Personally, I think that if they are going to name the I-40/Coors Interchange near my house after Bill Richardson, they should buy “Fathead”-style pictures of Richardson, so that I can drive over the top of him and make him eat my global-warming-inducing exhaust whenever I like (after all, I want to remember the guy, right)? Nonetheless, I stuck to a narrower script about the role of politicians in society and whether having this interchange named after Richardson is appropriate or not for an interview with Channel 4.

Watch the interview below:

The naming of buildings and other projects after one’s-self is nothing new, nor is it a partisan problem. House Speaker Ben Lujan, US Sen. Pete Domenici, and Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton have all named government buildings after themselves even though they are still/were in office.

Gov. Richardson has long been known for padding the state work force with so-called “exempt” employees. Now, like rats fleeing a sinking ship, those government workers are trying to find the safety of being “classified.”

Allowing this to go unchallenged would pile millions of dollars onto the payroll at a time of massive deficits. It would also preclude more qualified workers from pursuing their jobs. View the Channel 4 report on the incoming governor’s efforts to do the right thing here:

An article in the business section of today’s Albuquerque Journal caught my eye. “Los Cuates May Fill Space at Sunport.” Well, that’s nice, it looks like the spot vacated by Gardunos will be filled.

Then I read further into the article…subject to approval from City Council…! Seriously, regardless of what actually happens with this vote — I hope it is approved — is managing the restaurants that do business in the Albuquerque Sunport really the job of City Council? Me, I’d like to see management of the terminal done by a private company which would likely do a better job at a far lower price…and they wouldn’t have to get City Council’s approval to add a new restaurant.

In case you missed it, on last night’s 10pm news, I sat down with the folks at Channel 13 news to discuss our budget cutting ideas. The full report is available below:

Certainly, the ideas are not popular with those who we are trying to place on the chopping block, but the only other set of proposals I’ve seen from a left-wing group called “We are New Mexico,” is not very specific and doesn’t seem to cut very much. That group’s cuts are available below:

Selling severance-tax bonds to avoid cutting state jobs. Senate Democratic Leader Michael Sanchez introduced a bill in this year’s Legislature to issue $76 million in bonds to avoid job cuts. However, the measure never made it to the Senate floor.

Closing out-of-state corporate tax loopholes. (Martinez, during the campaign, said she was opposed to legislation to plug this loophole, equating it to increasing taxes.)
Reviewing “top-heavy administrative positions” as opposed to positions necessary to provide needed services.

Reviewing all tax incentives to see which are beneficial to the state and which are not.

Check out this news story (disregard slightly annoying ad) from New York on an effort by a few local teens to do something productive by holding a bake sale. A busybody council man “caught” the two engaging in such nefarious activity and shut the effort down because “the two were selling for their own benefit rather than a charity.” More details on the situation in this article.

There are two really interesting things about this situation:

1) Teen unemployment is a real problem in this nation and this kind of government meddling is a major reason (26% percent according to this article). Minimum wages are another. But, what better ways to kill the natural entrepreneurial spirit of a couple of teenagers than for city bureaucrats to make life difficult on them;

2) The somewhat less jerk-like Robert Snyder (another city bureaucrat interviewed in the story) says that “he’d be happy to sell them a permit for $1 or something — if they are going to use the money for college — just to show them that there’s a cost of doing business.” This guy makes me almost as sick as the other councilor who stopped the teens in the first place.

The inputs in terms of flour and sugar cost money; so does the time to make the baked goods and sell them; the only thing government does is stand in the way (this is a microcosm of almost all government interaction with business). Lastly, I find it morally offensive that Snyder feels the need to lecture these two youngsters on what they can do with their earnings. It is THEIR money after all and they should be able to engage in economic activity in any legitimate way they wish and do with their money what they want, regardless of the wishes of government.

I don’t know how often similar things happen here in New Mexico, but I do know that Doug Turner (an RGF board member) had to pull some political strings when he was a kid trying to run his own lemonade stand.

Just in time for the Holiday travel time, the TSA’s searches have become ever more intrusive and absurd, not to mention expensive with the newest scanners costing between $130,000-$170,000 per unit. . As a government bureaucracy, however, we have very few options for opting out of their system or going elsewhere for the “service” of airline security. There is also, realistically, zero competition with TSA.

The problem has created situations like this one where it would seem like a young woman was targeted for her looks. Byron York argues, justifiably, that more airports should opt out of using TSA to provide security. That’s nice, but I prefer the idea of abolishing the TSA entirely as this guy writes at Forbes.

Just in time for the Holiday travel time, the TSA’s searches have become ever more intrusive and absurd, not to mention expensive with the newest scanners costing between $130,000-$170,000 per unit. . As a government bureaucracy, however, we have very few options for opting out of their system or going elsewhere for the “service” of airline security. There is also, realistically, zero competition with TSA.

