I took Jerry Ortiz y Pino’s article on our recent appearance on 770 KKOB as an opportunity to respond to his compliment/hostility. My response in The Alibi can be found here.

First, Larry Abraham blew the proverbial whistle on the debacle that is the Rail Runner. His was the first real public accounting for the train’s shaky finances. Today, the Journal ran another article noting that the State will need to pony up another $16 million for track and system maintenance.

The legislator who we can thank for bringing this additional information to the public is GOP freshman legislator Alonzo Baldonado. The Legislative Finance Committee is due to report on the Rail Runner and its finances this November and I’m sure that report will contain further bad news and bombshells. Specifically, as Mark Mathis wrote in his excellent — albeit unposted on the web — article this morning, the $16 million is just the beginning of the train’s maintenance costs. Taxpayers will have another massive bill foisted upon them in a few decades (again) to keep the crazy train moving down the tracks.

Thanks to Mathis for helping to lead the (at this point small) chorus calling to stop the RailRunner in its tracks and before it bankrupts us.

The Leadership Institute is the granddaddy of conservative training organizations. Founded in 1979 by its president, Morton C. Blackwell, the Leadership Institute (LI) teaches conservatives the nuts and bolts of how to succeed in the public policy process.

Rather than traveling to Washington, DC for training, LI is bringing its top-notch (I have participated in several of their programs) training on how to run and manage campaigns to New Mexico later this month. The training will take place in Albuquerque on July 22nd and 23rd. Specific information on location and registration is available from the Albuquerque Tea Party here.

If you ever want to run for office, work for a political campaign, volunteer for a candidate, or want to maximize your effectiveness in working with a political party, be sure to attend this event.

On what planet is it a good idea to ration toilet paper as a means of closing a budget deficit? Apparently, this is exactly what New York City is doing right now.

The picture contained in the article makes me wonder whether the savings from the “spared squares” is being eaten up by having to pay salaries to bathroom attendants. Of course, in a leftist’s dream world where “jobs” is the mantra (as opposed to economic freedom, efficiency and growth), this makes perfect sense. In a logical world, Mayor Bloomberg would confront nasty and bloated government labor unions like our own Mayor Berry is doing.

Albuquerque Mayor Berry is taking heat from the unions again. They feel entitled to take care of union business on the taxpayers’ dime. Needless to say, paying city workers to work on behalf of their union and not the people who are paying them (the taxpayers) is a bad idea, no matter how the union bosses try to spin it.

This will save taxpayers money and will make the City a less profitable victim for the unions that feed off of the rest of us. Tell Mayor Berry and your city councilor that you support their efforts! I’m sure the unions will be voicing their opinions.

I read this recent article in the Journal with some amusement. It is a discussion of a new economic development tool — a website — that is supposed to help New Mexico attract new businesses and jobs to the state.

Color me skeptical. I’m not an expert on economic development and the mechanics of attracting companies to a particular plot of ground, but I think it is more complicated than just a website. In fact, the author notes that most companies want to know: “Where can they make the most profit?”

Well, the answer to THAT question has nothing to do with websites (unless you are Google or Amazon). We at the Rio Grande Foundation have some more substantive ideas for economic development that directly involve businesses’ bottom lines and, if adopted, would lead to a significant influx of businesses and jobs.

I appreciate the efforts of those who concern themselves with economic development in New Mexico, but I’d rather see a more thorough economic development plan based on real policy changes.

The constant refrain among many is that funding has been slashed in education and that more money is all that is needed to turn the system around. As I write in response to a recent article this new opinion piece, reforms, not money, are the keys to educational success.

I recently posted some charts that also explain the funding situation here.

If you want to see how cost-effective educational success CAN be in New Mexico, check out this listing of private school tuition rates.

The Albuquerque Journal and Los Ranchos Mayor Larry Abraham deserve thanks for their combined efforts to (for the first time, really), explain the Rail Runner’s finances to the public and show just how big of a debacle the train really is. The recent article “Fiscal Train Wreck” certainly sums the situation up as do the Journal’s editorial and Larry Abraham’s op-ed which was not posted on the paper’s website.

