The mail-in election in Albuquerque is turning into a debacle with more than 10 percent of votes being thrown out due to lack of signatures. Democrats are saying “count every vote” and are naturally critical of City Clerk Amy Bailey.

Of course, we were critical of the process at the outset and recognize that voting entirely by mail is problematic and should probably be abandoned entirely.

Rather than just blindly counting every vote in what is clearly a problematic process, how about just tossing the entire election out and putting the issue on the ballot at a time when turnout might be more respectable and when voters can show up in person? Just a thought and throwing out the election seems to be no further beyond the bounds of city law than “counting every vote” in a way that clearly violates the law.

Albuquerque’s City Council has signed on with $1.5 million of taxpayer money in support of a “hub” economic development concept from Florida. On one hand, we totally understand and appreciate Mayor Berry’s efforts to do something to spur economic growth independent of the federal government in Albuquerque.

Unfortunately, we remain skeptical about the likelihood of an investment of $1.5 million of city tax money (or more as the project develops) having the kinds of impacts seen in Florida. Rather, we’d like to see New Mexico’s liberal legislators wake up and realize that Florida’s success is driven by:

1) Having no personal income tax;
2) Being a “Right to Work” state;
3) An improving education system in which reforms (instituted by leaders like Hanna Skandera with the support of legislators) have led to dramatic improvement in areas like 4th grade reading. Check Florida vs. New Mexico.

These are just a few of the biggest reasons why entrepreneurs and small businesses are likely to set up shop in Florida and not New Mexico. I don’t know if the $1.5 million that City Council allocated to this “hub” concept will be wasted or not, but chances for success would be much higher if New Mexico embraced the business-friendly policies found in Florida.

Thanks to the folks at New Mexico’s Human Services Department for the following information on how fewer and fewer workers are paying the bills for the state’s Medicaid and SCI programs. Of course, this problem will be exacerbated by the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion.

With just a few weeks left in the 2013 legislative session, the wheat is beginning to separate from the chaff among legislators in terms of pro-and anti-freedom votes in the New Mexico Legislature.

Click here to access the site.

The good news is that two bills (both of them positive in terms of freedom) have passed both houses at this point.
Under the “Index Summary” tab, you can see how many points, positive or negative, your legislator has earned so far this session;

Under the “Compare Parties” tab you can find out which of the two parties in Santa Fe are voting FOR freedom and which are voting AGAINST freedom;

The “Legislators” tab allows you to look at details of each legislator;

The “Legislator Record” allows users to see which bills are included in the analysis and whether they are pro or anti-freedom;

The “Rated Legislation” tab allows users to access analyses for each bill included in the report and better understand the ratings.

Unfortunately, not much in the way of needed reforms has passed out of either house this session to date. Fewer bills have made it through both houses.

And, so far, the following priorities have either been killed completely or are on “life support.”

No “Right to Work;”

No pro-business tax reforms;

No serious effort at deregulation;

No school choice; and

No serious education reforms;

Our tracking site called “Freedom Index” allows users to see how all members of both parties are voting on freedom issues. More importantly, users (including legislators) can find out how pro-or anti-freedom various pending bills are.

With less than two weeks left in the legislative session, a lot can happen. We’re not impressed with the lack of action on some of the big economic and educational problems facing the state, but we remain hopeful that some additional pro-freedom reforms can take place in the closing days of the session. Be sure to contact your legislators to share your views with them.

SB 416 has passed the New Mexico Senate on a party line vote. The bill raises the minimum wage, but as reported, the bill excludes businesses with fewer than 11 workers and farm and ranch workers.

I don’t get it. Why would those who claim to see an increase in the minimum wage as some kind of human rights issue not include employees of small businesses or farm and ranch workers? Farm and ranch workers, by the way, have some of the most dangerous jobs in the nation…far more dangerous than being a cop or fire fighter and yet these well-paid government workers can retire after a mere 20 years with generous pensions.  One might think that this legislation is based on political concerns as opposed to maximizing worker benefits….

