work to improve New Mexico’s economic and education situations and I’ve dedicated my life’s work to that proposition. I just don’t think New Mexico’s adopted sound free market policies for much of its 100 years as a state and that gives the impression that reform can’t happen. All I can say is that I’m not going anywhere and I’m not going to stop working to prove the fatalists wrong.

Great, New Mexico taxpayers are now on the hook for another $21 million for the spaceport. The money is supposedly needed to build two visitor centers for the facility. This is on top of the $209 million the taxpayers put up to pay for the project in the first place.

RGF has been a long-time opponent of taxpayer support for the Spaceport, but we did support efforts to create liability protections for the Spaceport during the 2012 and then 2013 sessions (the protections were adopted in the 2013 session).

While we stand by both views on their merits and I still hope the taxpayers are able to see some benefit from this facility, I wonder: absent the liability protections, would Virgin Galactic just have picked up and left us alone? Would we have to fork over another $21 million (not to mention maintenance on the entire project and other potential projects like the extended runway).

In other words, should we have just helped the trial lawyers kill the project entirely when we had the chance? Comments welcome.

We have to admit that between Aragon’s comments in the article “There is no absolute assurance that taxpayers won’t at some future point be obligated to these facilities that are being financed” and the fact that the Spaceport Authority had to go to the Board of Finance, that we assumed that taxpayers could legitimately be on the hook for all or part of the $21 million. Then I received a call from Aaron Prescott with the Spaceport Authority which puts my mind at ease to a large extent:

This $20.8M loan is entirely privately sourced, with no burden on the taxpayer. It has been sought as a way to bring private money into the project for the first time, and to take advantage of historically low interest rates. We are answering Gov. Martinez’s call for private investment and public private partnership.

NMSA’s underlying statute, the Spaceport Development Act (NMSA 1978 §58-31-1 et seq.), permits NMSA to seek private loans on the condition that 1) it cannot pledge the full faith and credit of New Mexico or create a general obligation of the state, and 2) the financing package receives approval by the State Board of Finance. Our banks are fully aware of the lack of a taxpayer backstop (it will be in the loan documents), and the Board signaled its approval yesterday.

Today’s ABQ Journal coverage of the loan had an accurate quote from SBOF member Robert Aragon, but it was in the context that just because it is state law that the taxpayers won’t be obligated by our loan, doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen.

His comments notwithstanding, NMSA fully intends to obey its own enabling legislation. The only collateral in this loan is the project being financed, i.e. buildings and land.

How much do New Mexico’s Democratic House members LOVE the unpopular law known as ObamaCare? So much that they have voted to impose the individual mandate as planned even while the Obama Administration has delayed implementation of the employer mandate for one year. In other words, you the average person should not receive the same benefit as big businesses with more than 50 employees who simply can’t be expected to comply with the health care mandate.

Needless to say, this is not a position supported by large numbers of Americans. In fact, the position advocated by Lujan and Lujan-Grisham has a “robust” 12 percent support according to new polling.

Interesting that New Mexico’s Congressional Democrats —self-appointed advocates for the little-guy — are so willing to throw the average person under the bus while supporting big business, no? It would be nice if these two — along with the rest of our delegation — supported a year-long delay in the law our outright repeal of this law which is no longer even popular with the union base of the Democratic Party which supported passage of the law in the first place.

I’ve written and blogged about the ongoing discussion of federal lands management in New Mexico and what we might do about the situation.

Then I came across an interesting news story about the federal government’s inability to manage trails in national forests. The story is based on a June 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that found:

The Forest Service has more miles of trail than it has been able to maintain, resulting in a persistent maintenance backlog with a range of negative effects. In fiscal year 2012, the agency reported that it accomplished at least some maintenance on about 37 percent of its 158,000 trail miles and that about one quarter of its trail miles met the agency’s standards. The Forest Service estimated the value of its trail maintenance backlog to be $314 million in fiscal year 2012, with an additional $210 million for annual maintenance, capital improvement, and operations. Trails not maintained to quality standards have a range of negative effects, such as inhibiting trail use and harming natural resources, and deferring maintenance can add to maintenance costs.

