I saw the headline “Obama Lacking Clear Vision” in the Albuquerque Journal and said to myself “duh” and almost didn’t read the article. Good thing I did.

Not surprisingly, since the writer was affiliated with UNM, the article is an attack on Obama from the left. He takes the president to task for not taxing his buddies at GE and for being wishy-washy. Fairly boiler plate stuff so far. But then the author makes two statements that still has me shaking my head:

First, “the most critical issue immediately facing our country is not entitlement reform, but global warming” and then “Global warming and its mitigation is to the 21st century what the abolition of slavery and the Civil War was to the United States in the 19th Century.”

WOW!!! First and foremost, it is clear from a variety of polls that a vast majority of Americans care a great deal about many issues much more than they do about global warming. Obviously, polls don’t make for the truth, but how can the clear collapse of the US economy and the destruction of our living standards due to over-spending even compare to the potential for man made global warming which may be addressed through improved technology or may not even occur.

Comparing global warming — something that is happening as a result of our own actions (if it is indeed happening) — to human slavery is just plain silly and not really worth debating at length.

Two of the economists whose ideas dominate public policy debates even to this day go toe to toe for Round 2 in this rap video. If you missed Round 1, check it out here. Also, check out an interview with the producer.

As I’ve written in this space before, the Governor’s “Business-Friendly Task Force” recommendations were spot-on. I shared this view and elaborated upon it in the Albuquerque Journal’s business section last week. My comments can be found below:

Issues of economic development are all the rage these days in New Mexico and we are glad to see the discussion. The latest addition to the discussion comes from the Small Business-Friendly Task Force, the recommendations of which were written about in this paper.

While regulations are not always well-understood and are often difficult to compare across state lines, the fact is that collectively they add tremendously to the costs of doing business in New Mexico and make our state less competitive with our neighbors.

All of the Task force’s recommendations should be considered for adoption by policymakers, but the most urgent and economically-impactful include returning to a more cost-effective “prevailing wage” law and elimination of New Mexico’s state-level carbon cap by becoming an observer instead of an active participant by capping carbon emissions within the state. The prevailing wage law drives up the cost of schools and roads while the carbon cap makes New Mexico less economically-competitive with no measurable environmental impact.

New Mexico has always been a poor state in large part because it is a tough place to do business. Tackling even a few of the most costly, unnecessary rules and regulations outlined in the Business-Friendly Task Force will go a long way towards creating jobs and spurring economic growth in the Land of Enchantment.

The Rio Grande Foundation is part of the State Policy Network, a 50 state network of free market policy think tanks. These organizations are providing the ideas that are fueling conservative majorities in the various states to reform education, tax, spending, and labor policies in a more market-based direction.

Naturally, the left-wing finds our ideas threatening and — at least when it comes to liberal talker Ed Schultz — is almost hysterical. Check out the video here:

Obviously, we disagree with the story in its view that our efforts are undermining the middle class. It is government policies that, more than anything, are preserving benefits for the elites and government workers while destroying our economy, but Schultz is right in touting our effectiveness.

If you support our efforts to bring free markets to New Mexico, please donate here.

When talk turns to cutting the budget, it is often viewed as a zero-sum game. Supposedly, the poor and less-fortunate always lose while the greedy fat cats always win. Or so the left would have us believe. The reality is usually quite different. Right here in New Mexico, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on the Rail Runner, film subsidies, a spaceport, and generous government employee pensions, all of which benefit wealthier people at great expense to the rest of us.

Well, when it comes to federal food policy, there is a great opportunity for “win-win” when it comes to the ways in which existing federal programs encourage obesity while devolving those same programs to the states could actually spur innovation and result in better outcomes at dramatically-lower prices to taxpayers. Along with RGF Board Member Dr. Deane Waldman, I write about those here.

I recently spoke to a reporter from an online publication called “New West” about the New Mexico RailRunner. While fiscal conservatives obviously have deep concerns over the financial impact this train is having on the state budget, it doesn’t appear that the train will be stopped unless the budget takes another major downturn and deeper cuts must be made.