And to top it all off, Sen. Bill Sharer tried to amend the minimum wage bill to $21.87 in Committee, but advocates of the wage floor voted against it. An $8.50 an hour wage is only good for a $17,680 annual salary. Why are the Democrats being so cheap? Sharer’s amendment would have set a minimum wage of $45,490. Now THAT is a real living wage! Since we have already accepted the “fact” that government bureaucrats and politicians can arbitrarily impose higher wages with no negative repercussions, I don’t understand the reluctance to go with the higher wage rate. Imagine all the extra money that’ll be pumped into the economy!!!!

While a great deal has been said and written about the minimum wage and its economic impact, the Heritage Foundation busts 5 myths of the minimum wage here.  

On February 15th, state officials and the Environmental Protection Agency resolved their long running dispute over the regulation of haze-causing emissions from the San Juan Generating Station, an 1,800 megawatt coal-fired power plant near Farmington that is operated by PNM resources.

As a result of the proposed settlement, EPA got what it wanted, and PNM reaped a windfall. Indeed, the only losers were the state’s electricity ratepayers: They’re on the hook for almost $400 million, in order to achieve dubious environmental benefits.

At issue is a Clean Air Act regulation known as Regional Haze, the purpose of which is to improve the view at national parks. Before last Friday’s settlement, the parties had disagreed what Regional Haze controls were appropriate for the San Juan Generating Station. In July 2011, state officials proposed a plan for the power plant that would cost PNM ratepayers $36 million. A month later, EPA imposed a Regional Haze plan that would cost an estimated $375 million.

New Mexico then sued EPA. In the spring of 2012, state officials initiated negotiations with EPA and PNM, in an attempt to reach a settlement in lieu of litigation. Last Friday’s announcement was the culmination of those negotiations.

The proposed deal would shutter two of the San Juan Generating Station’s boilers, totaling almost 770 megawatts of electricity capacity. This generation would be replaced with a new 150 – 200 megawatt natural gas plant. The state’s preferred Regional Haze controls would be retrofitted onto the remaining two boilers. According to PNM, the plan would cost $400 to $430 million.

So who won and who lost?

PNM is the big winner. Utilities always have an incentive to make large capital expenditures, because doing so increases the rate base on which they earn a guaranteed return. Thanks to the proposed settlement, PNM gets to build an expensive new natural gas plant, and it will earn about 10% in guaranteed profits for every dollar it spends.

EPA won, too. The San Juan Generating Station becomes the latest casualty in the agency’s war on coal. In 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board that he would “bankrupt” the coal industry, if elected. Now, EPA is executing the President’s campaign promise. Notably, former EPA Region 6 administrator Al Armendariz, who was responsible for the Regional Haze federal plan imposed on the San Juan Generating Station, now works at Sierra Club’s ‘Beyond Coal’ campaign.

New Mexico, on the other hand, lost big. Truth be told, it is unclear what state officials were thinking. New Mexico originally objected to EPA’s Regional Haze plan because it cost an order of magnitude more than the state’s plan. (EPA’s plan cost $375 million; New Mexico’s plan cost $36 million.) Yet state officials negotiated an alternative agreement that cost at least $400 million—i.e., it is more expensive than the draconian regulation it replaces.

New Mexico’s bargaining strategy is all the more perplexing in light of the fact that state was in a great position to beat the EPA in court. Because Regional Haze is an aesthetic regulation—rather than a public health measure—the Congress wanted the states to be the lead decision makers. As articulated by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, “states…play the lead role in designing and implementing Regional Haze programs.” Given the unique primacy accorded to states on visibility policy by the law, EPA’s decision to impose a federal Regional Haze plan rested on shaky legal grounds.

