The issue of federal involvement in education policy has bubbled below the surface of American politics for years. President George W. Bush really pushed the federal government into education in a big way with No Child Left Behind. Now, President Obama is using “Common Core Standards” to further involve the feds in the classroom. Among other issues with this is the fact that Obama is doing so without ever having gone to Congress for approval.

Columnist George Will has an interesting article on the issue here while our friends at several free market think tanks have produced a report detailing the legal justifications and lack of legal support for what the Obama Administration is doing in education.

Lastly, I co-signed a letter that was signed by dozens of education leaders nationwide on the problem of what “Common Core” will do to innovation in education.

The Libre Initiative held a conference in Albuquerque at which I had the opportunity to speak last week. Their mission is to spread the message of economic liberty among Hispanics in the United States. One tool they showed the gathering is this excellent video on the special relationship Hispanics have with economic freedom and why they need to be leaders in the fight to restore these freedoms, not only for themselves, but all Americans:

Shame is a powerful human emotion. Unfortunately, governments do everything they can to reduce shame and replace it with dependency. The single greatest problem in New Mexico is the “culture of dependency,” not just among welfare recipients, but among businesses that feel they must rely on government subsidies to succeed.

Unfortunately, the attitudes that have exacerbated the culture of dependency in America seem to be worsening as this story on a lottery winner who still feels entitled to food stamps illustrates. Here in New Mexico, food stamp shoppers go grocery shopping at Whole Foods.

If welfare programs were run, not out of Washington, but at the state or local level, there is no doubt that more accountability would exist. Ideally, charities would be the providers of welfare, (and birth control for those who cannot afford it) however.

Alamogordo Public Schools

Albuquerque Public Schools

Artesia Public Schools

Aztec Municipal Schools

Belen Consolidated Schools

Bernalillo Public Schools

Bloomfield Municipal Schools

Carlsbad Municipal Schools

Central Consolidated Schools

Clovis Municipal Schools

Cobre Consolidated Schools

Deming Public Schools

Dexter Consolidated Schools

Espanola Municipal Schools

Farmington Municipal Schools

Gadsden Independent Schools

Gallup-McKinley County Schools

Grants-Cibola County Schools

Hatch Valley Municipal Schools

Hobbs Municipal Schools

Las Cruces Public Schools

Las Vegas City Public Schools

Los Alamos Public Schools

Los Lunas Public Schools

Lovington Public Schools

Moriarty-Edgewood School District

Pojoaque Valley Public Schools

Portales Municipal Schools

Raton Public Schools

Rio Rancho Public Schools

Roswell Independent Schools

Ruidoso Municipal Schools

Santa Fe Public Schools

Silver City Consolidated Schools

Socorro Consolidated Schools

Taos Municipal Schools

Truth or Consequences Schools

Tucumcari Public Schools

West Las Vegas Public Schools

Zuni Public Schools

It has been reported that Sony is closing its its post-production facility in Albuquerque and moving it to Vancouver. Reason cited? Subsidies, of course. New Mexico “only” offers 25 cents on the dollar to film companies that set up shop in our fair state. Vancouver, Canada, (where much of the work will be sent) offers an astonishing 46% subsidy.

While it is painful to lose those jobs, the fact is that if taxpayers are footing 25% of the bill and a company is still willing to leave the state for greener pastures, there is something wrong. What is wrong? Not even including the inherent problem in taxing one group of people to support another:

1) the film industry is extremely mobile and lacking in location-specific permanence;
2) this means that the industry is always going to look for subsidies and will never be weaned off of them;
3) policymakers are chasing this industry for non-economic or prestige reasons. The economics of these policies are secondary.

Back in December, we at the Rio Grande Foundation hosted a showing of the film “Sick and Sicker” at an event in Albuquerque that was followed by a discussion of health care reform issues. led by Dr. Deane Waldman, a member of the RGF’s board of directors who is also a pediatric cardiologist.

We are hosting another showing and discussion in Roswell at the UFO Museum on the evening of March 15. Also, we will be doing a showing/discussion on Sunday, March 11 from 3pm to 5pm at the Sandia Tea Party’s meeting. If you live in the Albuquerque area and missed our previous showing, come on out.

The US Supreme Court will be hearing the ObamaCare issue later this month, but regardless of the outcome, health care and health care reforms will be important issues moving forward.

“I’m shocked, shocked, to hear that gambling is going on in this establishment.” That quote from “Casablanca” comes to mind every time I hear a politician bemoaning the plague of partisanship. Normally, whining about partisanship is done by someone like Sen. Olympia Snowe who is in the minority party and doesn’t really believe that fighting the battle of ideas is worthwhile in the first place.