Of course, the fact that taxpayers are on the hook for $400 million to build and $20 million annually to operate the train — not to mention another $400 million in maintenance costs every 30 years that are not currently accounted for — makes the Rail Runner a huge subsidy for a relatively small group of workers, most of whom live in Albuquerque and work in Santa Fe.

The real issue at this point is in making sure that efforts to extend the train — discussed in the article — are not successful. Martinez wouldn’t go along with such a scheme, but you can bet that liberals around the state who worship mass transit will be looking for every opportunity to do so.

The Rio Grande Foundation primarily handles state and local issues, but if Washington doesn’t get its act together, we’re all in trouble. Now that Paul Ryan and President Obama have staked out their parties’ respective positions on the issues, I have my own analysis about what needs to be done and where the sides can work together.

Read the full article at NMPolitics.net.

Walter Rubel of the Sun News, while acknowledging some realities of the current budget situation, unfairly takes Rep. Pearce to task for not wishing to raise taxes in this recent opinion piece. I understand the desire by many in the media to get fiscal conservatives to agree to tax hikes, but the fact is that while tax revenue has been stagnant over the past few years — due to a combination of the recession and the Bush tax cuts — it is spending, not taxes that have caused the budget situation to spiral out of control.

In fact, as the folks at Reason clearly show, the federal government has collected just about 19 percent of GDP over the span of several decades and several tax hikes and tax cuts. It is highly doubtful that the feds could possibly raise taxes to levels high enough to generate the revenue necessary to increase revenues as so many in the media and on the left would like to see.

The reality is that tax reform is in order and conservatives will agree to it if it closes loopholes and rationalizes our tax system, but avoiding a fiscal collapse really is a spending problem.

The Obama Administration’s antics continue to amaze in their brazenness and single-minded pursuit of political power. The latest extreme example comes from The Examiner and involves an attempt by the Administration to keep production of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner from being shifted to South Carolina.

The reason for the Administration’s all-out push? Washington State requires union membership to do the job. South Carolina does not as it is a Right to Work State and thus the workers Boeing would hire may or may not choose to be part of a union. New Mexico is, of course, not a Right to Work state (unfortunately).

Obama is playing a dangerous game here. Of course, in the short-term, they want political donations and greater union power. In the long-term, if they push too hard to mold Boeing’s labor practices, they may be pushing them to do more work abroad. This fight highlights the power of Right to Work in attracting businesses and it shows how Obama will seemingly stop at nothing to preserve power.

I just love environmentalists. According to this article about an ongoing legal case relating to carbon emissions adopted by the Environmental Improvement Board in New Mexico, the executive director of the group “New Energy Economy,”

“contends the regulations were adopted based on scientific and economic merits and should not be repealed.” Going on, she stated, “that Martinez’s EIB has an ideological bias against the carbon pollution reduction rules and has prejudged the merits of this important public policy.” Uh, huh.

Our government watchdog, Jim Scarantino, reported repeatedly here, here, and here about the inherent conflicts of interest on Richardson’s EIB. As if that were not enough, according to our own Rob Nikolewski, at least three members of Martinez’s EIB gave more to Democrats than Republicans.

We at the Rio Grande Foundation have contended all along that the EIB regulation should be overturned and that, in the end, the EIB should be disbanded and that major decisions like a statewide carbon cap should be made by our elected officials like the Legislature and Governor directly.

Sandy Springs, Georgia, rather than relying on traditional command-and-control government, has instead taken the approach of relying on private enterprise to provide quality services at a reasonable price. Reason recently put together this video illustrating the City’s success:

A more critical view, including information on other cities that have considered privatizing some services can be found here.

While Albuquerque and other New Mexico cities are a long way from “privatizing everything,” garbage, airport terminal management, and water and sewer are all privatized in many areas, but not in Albuquerque and some other New Mexico cities.

It was not much discussed except for an article in the Business Journal, but Gov. Martinez’s “Business Friendly Task Force has released its findings. Most of them touch on things that we’ve discussed in the past or expand upon certain economy-stifling regulations. The specific recommendations can be found here.