Basically, the train was built like a house of cards, relying on massive debt with the day of reckoning pushed off as far as possible (the years 2025 and 2027 to be exact) when payments of $230 million are due in each of those years. That doesn’t even account for the fact that train sets and rails will need to be replaced after 30 years of operation at something close to original cost, so a mere decade after these two “balloon payments” are due, taxpayers will be on the hook for another $450 million or so.

Of course, that is just the infrastructure cost. In terms of operations, passengers pay — according to Abraham — only 13.5 percent of the annual operating budget for the train. So, eliminating weekend service may save money, but any savings from that (or fare increases) will be a drop in the ocean. Abraham states at the conclusion of his article that we are faced with an “opportunity” to “make the best of what looks like a very bad situation.” It is time for Gov. Martinez to pull the plug on this rolling disaster.

Remember when folks on the Left thought the guy who shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was a conservative/Tea Party guy instead of a nut? If they weren’t actively trashing conservatives, they were talking about “toning down the rhetoric.”

Fine, I agree, we can disagree without being disagreeable (see my posting about Sen. Ortiz y Pino). But, isn’t it time the union thugs in Wisconsin got the civility memo? There, supporters of needed union reforms have gotten death threats. Lest you believe that this is an isolated incident, check out articles here, here, and here.

Now, it has been reported that at least one Wisconsin school has seen a dramatic, positive, budget turnaround due to Gov. Walker’s labor reforms:

The Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin near Appleton, has about 4,200 students and about 400 employees. It has struggled in recent times and this year faced a deficit of $400,000. But after the law went into effect, at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, school officials put in place new policies they estimate will turn that $400,000 deficit into a $1.5 million surplus. And it’s all because of the very provisions that union leaders predicted would be disastrous.

The lesson: If you go after the entrenched unions, you will pay a price, but facing unfair criticism is what leaders do when they make the right decision.

There’s no doubt that Sen. (Comrade as many call him) Ortiz y Pino and the Rio Grande Foundation are on the opposite sides of most issues. But, recently, I asked him — after attempting to get several New Mexico-based environmental groups to participate — to debate our guest Pat Michaels, a climate change expert with the libertarian Cato Institute on the issue of global warming and climate change. To give Jerry credit, he was willing to show up.

Of course, he followed up the debate with an Alibi column that, among other things, attacked conservatives for not giving appropriate spaces to lefties. We could have had Pat on for an hour by himself, but we (and host Bob Clark) wanted to have the other side represented…

So, according to Ortiz y Pino, I “garner ungodly amounts of print” and specifically reached out to him to get the left’s perspective. They may be backhanded compliments, but I’ll take them considering who they are coming from.

The rest of the article is a rant against the supposed corporate interests and other ad hominem attacks, but he does explain in his own way the nub of the disagreement he has with Michaels. However, Ortiz y Pino seems sanguine about the very real and imminent economic crisis facing our nation. Leaving solutions up to individuals acting in a — preferably, energy-subsidy free market — simply don’t believe that we are facing a crisis. Rather, they are instead being forced through backdoor mileage regulations to give up the comfort and safety of having a spare tire in their vehicles.

I’ve written a few times recently about New Mexico’s poor scores in several rankings on economic freedom. Go here and here. Well, CNBC has its own rankings of business friendliness and the results are not much better for the Land of Enchantment.

Overall, New Mexico ranks 43rd which is consistent with the other rankings. New Mexico performs best (24th) on Quality of Life on the CNBC report and performs worst (46th) on Business Friendliness. Not surprisingly, Texas performs highly, ranking second to Virginia on the CNBC ranking).

New Mexico has a lot of work to do to become an attractive place to do business.

Americans For Prosperity is a proud sponsor of supporting Dr. Friedman’s Legacy and welcome the opportunity to invite New Mexico’s fourth and fifth graders to submit a 600 word essay on Why School Choice is Important. Winners of the essay contest will receive their choice of $100 cash, a $100 U.S. Savings Bond or a $100 gift certificate.

Americans for Prosperity will announce the winner of the New Mexico contest on Friday, July 29, 2011, just two days before what would be Dr. Friedman’s 99th birthday. The Rio Grande Foundation is hosting its own education-related event in honor of Milton Friedman’s birthday.