But, the case of the latest New Mexico politician to cry “partisanship” is far more interesting: Sen. Cynthia Nava will not be running again despite the fact that she was the Chair of the Education Committee and her party, the Democrats, have been in firm control of the Legislature for decades. How is “partisanship” a problem when you are in control of the process and will have a healthy majority for the foreseeable future (at least in your own body, the Senate)?

Honestly, while Nava is nowhere near the reformer I’d want her to be in terms of leading the charge for school choice, she was a supporter of some of the Gov.’s modest reforms like the 3rd grade reading initiative. It would seem that the “partisanship” Nava is concerned about isn’t coming from Gov. Martinez and the Republicans, but rather from those in her own party who are being partisan in blocking much-needed education reforms just because they are proposed by a Republican Governor.

Am I reading too much into this? Tell me what I’m missing or why I’m wrong.

(Albuquerque) The Rio Grande Foundation has hired Thomas Molitor as the new, New Mexico Watchdog.

Molitor is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley, School of Economics. He spent 15 years in the corporate communications field where he occupied senior management roles for agencies inside the four largest communications holding companies worldwide – Omnicom, WPP, Publicis and Interpublic. Living in Silicon Valley at the time, Thomas moved over to the world of venture capital for 10 years, having helped found three internet startup companies.

Since moving to New Mexico in 2005, Thomas has made economics, government affairs and politics a full-time obsession. He ran for the New Mexico state legislature, became a regular columnist for two years on NMPolitics.Net, wrote op-ep pieces that have appeared in the Albuquerque Journal, Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal and American Action Forum.

Thomas believes there is a modern day citizen journalist reformation emerging – an Internet Reformation. It is led by the Internet making everything in life more transparent, most importantly government affairs and how taxpayers’ money is being spent.

Prior to joining New Mexico Watchdog as a reporter, Thomas was an adjunct scholar at the Rio Grande Foundation.

Said Rio Grande Foundation president Paul Gessing, “Molitor will be a great addition to watchdog journalism in New Mexico. In recent years, we have made great strides in making government in the Land of Enchantment more accountable and transparent. Thomas Molitor will be working full-time (and more) to expand upon those successes.”

Molitor’s work, including the latest update on the “Earthstone” saga at the State Investment Council, will be available at: http://newmexico.watchdog.org/

I had an op-ed in today’s Albuquerque Journal. You can read it over at NMPolitics.net as well without a subscription.

Anyway, the point of the article is that New Mexico’s political leaders should look at the cuts being made at Los Alamos as an opportunity to generate economic growth at home. Feel free to comment here/and/or at Heath’s site.

Todd Myers of the Washington Policy Center — one of our sister think tanks based in Washington State — presented recently in Albuquerque and Santa Fe on “Eco-Fads”: How the Rise of Trendy Environmentalism Is Harming the Environment. His presentation powerpoint is available online.

Rob Nikolewski of Capitol Report New Mexico did a brief interview as well.

With all of the controversy over whether the federal government should or should not pay for birth control, the average person may be forgiven for not having seen the story that former President Bill Clinton has stepped into a separate controversy, that over the Keystone Pipeline.

To summarize, Clinton supports the Keystone XL pipeline. The fact that Clinton supports it, while Obama opposes it, illustrates one of the big differences between the two men. Clinton is a political pragmatist while Obama is an ideologue.

Only time will tell whether Clinton’s sage advice has an impact on Obama’s policies.

The Rio Grande Foundation hosted an incredibly well-attended luncheon 5 years ago in Albuquerque with prominent political commentator and television host John Stossel. We are excited to announce that Stossel will be returning to Albuquerque for a dinner gala on April 25, 2012. In part, he’ll be discussing his new book No, They Can’t: Why Government Fails – But Individuals Succeed

Reserve your seat today! Details on the Stossel event are available here.

I ran across this interesting report from Maine recently. The relevant information is on Table 1 which shows that New Mexico has a major private-sector tax burden differential with its neighbors:

NM is ranked 9th heaviest, Colorado is 48, Arizona is 33, Oklahoma is 31, Texas 46, and Utah, 36.

Voters in Roswell are heading to the polls now (Election Day is officially March 6) to vote on a gross receipts tax increase. The purpose of the tax will be for “economic development” as outlined in Roswell Ordinance 11- 05. Aside from that, details are somewhat unclear and analysis of exactly how raising taxes will spur economic development are lacking. It would seem that this lack of information would make the average voter skeptical about such a tax increase.