Any chance the government as currently organized will solve the problem? I doubt it. In my search for the June 2013 report I ran across this 1989 report from GAO on the very same topic. Said the GAO at the time:

(1) the Forest Service had a trail maintenance and reconstruction backlog of about $195 million, involving about 59,000 miles of trails; (2) 11 of the 121 forest units accounted for $91 million of the backlog costs; (3) funding fluctuations over the past decade resulted in a lack of Forest Service personnel and a declining pool of contractors and volunteers to keep the trails in good condition; (4) about 5,000 miles of trails were unusable because of deferred maintenance; (5) although the Forest Service annually reported the number of miles of trails maintained and constructed during the year, it neither routinely gathered data on maintenance and reconstruction needs or costs nor categorized needs by trail condition severity;

With the trail maintenance backlog growing (this is merely one indicator of the lack of management capacity), it would seem that Washington is institutionally incapable of maintaining its lands. Perhaps it is time to try a new approach?

It is great to see the opposition continue to build against ObamaCare. For an update on the latest health care-related news, come to this event on Saturday, July 27, at which I’ll be speaking along with RGF board member Dr. Deane Waldman. So much news, most of it bad for the law, continues to come out. The new letter from some of America’s largest private sector labor unions.

While the entire letter is worth a read, the following paragraphs encapsulate some of the major issues the unions (and millions of Americans) have with ObamaCare:

First, the law creates an incentive for employers to keep employees’ work hours below 30 hours a week. Numerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours to avoid this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly. The impact is two-fold: fewer hours means less pay while also losing our current health benefits.

Second, millions of Americans are covered by non-profit health insurance plans like the ones in which most of our members participate. These non-profit plans are governed jointly by unions and companies under the Taft-Hartley Act. Our health plans have been built over decades by working men and women. Under the ACA as interpreted by the Administration, our employees will treated differently and not be eligible for subsidies afforded other citizens. As such, many employees will be relegated to second-class status and shut out of the help the law offers to for-profit insurance plans.

And finally, even though non-profit plans like ours won’t receive the same subsidies as for-profit plans, they’ll be taxed to pay for those subsidies. Taken together, these restrictions will make non-profit plans like ours unsustainable, and will undermine the health-care market of viable alternatives to the big health insurance companies.

The letter concludes, “We continue to stand behind real health care reform, but the law as it stands will hurt millions of Americans including the members of our respective unions.”

There are a few points worth noting here:

1) Unions can’t be this gullible. They should have seen this coming and their desire to “play ball” with Obama on health care is directly harming millions of union members;

2) You won’t see government employee unions like AFSCME among the opponents of ObamaCare because they benefit directly from bigger government. Private sector unions have to balance their desire for a robust market economy with the desire to obtain maximum benefits for their workers. It’s why FDR opposed government labor unions;

3) Opponents of ObamaCare must not only work to overturn this highly-vulnerable law, but to work to promote market-based health care reforms.

WatchdogWire.com, a project of the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, mentors citizen journalists to hold their local and state officials accountable by reporting on public meetings, reports, etc.– the issues that the legacy media fails to cover.

They’re holding a writing contest through the end of July that asks citizens to judge the media.  Winner gets a cash prize of $300. There are 2 writing options:

Question 1: How has media changed since you were a child? Have the changes been for the better or worse?

Question 2: In the wake of recent scandals and national security violations, have the traditional media properly served our nation? How have they failed us, how have they served us, and what have you come to expect?

Check out the rest of the details here and please pass it on to anyone who you think might be interested!

Another opponent of New Mexico’s reasserting control over federally-managed land within its borders has spoken up, this time in the Las Cruces Sun-News. I previously responded to the charge that New Mexico couldn’t financially handle such commitments here, but this author makes another claim that I expect would be common among environmentalists and others who fear such a move: that the states will sell off their newly-acquired federal lands.

Aside from the fact that governments at all levels LOVE to acquire land and property, this might sound like a reasonable fear. One must also account for the large numbers of interest groups — including enviros and sportsmen — who would also completely freak out if any of their desired lands were sold off to private interests.

The reality is that sportsmen are steadily losing access to federal lands as bureaucrats and environmentalists work together to impose limits on their activities. States like New Mexico know that hunting and fishing pay a lot of money for those permits and will be more responsive to their concerns than will Washington.

We were blessed this week to have the heads of the state think tanks from Oklahoma and Michigan in town this week to discuss the concept of “Competitive Federalism” and Right to Work.

No Right to Work event is complete without protesters and a few union supporters were out to express their opposition to worker freedom. Check out the photos here, here, and here.

Michael Carnuccio of the Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs had the following thoughts about his visit to New Mexico as expressed in his weekly column.

And lastly, we have video of Carnuccio’s presentation on “Competitive Federalism:”

How Competitive Federalism Can Spur New Mexico’s Economy from Paul Gessing on Vimeo.

And, here is the panel discussion that took place with Lehman, Carnuccio, and Gessing explaining the issues surrounding Right to Work in the respective states.