If you know a fourth or fifth grader who would like to participate in the essay contest, please have them submit a 600 word essay on Why School Choice is Important to debbiehealy58@aol.com by July 20, 2011. Please make sure they include their name and full address on the submission.

Recently, Stephan Helgesen has written a great deal about the death of American manufacturing over at NMPolitics.net here and here. As I point out in this rebuttal, the reality is that, while manufacturing has changed and it employs fewer workers than it once did, it is extremely efficient and produces a great deal of value.

American manufacturing is hardly dead, but, like the rest of the economy, it would benefit from a boost of certainty and market-based policies.

Technically-speaking, New Mexico politicians have to balance the state’s budget every year. In reality, government employee pensions and health care benefits create burdens on taxpayers that are not accounted for in the annual budget process. But those bills WILL come due.

According to the Institute for Truth in Accounting’s new report on the True Financial Condition of the States, New Mexicans will need to cough up $9,000 per taxpayer in order to pay the bills for these future obligations.

The worst state is Connecticut which would require taxpayer payments in excess of $41,000 while a few western states like Utah and Wyoming are actually in the black according to the report. Said Sheila Weinberg, Founder and CEO of the Institute, “If governors and legislatures had truly balanced each state’s budget, no taxpayer’s financial burden would exist.” She continued, “A state budget is not balanced if past costs, including those for employees’ retirement benefits, are pushed into the future.”

If there ever was a real-world equivalent of Reardan Metal, it might just be Google. I’ve been using the site since college (the late 1990s) when I realized that it was the one search engine that constantly found what I was looking for in what was then the untamed wilds of the Internet.

Evidently, Google, like Microsoft more than a decade ago, has grown too successful for the bureaucrats in the Federal Government to tolerate. So, they have filed an antitrust case against the fabulously-successful internet search company.

The fact is that the antitrust case is silly. Google has a large market share because it is an amazing product. There is no monopoly. I could start my own search engine website if I wanted to, but it wouldn’t be as good as the ubiquitous Google. Simply put, the government should butt out and let Google continue to create jobs and innovative products. Putting the shackles on innovators will only hasten the day when Atlas Shrugged becomes reality.

The American Legislative Exchange Council, a national group of conservative and market-oriented legislators, has released a new report called “Rich States, Poor States,” which studies and ranks the 50 states based on various measures of economic freedom that the authors believe — and evidence shows — generate economic growth. Those authors, by the way include Arthur Laffer, former Reagan Administration economist, and Stephen Moore who resides on the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, along with Jonathan Williams of ALEC.

Not surprisingly, New Mexico does not perform especially well with a “ALEC-Laffer State Economic Outlook Ranking” of 39th. Also contained in the paper are — and more important for policymakers, are the “10 Golden Rules of Effective Taxation.” This document is a must-read for policymakers along with our own “Economic Roadmap for New Mexico.”

The Rio Grande Foundation will be hosting Jonathan Williams of ALEC, one of the study’s authors, at an event this fall.

Pat Michaels recently addressed the global warming issue at an RGF-sponsored event. And, while we at the Rio Grande Foundation may not support the subsidies given to ANY energy source, it is amazing that even politically-correct solar power is running up against obstacles with the Obama Administration.

As this article notes, a rare turtle is the latest reason not engage in energy production.

In what many have called a surprising move, Rep. Martin Heinrich (a candidate for the US Senate) has come out in favor of dramatic reductions in the US Corporate income tax rate. Heinrich has not exactly compiled a record of fiscal restraint in Congress, so this is definitely a shift.

Well, let’s give Heinrich the benefit of the doubt here. First and foremost, the United States now has the highest corporate income tax rate in the world. Heinrich — like most mainstream economists — undoubtedly views the current corporate income tax rate as problematic. Good for him. I hope he makes corporate tax reduction a central focus of his efforts in Washington.

Of course, the cynic would say, Heinrich is also running for the US Senate. With concerns about jobs paramount in Americans’ minds, coming out in favor of reduced corporate income taxes is a good way to position yourself as a fiscal moderate, regardless of your actual record. This is especially true given the very real problems Democrats — Obama in particular — are facing on the economy.