New Mexico’s lawsuit was further bolstered by the absence of an appreciable environmental benefit attendant to EPA’s Regional Haze plan. According to peer reviewed research, there is only a a 35 percent chance that the average person could perceive the “improvement” in visibility achieved by EPA’s controls over the state’s measure.

In abandoning promising litigation and instead adopting last week’s announced settlement, state officials appear to have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

William Yeatman is an energy policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank in Washington, D.C.

The Rio Grande Foundation will be hosting a series of events with author John Blundell on his two books, “Margaret Thatcher: A Portrait of the Iron Lady” and “Ladies for Liberty: Women Who Made a Difference in American History.”

There will be a luncheon in Albuquerque on Thatcher on Monday, March 25;

An evening reception on “Ladies for Liberty” in Santa Fe on Monday, March 25; and

A breakfast on Lady Thatcher in Albuquerque on Tuesday, March 26.

Reserve your seat at one or more of these events today!

We have two recent newspaper columns, one by Ron Stern, the CEO of Lovelace, the other by Bernalillo County Commissioner Maggie Hart Stebbins. Stern argues that a bed-sharing agreement could save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars while Stebbins says that is not the case. I happen to agree with Stern, so I want to address the points Stebbins makes in today’s paper.

Stebbins’ first point is that UNMH is New Mexico’s only Level 1 trauma center and that such patients cannot be shifted to other hospitals. It is true that UNMH is the state’s only Level 1 trauma center and it is also true that shifting those patients to other hospitals is not a workable solution, but that doesn’t mean that every patient at UNMH is a “Level 1” patient that could not be shifted elsewhere. It has been noted that many of the new beds at the $146 million UNMH expansion will be “elective.” These are not Level 1 by definition.

The Commissioner’s other point is that Medicaid expansion will create an influx of additional patients into New Mexico’s health care system. This may be true, but it doesn’t follow that New Mexico will need more Level 1 trauma beds or even another hospital. In fact, it would be far more cost-effective to build community clinics that help avoid the need for high-cost emergency rooms.

Stebbins seems to be saying that more people will get shot or will have car accidents when Medicaid is expanded. That is just silly.

There is no doubt that easy solutions to our local health care issues are scarce, but the onus of proof must be on those looking to construct this expensive, taxpayer-financed hospital. It seems that Lovelace has made a reasonable proposal for an alternative. Opponents of that solution must come up with some better arguments than those put forth by Stebbins.

The New Mexico House of Representatives has passed legislation that would tap the State’s permanent fund for more education spending. Supporters claim that spending more money on K-12 is an “investment in the future.”

Regardless of the tenuous connection between education spending and results (New Mexico is in the middle of the pack when it comes to education spending, but at the bottom in results), the fact is that New Mexico’s education system seems to be mis-allocating resources. One thing is definitely true, according to a new report (see table 8) from the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, “New Mexico is one of 21 states that employs fewer teachers than administrators and other non-teaching staff.”

We certainly don’t have much use for the “Three Tiered Licensing System” which according to the Legislative Finance Committee “has not improved student performance with (increased) taxpayer investments in teacher pay.”

So, in conclusion, the proposed constitutional amendment would tap the permanent fund to the tune of $60 million annually (starting out) as a political payoff to the unions, nothing more, nothing less.

Secretary Designate for Education, Hanna Skandera, has been under attack by the status quo crowd (led by the unions) since day one. Why? She supports reforms to our educational system — like charter schools, digital learning, A-F grading of schools, elimination of social promotion, and “pay for teacher performance” that upset the status quo.

This issue is about to come to a head as confirmation hearings have been scheduled in the Senate Rules Committee. Skandera has been performing the role as “Secretary Designate” as no confirmation hearings have been held, but we believe that opponents of education reform are looking to oust Skandera from her job by getting a “No” vote on the Senate floor.

Skandera’s approval of a “virtual” charter school of which I am on the board may have been the final straw, but there is no doubt that the unions and the establishment that have given us a 49th in the nation education system are gearing up to defend their turf (this has nothing to do with educating our kids, of course).