But, if that is not enough, we at the Rio Grande Foundation can add this: raising taxes on the population and business community at large in order to provide incentives and hire bureaucrats to lure businesses to town is a bad idea. It will not result in a more prosperous Roswell, but will benefit a few, favored businesses at the expense of everyone else.

Despite the abject failure of the leaders of the Democratic Party in New Mexico to enact any serious education accountability reforms or school choice, other states like Wisconsin have done so and the data are showing that school choice works.

According to the report:

Among the new findings are that students enrolled in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP)—the nation’s oldest private school choice program currently in operation—not only graduate from high school on time by seven percentage points more than students enrolled in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), but they are also more likely to enroll in a four-year college and persist in college. Tracking of both MPCP and MPS students over a four-year period reveals significantly higher achievement growth in reading for MPCP students, as well as higher levels of science achievement in upper grades.

Read the full study here.

The willingness of some in New Mexico to make excuses for why they oppose change and accountability requires mental flexibility and contortions that resemble the acrobats in the upcoming Cirque du Soleil productions (soon to hit Rio Rancho). Take for instance Michael Corwin, a flack for the Democratic Party, and his recent op-ed in the Albuquerque Journal.

He claims that Gov. Martinez and her reading accountability measures “sold out parents” by taking decisions out of their hands. That’s rich coming from a supporter of politicians that have done everything in their power to halt school choice in this state. Anyway, Corwin claims that if only Gov. Martinez had been willing to give parents the final say over whether a child moves on or not, then every thing would have been great and HB 69 would have passed.

Well, I’d certainly prefer to give parents more choices, but should parents be able to demand their 10 year old be put in 8th grade if that’s where they want him (Corwin and opponents of HB 69 seem to think this is fine)? If a non-reading 5th grader becomes a disruption to her classmates (in part because their parent(s) put her there, can the school do anything about it (Corwin and opponents of HB 69 seem to say no).

It would be great if our schools could offer true parental choice and be tailor made to student needs, but Mimi Stewart, Michael Corwin, et al don’t want this. They want parents to be able to micromanage their child’s education — undermining the authority of teachers and principles — without actually giving them a real choice over where they can send their kids to school.

According to a recent report from the Tax Foundation, New Mexico has the 16th highest combined state and federal “sales” tax. I use the parentheses advisedly knowing full well that New Mexico does not have a sales tax, but has a much more onerous gross receipts tax.

So, to say that New Mexico has the 16th-highest sales tax rate is accurate insofar as it goes, but our state taxes a lot of inputs that other states don’t tax. Gov. Martinez and the Legislature adopted some carve-outs this session, but as I wrote in this article, the gross receipts tax is a tricky tax to reform.

Instead, we’d like to see the tax restored to the low, flat, fair, “tax everything,” philosophy that could see rates as low as 3% and focus instead on reducing and/or eliminating the personal and corporate income taxes.

Yes, we at the Rio Grande Foundation have been critical of the Rail Runner in the past and want to shut it down. But, sometimes it is nice to get an outsiders perspective. In this case, I point you to this article from the Coyote Blog which is maintained by an Arizona-based blogger.

He recently visited our fair state, rode the Rail Runner, ran some numbers, and questions what the New Mexico politicians who set it up were thinking at the time.

With all of the talk about taxes and tax cuts this session, it is time for New Mexico’s elected leaders to get serious about some kind of comprehensive reforms. I explain RGF’s vision for tax reform in the Land of Enchantment over at NMPolitics.net.

The Rio Grande Foundation is pleased to announce that it is working with The Bill of Rights Institute to publicize this upcoming program.

The Bill of Rights Institute is pleased to offer 2 FULL scholarships (each a $1,500 value each) for  New Mexico students to attend the Constitutional Academy this summer. This premier program for high school students to study the Constitution will be held in Washington, D.C. July 9-14, 2012.

The program explores the Founding principles of limited government, freedom of religion, and economic liberty to name a few. While in D.C. students will explore the Capitol, Mount Vernon, the National Archives, and other sites while in D.C. and have reading discussions with college professors. For more information please visit their website at www.billofrightsinstitute.org, or contact Michelle Griffes at (703) 894-1776, ext. 15.

With all of the economic turmoil going on in the world, the terms “austerity” and “stimulus” continue to be bandied about. It is time for some understanding of these words. Winthrop Quigley recently reported on comments by an analyst from Bank of the West who argued against the US adopting “European-style austerity measures” lest they harm our economy. OK, well, if “austerity” means massive tax hikes, I agree with him, but if it means spending cuts as happened in Canada, it seems hard to argue that such “austerity” is not needed. See the chart below on Canada’s massive spending reduction:

Besides, if “stimulus” means engaging in deficit spending to stimulate the economy, the US government has been “stimulating” the economy for decades now.