Personally, while I do believe that corporate income tax rates are problematic, I think the policy uncertainty inherent in ObamaCare and new financial regulations (along with the nation’s deteriorating financial situation) is what is driving current economic problems. Reducing corporate income taxes would be a good move, but overturning ObamaCare and dramatically-reducing federal spending would do more for the economy, particularly if one — like Heinrich — might be concerned with future electoral success.

Last night, before a nice crowd at the UNM Law School, Cato Institute climate expert Patrick Michaels presented on some of the issues addressed in his new book “Climate Coup: Global Warmings Invasion of Our Government and Our Lives.”

His powerpoint slides can be found here and video of his talk and the Q&A period can be found below:

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article calling for a rebirth of federalism in American government. Recently, a left wing former English teacher attacked me for being a “reactionary.”

Find out this Friday who is right at our Albuquerque luncheon event with Dr. David Bobb, a Constitutional expert at Hillsdale College (one of only a few colleges nationwide which takes no federal funding).

I couldn’t help but notice this story from National Review online which seems to indicate that our own Gov. Gary Johnson was the best “job creating” governor among the GOP presidential field when he was Governor of New Mexico.

While I like Gary Johnson a great deal, the analysis really doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. First and foremost, not all of the GOP candidates were governors. Bachmann, Gingrich, Santorum, Cain, and Paul were not. That leaves just Pawlenty, Huntsman, Romney, Palin, and Johnson (throw in Perry for good measure though he hasn’t announced).

Then, there is the very real fact that Governors don’t “create” jobs. They only have partial control — along with their respective legislatures — over setting the conditions to create those jobs. Also, the policy conditions that a governor encounters while in office were created over generations. New Mexico is a liberal state that relies on federal largesse while Texas is a conservative one that creates jobs and economic growth by itself. Comparing the two is nearly impossible.

Lastly, there is the issue of time-frame. Johnson governed during the boom times of the 1990s and early 2000s. Most of the other candidates were in office more recently and thus have endured a struggling US economy.

I’m still looking at and learning about the other contenders, but I do know that Gary Johnson would never go for RomneyCare.

Recently, the House Appropriations Committee in Congress voted to slash funding for the proposed Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility at Los Alamos. This project is one that we have criticized in the past as costs have spiraled out of control as the project has moved forward in the design stages — let alone construction.

The actual savings are small and yes, there may be some minimal impact on New Mexico’s economy, but the time for fiscal restraint is now. Hopefully Congress will continue cutting!

Kate O’Neill of the UNM Taos campus and UNM president David Schmidly had an inane column recently in the Albuquerque Journal. The sum total of their arguments was to argue on behalf of the myriad branch campuses throughout New Mexico. By my count, UNM alone has 10 statewide education centers, main campus, and a campus in Rio Rancho. Other universities such as NMSU and Highlands have their own campuses throughout the state as well.

Basically, the assertion is that New Mexico simply can’t afford to cut down on any of these branch campuses lest we fall behind even further in education. Of course, the “local jobs” argument was thrown in as well for good measure. To say the least, their arguments don’t hold much water in my book as they have no data to back up their arguments.

The Legislative Finance Committee, on the other hand, has an excellent report that is well worth reading on higher education in New Mexico, the fact that we have too many branch campuses and a bloated higher ed system that is not accountable for results. Interestingly enough, New Mexico has among the worst college graduation and first-year retention rates in the nation.

Separately, in a letter to the editor published today, a writer claimed — in a letter that I otherwise agreed with — that UNM’s graduating students have the second-highest debt load in the nation. This is simply not the case as this report from the Project on Student Debt points out. No New Mexico university appears on the report’s “heavy debt” listing although two of them do appear on the listing of “low debt colleges and universities.”

Las Cruces teacher Bill Soules writes in the Sun-News that if we spent more money on education, we’d have better schools. Haven’t we explained this canard before?

Here is a chart of US spending on education as compared with actual education results:

Here is a chart of students per teacher:

As this paper notes, New Mexico’s experience is not out of line with those elsewhere.

The problem is clearly not a lack of spending, the problem is instead one of incentives and the fact that spending more money doesn’t necessarily result in the hiring of better teachers and overall improvements in educational output.