It is time for New Mexicans who support increasing the number of educational options available to step up and make themselves heard. Let the members of Senate Rules know what you think. Let your senator know that you support Skandera’s efforts to reform education in New Mexico. The initial hearing is this Friday morning at 8:30am with a vote on the senate floor likely to occur in the days ahead.

Update: check out this story from reporter Rob Nikolewski on Skandera and US Education Secretary not having “classroom experience.” I actually disagree with the assessment that Skandera is not a “qualified, experienced educator” as required in the Constitution.

According to her bio: “taught Education Policy at Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Public Policy.”

So, in order to teach in New Mexico, you can be at APS or Cobre, but Pepperdine doesn’t cut it?

In the days prior to the 2013 legislative session I visited Fred Martino at KRWG TV in Las Cruces to discuss the legislative session. We taped two segments of the program that recently aired and our now available online. See the segments below:

Recently it was reported that New Mexico’s proposed health insurance exchange has “stalled.” The article cited inaction from the Martinez Administration and a conflict of vision among legislators for the lack of “progress.” Everyone in the article seemed to be in agreement that failure to create a new exchange was a bad thing.

I couldn’t disagree more.

The purported demise of New Mexico’s state-run ObamaCare health insurance exchange is a good thing, not a bad one. RGF opposed ObamaCare “exchanges” from the start (even when they were a Republican idea during the Richardson Administration).

Now, it is true that the federal government will set up an exchange in New Mexico if the state doesn’t do it, but the good news is, as health care policy expert Michael Cannon writes:

Defaulting to a federal exchange exempts a state’s employers from the employer mandate — a tax of $2,000 per worker per year (the tax applies to companies with more than 50 employees, but for such companies that tax applies after the 30th employee, not the 50th). If all states did so, that would also exempt 18 million Americans from the individual mandate’s tax of $2,085 per family of four. Avoiding those taxes improves a state’s prospects for job creation, and protects the conscience rights of employers and individuals whom the Obama administration is forcing to purchase contraceptives coverage.

So, there you have it. The demise of a state-run exchange will exempt thousands of New Mexicans from an unnecessary tax increase.

Exchanges are NOT free market health reform. They have NOT been effective in states like Utah which has had an exchange for several years and upon which Gov. Martinez’a plan was based.

There ARE several market-based reforms out there and we published this report detailing a few of them back in 2008.

The wailing and gnashing of teeth over the impending federal sequestration, one might be led to believe that these are some really serious cuts. Check out the chart below from Tad DeHaven at the Cato Institute:

Of course, President Obama wants us all to believe that the sun would not rise and that we’d all starve if it were not for the benevolence of our “friends” in Washington. That is why he is putting out these lists of horribles to dramatize the draconian cuts we’ll see in the Land of Enchantment.

As I’ve noted before on this site, it is amazing we all feel worse off these days than we did say in 2000, since the federal government spends so much more more of our money on our behalf. It makes me wonder how America survived when Washington spent “only” 18% of our GDP rather than the 24%-plus it spends today. Oh, and unemployment back then was 4.2% as well as opposed to the 7.8% rate currently.

So, federal spending should fall. It NEEDS to fall. A federal government that consumes less of our economic output would be a good thing. Is sequester the best way to shrink Washington? Not by a long shot. The cuts are way too small and they don’t touch so-called entitlements which will ultimately make the federal budget unsustainable. Will sequestration be a debacle for the US economy? Only if the Obama Administration makes it one in order to prove a political point.

Tomorrow, the Public Education Commission (PEC), an elected, advisory board to the Public Education Department (PED) and it’s Secretary-Designee, Hanna Skandera, will consider an unprecedented move by the PEC to appeal the secretary’s actions on two charter schools to district court.