Among the specifics contained in the report: where they exist, adhere to federal regulations rather than developing our own, more stringent ones;

Get out of the Western Climate Initiative as a participant and instead be an observer;

The report also advocated eliminating the cap and trade rule;

Review the necessity of the “Pit Rule.”;

Return to pre-SB 33 prevailing wage rules;

All of these are good moves and the entire document contains ideas that, if implemented, would help grow New Mexico’s economy at no cost to taxpayers (and without any tax revenue reductions).

As this article from the Albuquerque Journal notes, liberals hate the idea of block granting Medicaid. The governors’ letter cited in the column can be found here.  Of course, the myth is that Medicaid is a particularly effective federal program that does great things for low income and needy families. The reality is far different as the “low wage trap” chart on page 3 from Cato’s Michael Cannon illustrates. Contrary to improving the lives of the poor, the way the system is set up, it is very difficult for low income families to get ahead.

The reality is, as Cannon points out in this column, that Governors who like Medicaid like it because it is a source of “free” money. They don’t have to be responsible for managing limited resources effectively because the federal government is there to bail them out. New Mexico, under Gov. Richardson, took this attitude. And, Voices for Children which is run by far left-wing legislator Eric Griego, believes that New Mexico’s living at the expense of taxpayers in other states is a good thing! Thankfully, Gov. Martinez did not sign this letter and has not fallen for the left-wing claptrap on Medicaid.

Medicaid is just one unsustainable portion of both the federal and state budgets. Block granting worked in the 1990s under Clinton when welfare reformed. It can and must work again with Medicaid.

We’ve come a long way from Martin Luther King’s March on Washington and his “I have a Dream” speech. To a great extent, America has achieved his vision of a color blind society. Obviously, no society or state is perfect and if you look hard enough, there are plenty of places where racial and gender preferences can be found.But should the government be one of those places?

Whether the issue is a fiscal one or Gov. Martinez sharing Dr. King’s vision of a color-blind society, she certainly kicked up a controversy when she vetoed appropriations for the African-American Performing Arts Center and zeroed out funding for the Commission on the Status of Women for a total savings of about $800,000.

The amount is indeed relatively small within the context of a $5.4 billion budget, but Martinez’s move is a wise one and I hope she’ll continue to veto race and gender-based spending around the state. After all, we all pay taxes to the government. Therefore, government is supposed to benefit ALL of us. Using money that is taken from taxpayers to benefit one or another group is unnecessarily divisive. Of course, this does not preclude private funding for any of these initiatives. The African-American Performing Arts Center and Commission on the Status of Women could both be funded through private donations if there are enough people out there who support these projects.

And, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the blossoming scandal at the National Hispanic Cultural Center — another publicly-financed, race-based project — where, as the Albuquerque Journal reports, $380,000 in capital outlay money was used to pay salaries. The kicker, which the article doesn’t focus on, is that the woman in charge at the time when this money was used inappropriately was Clara Apodaca, the ex-wife of former Gov. Jerry Apodaca. Wouldn’t you think that a former first lady would have at least a cursory understanding of the difference between capital and operating funding?

Rarely does vindication come so quickly, but last week I noted the school district in Chicago that had banned kids from bringing their lunches to school. I stated that the issue was one of control, not nutrition. Well, it was with great interest that I saw this article in the paper today which noted a “statistically-significant” connection between kids who are on the federal school lunch program and obesity.

Of course, what would we expect from a federal government that directs billions of tax dollars in subsidies towards unhealthy foods? So, when can we expect noted nutrition advocate Michelle Obama to direct her husband to adopt a firm stance against fattening farm subsidies? Thing is that she’d actually be helping her husband in the budget fight at the same time!

then the economy would really be booming. Or, so implies Patricia Anders, an attorney at the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty about Medicaid in a front page story in today’s Albuquerque Journal. How else is one to interpret her statement that “Every dollar spent in SNAP (food stamp) benefits actually generates $1.79 in total economic activity.”