7-11-13 Right to Work Panel from Paul Gessing on Vimeo.

The House, with only Republican support (including New Mexico Rep. Pearce), passed a terrible farm bill of which Heritage Foundation had this to say:

Virtually every pro-free market organization opposed this legislation which is both a policy and a political debacle including the R Street Project and Competitive Enterprise Institute.

In my opinion, agriculture subsidies are among the most economically-harmful dollars spent by the federal government because they are the “low-hanging-fruit” of deficit reduction. Now, we have Republicans giving Obama a golden chance to look like a fiscal conservative by opposing this legislation. Farmers in New Mexico and around the nation need to be taken off welfare just as the food stamp program needs to be dramatically reformed to root out significant fraud and waste.

Land ownership means power and if there is one thing that we know, government officials love to accumulate power. Let us count the ways:

Syndicated writer Paul Jacob notes in this article that legislation has been introduced in Congress HR 2617 to create a National Park at the site of the Apollo landing site. Never mind that the United States doesn’t own the moon or that it is uninhabited (and possibly uninhabitable), Washington needs to control a portion of the moon.

Of course, Washington owns plenty of land here at home. Here is a map showing the exact holdings and this map shows the percentage by state. President Obama recently increased federal control over lands in New Mexico with the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument designation while some advocates for increased federal land ownership intensity wish to completely surround Las Cruces with yet another national monument.

Lastly, there is Bernalillo County which already owns dozens of properties throughout the County and is the largest single property owner in downtown Albuquerque (including a building that houses a Verizon call center!). Now, the County has engaged in initial discussions to purchase the massive Alvarado Square building (formerly occupied by PNM).

The same rule should apply from the federal government on down: any new property acquisition must be offset by sale of land/property of similar value. Whether the issue is simple mismanagement or the fact that government lands are not taxed and therefore get taken off the tax rolls (thus burdening the rest of us with higher taxes), governments at all levels own more than enough land/property.

<p align="center"
Join the Rio Grande Foundation in
Celebrating "Milton Friedman Day"

The late economist Milton Friedman was one of history's greatest opponents of occupational licensure. In his writings and repeatedly in interviews, Friedman made the case for worker freedom and against the cartelization of various professions.

No other organization in American has done more to preserve and advance Friedman's vision of a free market in human labor than has the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm. The organization published a detailed report on licensing laws in the 50 states "License to Work" which details licensing laws in the various states. According to the 2012 report, New Mexico has the 12th most burdensome licensing laws and is the 9th most extensively and onerously licensed state.

Unnecessary licensing laws place obstacles in front of entrepreneurs, thus making their lives more difficult, but also reducing voluntary economic activity and making us all poorer.

As part of global celebrations of Dr. Friedman's legacy and in celebration of his birthday on July 31, the Rio Grande Foundation is hosting a luncheon with Tim Keller, Executive Director of the Arizona Chapter of the Institute for Justice.

The luncheon will be held from noon to 1:00PM on Wednesday, July 31 at the Marriott Pyramid at Paseo del Norte and I-25. Cost is $25 if you register by Wednesday, July 24. Cost is $35 if you register after the 24th.

Click here to register online or send us a check with a note including the names of attendees at: PO Box 40336, Albuquerque, NM 87196. If you have questions, call us at 505-264-6090.

Tim successfully defended Mesa brake shop owner Randy Bailey, when the City sought to take his property through eminent domain so it could hand the property over to the owner of an Ace hardware store.

Among Tim's victories was his work on behalf of Christian Alf, a teenager from Tempe, Ariz., who sought to help senior citizens rat-proof their home by bending wire mesh around any openings. Until Tim stepped in on Alf's behalf, an Arizona state agency had demanded the young entrepreneur secure an exterminator's license.

Tim's legal strategy, like that of the Institute for Justice, is to fight for people's liberties not only in the court of law, but also through legislation and the media.

According to recent news reports, taxpayers continue to pour money into Ladera Golf Course. Full disclosure, I am a golfer and as a West Side resident, have played Ladera many times.

However, it is hard to argue that golf is a core function of government and that millions of dollars should be paid by taxpayers for something that can and is provided by private sector providers. Even Detroit has taken the step of privatizing the management of its golf courses to positive effect and it is just one of many cities to have done so.

So, let’s have an experiment. Leave the other golf courses alone, but let a private company come in and do what it can to salvage the situation at Ladera. Give them control over hiring and firing and pricing, but tell them “no more tax dollars” and see what happens. It can’t get any worse than it is now and it might just result in a turnaround. Nothing will happen if we don’t do something different.

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.