The PEC had denied the charters for New Mexico Connections Academy (NMCA) (of which I’m on the board), a statewide virtual school and Taos International School. Under state law, these charter schools were able to appeal to the secretary. She recently overturned the denial. The PEC agenda (see link) shows the body going into a executive session with their attorney to discuss “pending litigation.”

State law says, “If the secretary finds that the chartering authority acted arbitrarily or capriciously, rendered a decision not supported by substantial evidence or did not act in accordance with law, the secretary may reverse the decision of the chartering authority and order the approval of the charter with or without conditions. The decision of the secretary shall be final.”

The Rio Grande Foundation supports school choice, Skandera’s decision to offer more options to students in New Mexico, and state law which says the decision of the secretary is final.

Along with Pat Davis of the left-leaning ProgressNow New Mexico, I discuss the minimum wage hikes being considered in the Legislature and the potential for compromise on a variety of controversial issues in Santa Fe. (the opening screen lasts about 1 minute).

Eye on New Mexico February 17, 2013 from Paul Gessing on Vimeo.

First, the Albuquerque Journal had this very nice editorial on the issue which explains why the opponents of digital learning are missing the big picture and not asking the right questions when it comes to digital learning.

Secondly, one of my fellow board members at New Mexico Connections Academy, Carlo Lucero, had his own defense of digital learning in today’s paper. Check that out here. The most salient point: New Mexico has historically performed poorly in K-12 education. Shouldn’t we at least allow parents and students to pursue popular and innovative options?

If you have been hiding under a rock this week, you may have missed the story of an Albuquerque business that is refusing to pay the minimum wage increase. While this has generated local and even national attention, there are several points that highlight issues with the minimum wage. I’ll point some of them out here:

1) It is no surprise that this business is local and not a chain. People love to talk about “buy local,” but local businesses like this malt shop are far less able to cope with arbitrary wage mandates than are big companies like Wal Mart which have supported such wage hikes in the past.

2) The group of leftists protesting the business are “anti-choice.” When it comes to abortion, government restrictions are anathema, but if a willing employer and a willing worker come to an agreement in defiance of the law, that choice is bad and worth protesting. And, if you don’t think employees are “choosing” to work for the malt shop, they are free to find a job elsewhere. Either the workers like their jobs or are worried that they won’t find similar jobs elsewhere.

3) Some liberals have claim that minimum wages do not reduce demand for labor. The law of supply and demand is basic economics that liberals embrace when it comes to cigarette taxes and other areas of taxation, but that law of economics doesn’t apply to wages?

4) Sometimes civil disobedience pays off. Saying “no” when government overreaches is not always a successful business strategy and I’d expect that one employee lawsuit could put this malt shop out of business, but having the courage to “just say no” can make government back down or at least not enforce bad laws.

We’ve recently updated Errors of Enchantment’s look. We hope you like it. You can now comment quickly on any post using the new “Comment Count” icon. Thank you for your continued readership!

If you’ve never tuned in to Amy Goodman and the extreme left-wingers over at “Democracy Now,” you usually aren’t missing much. Goodman’s column also runs on occasion in the Albuquerque Journal, so residents of the Duke City can get more “Democracy” than they want.

Why am I giving her space on my blog? Recently, Goodman and her cronies aired a lengthy story in which they cast any conservative organization as in the throes of a vast right wing network of donors. But, if you fast-forward the video to the 20:25 mark, you’ll see a “report” on own New Mexico Watchdog Report and Jim Scarantino’s report on “phantom Congressional districts” to which “stimulus” money was sent.

Of course, Goodman and her cronies attempt to downplay the Watchdog story, but the truth is that if the government can’t get simple congressional district information even remotely correct, how do you expect it to track complicated data such as jobs created and lost? So, thanks “Democracy Now” for the airtime. I’m sure we can expect to be interviewed for a more even-handed story in the future.

With New Mexico legislators considering a Constitutional amendment that would tap New Mexico’s permanent fund in order to expand early childhood education and President Obama having mentioned the issue in his recent State of the Union address, the debate over early childhood education and it’s effectiveness is heating up.