Obviously, that is a pretty sweet multiplier — even better than the $1.50 we’re supposedly getting back on film subsidies — so I guess it makes sense to add even more New Mexicans (and Americans) to the program. Of course, this is indeed being done as there has been a concerted effort by the Agriculture Department to expand the program. But, as I have pointed out repeatedly, multipliers are almost entirely bogus and are simply used to prop up bad policy.

Ultimately, while I’d prefer to rely on charity, I can go along with state-run and financed food programs. Unfortunately, advocates like Anders benefit greatly from the status quo and will fight any such fiscal restraint tooth and nail as it is a direct threat to their jobs.

The left’s reaction — if there is one — will be interesting to the latest controversy between the Albuquerque Police Department’s union and the Berry Administration. The issue came to a head after the latest APD shooting and the Berry Administration’s call for more officer training.

There are three salient points from which we can begin the discussion:

1) Officers at APD have been involved in a lot of shootings recently;

2) In the private sector/real world, if your boss tells you to get more training and is paying you for this activity, you salute and say “thank you very much.” This is not a controversy;

3) Broadly speaking, “the left” tends to have more concerns about police shootings than those on the right.

The police union is being completely unreasonable here. It appears that the union believes that even accepting training on dealing with volatile situations is some kind of admission of guilt. I just don’t get it. The union is being confrontational for the sake of being confrontational. Is there any question that relations between City Hall and APD would be better without union hostility? Would Albuquerque be safer without a unionized police force? Will the left defend the Berry Administration or just sit by and let him fight a fight they should be a part of?

Along with my wife Krista and daughter Grace, we’ll be there on Menaul with the Albuquerque Tea Party this afternoon from 4 until about 5:30 to join the Tax Day Tea Party Rally. In three short years, the Tea Party has had a tremendous impact on New Mexico’s political situation — with the election of a fiscally-conservative Albuquerque Mayor and a fiscally-conservative Governor — and has completely changed the federal debate. We’ve gone from no one talking about fiscal restraint to even Barack Obama attempting to step in front of the spending cut parade.

The Tea Party is having an impact, so join them (and the Rio Grande Foundation) on Menaul this afternoon. And, if you can get a ticket at this point, join us at the Atlas Shrugged movie at the Rio 24.

There has been a lot of talk about government pensions recently. Wisconsin policymakers are still battling over reforms, but New Mexico policymakers are also working on modest, but much-needed reforms. We at the Rio Grande Foundation have also outlined reform ideas.

But a specific government pension case recently came to our attention (outlined in our new policy paper) that really took us aback. As this example illustrates, the granddaughter of a retired firefighter is entitled to a lifetime pension courtesy of New Mexico taxpayers. If she lives to 80, she could collect an astounding $14.5 million and would collect an astonishing $500,000 annually by her 80th birthday.

Simply put, this particular case should be prohibited via reform. But, more is to be done. Defined benefit pensions must be done away with and replaced by defined contribution pensions.

I may be the only one who made the connection between the two, but I thought this environmentalist had an eminently sensible take on nuclear power in a post-Fukashima world. To summarize, “don’t throw the nuclear “baby” out with the bathwater. Nuclear power is and will be an important source of power. This is a good message as no source of energy comes without costs.

And of course there is local gadfly Don Schraeder who was written up by my buddy Leslie Linthicum. Part of being pro-freedom means allowing people to choose the path that is right for them, so I have no ill will towards the man. He is a harsh critic of automobiles, though, and the article is largely about him not having driven for the last 10 years.

Thankfully, Schraeder has not — as far as I know — run for office and attempted to secure the levers of power to enforce his lifestyle, but it is hard to see how a car-free existence (he doesn’t ride buses or planes either) would be fulfilling or possible for people living more traditional lifestyles. Like having kids. Or wanting to travel outside of downtown Albuquerque. Imagine having family or friends in another city and never seeing them. Imagine never seeing New York City, Washington, DC, or visiting a body of water bigger than the Rio Grande.

For all I know, Schraeder may live to 100, but I don’t feel guilty for driving a car and I’ll continue to enjoy the conveniences and possibilities offered by modern technology and living standards.