By way of illustrating the wasteful nature of government “stimulus” spending (which, after all is the “whole point”), I thought this cartoon was appropriate:

Rep. Brian Egolf is among the furthest left legislators in New Mexico. He is a strong supporter of subsidies for the film industry and one of the most outspoken opponents of the oil and gas industry. He wrote an opinion piece that appeared in the Albuquerque Journal over the weekend which cited some polling data that attempted to paper over some very real issues and controversies over “conservation” and environmental policies.

One of the RGF’s most active supporters, Jim Crawford, did a thorough analysis of Egolf’s piece and the questions asked in the poll. Rather than duplicating his work, I have posted it in its entirety below:

Representative Brian Egolf’s column  presented some questionable conclusions based on a poll (linked to here) by Colorado College.

Colorado College is a progressive liberal arts college which is enough to make the poll results questionable even before examining the poll itself.

Representative Egolf is correct. CONSERVATION is not a partisan divider.  Conservation is the wise use and/or management of our resources.  Conservation is a much different concept than the tree hugging anti-use EXTREME ENVIRONMENTALISM depicted in the illustration with the column.

Even the most conservative, pro-industry, cheap energy, drill baby drill advocates are conservationists.  None among us favor wanton or wasteful destruction of resources.  Hardly anyone opposes reasonable protections. The debate has never been about conservation versus jobs but about extreme environmentalism versus jobs.

As with most polls, the devil is in the details of how questions were asked.  In the Colorado College poll, the questions were nearly all phrased in a way than nearly all of us would answer the same way.  For example, who would not agree that “Our national parks, forests, monuments, and wildlife areas are an essential part of New Mexico’s quality of life” (Q20)?

Then there are the questions like Q2 where the choices are an option that nearly everyone would agree with or one that almost nobody would agree with.  The choices were: “We can protect land and water and have a strong economy with good jobs at the same time, without having to choose one over the other. OR sometimes protections for land and water and a strong economy are in conflict and we must choose one over the other.”  We presently have strong protection for land and water, a strong economy along with good jobs. It has never been about choosing one or the other.  No wonder 80% of New Mexicans agreed with option 1.

Even more slanted are a series of questions where there are three categories of “serious problem” i.e. extremely serious, very serious, and somewhat serious.  The only other choice is “not a problem”.  Let’s face it.  There is no human use or activity that has no impact.  So again “not a problem” is not a likely option.  However, if we view the somewhat serious category as one where there may be some minor within reasonable limits, then those percentages combined with the not a problem group exceeds the combined extremely and very serious group.  A good example would be Q7 “The impact of oil and gas drilling on our land, air and water.”  In NM only 31% put this statement in the extremely or very serious category while 65% put it in the somewhat serious and not a problem categories.  New Mexicans are actually a lot less worried about these things than portrayed in Representative Egolf’s column.

Finally, Representative Egolf makes a big point about (QN2) where 71% of New Mexicans favored keeping our existing resource portfolio standards to force a certain percentage of renewable energy on our utility companies. Unfortunately, New Mexicans were never asked if they were willing to pay the $2.3 billion in increased electricity rates to achieve the standard.  The answer may have been different in that case.  There were no questions to test how much New Mexicans are willing to pay for utopian green quality of life statements.

We have all read the old adage about how figures lie and liars figure.  This poll was designed to arrive at a predetermined answer and does not deserve a lot of credibility. The most surprising thing about it is that the results were not more skewed than they are.

I was interviewed on “This week in Chaves County” on the good, the bad, and the ugly of the 2012 legislative session. Take a few minutes to listen by clicking on the first button here.

Heath Haussamen says it in a more polite manner here (and it is indeed a shame that it had to be cancer to drive Lujan from the Legislature), but House Speaker Ben Lujan embodies much of what is wrong with New Mexico politics. As discussed by Haussamen, Lujan is arguably responsible for killing the Gov.’s legislation to make sure 3rd graders who can’t read aren’t passed along through the school system to add to New Mexico’s 43% dropout rate. Lujan also prevented school choice tax credits from coming to the floor for a vote, thus protecting many of his fellow Democrats from having to vote against policy changes that is supported by 78% of New Mexicans and would provide a life line for New Mexico children who are in dire need of better educational options.

Will the heir-apparent, Ken Martinez be any better? I doubt it, but there is nothing set in stone saying he HAS to be the next house speaker.