Heritage Foundation has a very detailed report outlining the situations in both Georgia and Oklahoma. According to the section on Georgia:

The experiences in Georgia suggest that univer­sal preschool has not corresponded with dramatic improvement in students’ academic achievement. After years of universal preschool, fourth-graders in Georgia have seen only a seven-point overall gain in reading. By contrast, Florida’s fourth-grade students achieved the greatest gains–15 points between 1992 and 2007. In 1992, a year before the Georgia Pre-K program was established, Georgia fourth-graders were three points below the national aver­age of 215. By 2007, fourth-grade reading scores had risen just 7 points to 219, still lagging behind the national average of 220.

In terms of Oklahoma, the report concludes:

In Oklahoma, (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores have declined since the state began offering universal preschool in 1998. Okla­homa was the only state to see a significant score decrease on the NAEP fourth-grade reading assessment and is the only state to see its reading scores decline over the 15 years from 1992 though 2007 out of all of the states that participated in the fourth-grade reading test in 1992.

And, while slightly more taking a slightly more positive viewpoint regarding early childhood education, Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post explained that Obama was fibbing (or at least dramatically stretching the truth) when he cited studies of the effectiveness of early childhood education in these two states as justification for his proposal to expand them at the federal level.

I recently talked to Mike Jaxson at KSVP Radio about the midpoint of the 2013 legislative session (the file will download). A few good things have happened, but there a lot more instances of legislative intransigence and lunacy that illustrate why we’re 50th in so many measures.

Another example of legislative malfeasance is the unions’ (through Democrats on the House Education Committee) killing of bi-partisan legislation to stop social promotion of 3rd graders who can’t read. $13.5 million worth of additional funding is apparently not enough to get the schools to do their job. And the beat rolls on…and New Mexico kids continue to suffer.

And, while we are unfortunately not able to track votes in committee, our new “Freedom Index” does give voters an idea of where their legislators are in terms of pro-freedom issues.

I received my ballot in the mail for the ongoing City of Albuquerque vote over whether to modify the current election process for mayoral and councilor positions to require 50% rather than the current 40% to win.

First, a word about the process. It is a bad one and easily open to fraud. I received my ballot last week and sent it in within a few days. My wife has not received hers yet. Nonetheless, if I got a chance to open the mail first, there’s nothing stopping me from voting on her behalf. What about wrong addresses? This is a low-profile election. A lot of people don’t know anything about the issues at stake or even that an election is being held. The process is wide open to problems and that alone makes it something that should be reconsidered.

Separately, I have to admit that I laughed at the fact that voters have to pay $.46 for a stamp to return their ballots. For a crowd that claims that requiring an ID to vote amounts to a “poll tax,” I haven’t heard a peep from liberals about the regressive “poll tax” this election. Perhaps that’s because this measure is backed by liberals and labor unions who want to make it harder for conservatives to get into office?

Oh, and then there is the issue itself. Should we raise the thresh hold for election from 40% to 50%? Sounds trivial except that it will cost taxpayers between $500,000 and $750,000 for each election.

As they say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Our system of electing mayors and city counselors is reasonable and effective. While Mayor Berry was elected by only 44 percent of the vote, the most recent polls I’ve seen show that 68% of voters approve of the job he’s doing. Even if you are among the 15 percent who strongly disapprove of Berry’s efforts, the proper solution is to support somebody in the next election, not to make expensive changes to the voting process.

The Albuquerque Journal had an interesting article over the weekend about legislation (SJR3) that would amend New Mexico’s Constitution to tap the permanent fund for early childhood education.