If you work for the North Central Transit District, the answer is clearly “no” as this story illustrates. Of course, if you saw the recent stories in the Albuquerque Journal, (and here) you’d found out that the very same NCRTD which tells their PIO’s not to talk to the media

• Poured 78 cents into its administration  (for every dollar it spends).
• The executive director has received pay raises worth 33 percent over five years (she now makes almost $96K a year), while per passenger trips carry a price tag of $34.55.
• The district blames the high cost of running the program on being new and growing pains. That’s more than a little disingenuous considering it has been in gear since 2005. It’s even more so considering its twin to the south, the Rio Metro Regional Transit District, spends $21.20 per passenger trip by comparison.

Of course, this is all made possible due to the 1/8th cent gross receipts tax hike passed to fund the RailRunner and its feeder system. A private bus system could do this better and more cheaply if the market demands it and government gets out of the way.

People often ask me about various government policies and why they persist even though they have been shown to have failed. The dirty little secret seems to be that those in power want to control the actions of the rest of us, regardless of whether those policies are “effective” in achieving the proscribed goal.

One recent story that came to my attention is from a school district in Chicago that is FORCING children into the school lunch program.  No lunch from home. In the area of school “nutrition” programs, it started years ago with the federal school lunch program for low-income children although the public schools have been effective in promoting obedience for years. First Lady Michelle Obama more recently took up the nutrition control cause as have legislators in New Mexico. The state knows what is best for your children, of course!

And, while I could go on, check out this Congressman’s (justified) rant on the CFL light bulbs which will effectively become mandatory soon. Mind you, this law was supported by many Republicans (including Sen. Domenici) and signed by George W. Bush. The idea that the federal government should tell Americans what type of light bulb to use is just silly and of course found nowhere in the Constitution. But, it again controls our behavior and extracts obedience.

What’s the point? There is an ever-growing number of people who derive their wealth from the labor of the rest of us. They NEED us to think that we need them to tell us what to do. We don’t. Waking up to that fact is the clearest path to freedom.

I don’t normally spend time talking about the national blog scene or the left-wingers at the Huffington Post, but this story caught my attention.  The left-wing website is being sued by its unpaid bloggers. Let that sink in for a moment. A group of BLOGGERS is suing the now-AOL owned company. They even claim to have union representation through New York Chapter of the National Writers’ Union (UAW 1981).

This is already funny. How full of yourself as a blogger do you have to be to believe that your unsolicited postings on a website ENTITLE you to income?

Of course, this couldn’t happen to a more appropriate website — one that has done yeoman’s work to foster the sense of entitlement shared by its bloggers. So, the site that at once claims that the minimum wage is “a disgrace and a scandal” and that the minimum wage “increases and promotes jobs,” won’t pay the people who provide much of its content a dime. According to their “logic,” paying a minimum wage to the site’s bloggers would increase revenue and profits, right?

Funny stuff indeed. I won’t waste more typing on this silly site, but I eagerly await an outcome.

Back in 2008, I wrote about some Medicaid reforms that had taken place in Rhode Island and urged the Richardson Administration to take note and consider similar reforms. Unfortunately, nothing was done and, Medicaid continues to grow rapidly (far more rapidly than the average state) in New Mexico, crowding out other spending and lower taxes.

But, Rhode Island moved ahead and, according to data from the Pacific Research Institute, is seeing excellent results. According to the report:

Rhode Island’s waiver is not quite a block grant. It preserves the Federal Medical Assistance Percentages or FMAP, but caps aggregate federal and state spending through 2013 at $12.075 billion. Nevertheless, it appears to have had the results one would expect from a block grant. Spending has plummeted from what was anticipated. Remarkably, through the first six quarters of the waiver (January 1, 2009, through June 30, 2010) actual spending was only $2.7 billion versus $3.8 billion budgeted.

Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget would block grant Medicaid. While Rhode Island’s experience was not a true block grant, it only makes sense that states are going to be more innovative and flexible than the federal government. New Mexico’s leaders (both state and federal) need to start pushing for this reform regardless of the success or failure of Ryan’s budget lest Medicaid continue to consume ever more of the state and federal budgets.