The concern of most conservatives revolves around the issue of tapping the permanent fund and how much such an initiative would cost future generations who are supposed to benefit from that fund. And, to be fair, the plan would spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually, thus reducing the amount of money in the fund. This is important, but I don’t think the “future generations” argument is an effective one. It hasn’t exactly stopped the spending spree in Washington and that involves trillions of dollars of debt that we’re passing along to future generations. Haggling over how much money we pass on to future generations is not likely to stir voters to action in opposition.

If we’re going to spend hundreds of additional dollars annually, New Mexicans need to know that their dollars are being used efficiently and effectively. That is where I believe the push for early childhood funding falls apart. We have one well-known and well-studied early childhood education system called Head Start (an $8 billion a year federal program). According to the government’s own studies, the effects of Head Start are “mostly gone by 3rd grade.” Further, “researchers found that the positive impacts on literacy and language development demonstrated by children who entered Head Start at age 4 had dissipated by the end of 3rd grade, and that they were, on average, academically indistinguishable from their peers who had not participated in Head Start.”

Worse, as this report from ABC News explains, Head Start has been plagued by scandal (again, the government’s own investigators uncovered this problem).

We will of course hear reassurances that New Mexico’s program will avoid the pitfalls experienced by the federal program. But wouldn’t New Mexicans be better off if we reformed our costly and ineffective K-12 system as it exists now (and into which those early childhood kids will inevitably graduate) and focused on helping New Mexico families coalesce and stay together rather than pouring untold millions into a new program, the benefits of which will likely wear off at a young age.

In recent months, the University of New Mexico Hospital (UNMH) has proposed building a $146 million expansion. In our view there should be specific criteria on the use of taxpayer money for new construction. UNMH should meet these criteria which include: Does the public want it and, in a world of limited resources, is the proposed project our highest priority?

To find out whether BernalilloCounty voters share our concerns about the proposed hospital expansion, we asked them and found that voters don’t think the hospital is a top priority and that they do want more accountability when major projects like this are considered.

According to the Utah polling firm NSON, only 15% of the registered voters in BernalilloCounty would make the building of a new hospital a priority. The public’s main priority, with 46% support, was to have more health clinics for the poor throughout the County. Even a new psychiatric hospital with behavioral health services got more support, at 16%, than the building of a new hospital. Still others wanted drug and alcohol rehabilitation services (10%). The poll was conducted January 13-16 with 400 registered voters in BernalilloCounty with a margin of error of 4.9%.

In this poll voters were asked to rank priorities for the health care dollar in BernalilloCounty, and 85% picked something other than the new hospital. Clearly, the local population believes that the time is right for healthcare clinics but not a new hospital.

There is more. When asked if taxpayer money meant for healthcare should be used to build a new hospital or used solely for the purpose of aiding the poor and indigent, 54% said use the money solely for the poor, and 30% would allow the money to be used for the new hospital. A significant majority of people want their scarce tax dollars to be used for its central purpose, helping the poor.

In addition, the public knows the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) is being implemented and that it will bring massive changes to our system. When asked, voters said that UNMH should wait until ACA has taken effect, by a margin of 61% to 24%.  People want to wait to see what happens before making an investment in a hospital that’s not used.  ACA is supposed to drive people to the doctor, not the hospital, so big new hospitals may not be needed.

The most strongly-supported statement in the poll came when respondents were asked if new taxpayer-financed hospitals should be allowed with our without final say from elected officials. The voters said by 71% to 17% that hospitals of this kind should be specifically voted on by the CountyCommission before being considered by the state.

While advocates of limited government (as we are) were pleased with many of these responses, it is worth noting that voters do not think the county should do away with the mill levy for indigent health care. By a vote of 50% to 32%, voters said not to eliminate the mill levy. And when asked if the mill levy tax is too high, voters were split, with 46% saying it was about right, and 43% saying it was more than we can afford right now.

This poll clearly shows that the voters of BernalilloCounty understand the mill levy for indigent health care, support it, do not want to do away with it, and want to ensure that the money is spent wisely with oversight and accountability and is targeted toward efforts that they believe will benefit the low-income and needy.

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