The problem has created situations like this one where it would seem like a young woman was targeted for her looks. Byron York argues, justifiably, that more airports should opt out of using TSA to provide security. That’s nice, but I prefer the idea of abolishing the TSA entirely as this guy writes at Forbes.

I for one plan to opt out of the scanner when I travel out of Albuquerque this Friday.

Tom Molitor writing over at New Mexico Politics describes just a few ways in which New Mexico’s budget either doesn’t make sense. Also, today, the Rio Grande Foundation released more than $450 million specific savings that would adhere to Governor-Elect Martinez’s campaign pledge to not cut Medicaid or K-12 education.

Read the short report here.

There is a lot for fiscal conservatives to like in President Obama’s Fiscal Commission. A full explanation of the first draft can be found here. A shorter summary can be found here. Specifically, the discretionary and defense spending cuts need to be considered and, while politically difficult, should attract some support from both sides of the aisle.

The most questionable aspects of the plan focus on Social Security with reform ideas such as:

Index the retirement age to longevity — i.e., increase the retirement age to qualify for Social Security — to age 69 by 2075.

Index Social Security yearly increases to inflation rather than wages, which will generally mean lower cost of living increases and less money per average recipient.
“Increase progressivity of benefit formula” — i.e., means test part of Social Security benefits by 2050.

Increase the Social Security contribution ceiling: while people only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,800 of their wages today, that’s only about 86% of the total potentially taxable wages. The co-chairs suggest raising the ceiling to capture 90% of wages.

This is a massive tax hike and is designed to make the program another welfare program (redistribution of wealth) rather than the original vision of a “social safety net” for all Americans. Liberals have typically opposed efforts to make Social Security more “progressive” as the system will lose needed support from the wealthy, but that strategy appears to have been abandoned.

Personally, I think it is obvious that Social Security needs to allow young people to opt into a system where they own their own accounts. All the tax hikes and raising retirement ages is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Of course, the recommendations are nowhere near as fiscally-conservative as I’d like. The folks at Americans for Tax Reform explain the many issues fiscal conservatives might (and indeed should) have with the plan. Nonetheless. it would seem that the spending reductions are a good place to start. Hopefully they provide a foundation for a needed national discussion.

One way that President Obama, Congress, Susana Martinez, the Legislature, and even city governments could spur their respective economies is by abolishing most professional licensing or at least making such licensing optional. Thus, if you wish to go to a business that is licensed by the relevant government agency, you are free to do that (and pay whatever the additional price is for such services). If you wish to patronize an unlicensed establishment, be that a restaurant, barber shop, or even a doctor, you should be able to do that, but they must tell you that they are not government licensed.

This would create competition while spurring economic growth, and it would put busy-body regulators out of business and force them to find real jobs. One recent illustration of how crazy such regulations can get is from Los Angeles where police raided several African-American barber shops due to a lack of licenses.

Another example is of a hot dog vendor in North Carolina that would have had to obtain a license to operate from his competition. He is now in jail.

Government licensing may be well-intended, but it often leads to abuses. To enable competition while preserving it for those who want to keep it in place, I say make it optional.

On Wednesday the 10th of November, the Rio Grande Foundation hosted Ivan Eland, author of “Recarving Rushmore” for a talk on the best and worst presidents in US history and how President Obama ranks among those.

Rob Nikolewski over at Capitol Report has an excellent account of the event and a brief interview with Eland. Check it all out here. Eland’s full talk can be found here.

While I certainly look forward to working with increased numbers of conservatives here in New Mexico, I am also excited about the prospects of divided government putting the brakes on out of control spending in Washington. Why is that? Simply put, spending growth is far lower when power is split among the parties in Washington. And, with the Republicans controlling the House and Democrats in control of the Presidency and somewhat more tenuously controlling the Senate, we might just see some more restraint in Washington in the years ahead. Check out the charts below for a vivid illustration of the benefits of split government:

On Tuesday, November 9, Paul Gessing of the Rio Grande Foundation presented to a group of senior citizens as part of an OASIS class. The title of my talk was “How Does New Mexico Rank?” My powerpoint presentation with lots of interesting charts and graphs can be found here.

There’s lots of information on the economy, education, and New Mexico government.

One of the Rio Grande Foundation’s greatest achievements includes having worked with the Legislature and Governor Richardson to reform New Mexico’s eminent domain laws to protect property owners against eminent domain abuse in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision. In fact, according to the Castle Coalition, which works on such issues, New Mexico’s property protections are among the strongest in the nation.

Unfortunately, the folks at the City of Rio Rancho — despite a specific carve out in the current law — remain dissatisfied with current restrictions and are looking to introduce legislation enabling local governments to engage in additional takings.

A hearing on the issue was held in Santa Fe last week and I went to register concern. Check out my brief comments below:

With the dust now settled from the 2010 election, the time for balancing the budget and cutting spending is now. Thankfully, there are a lot of smart people out there with some good ideas — even those that can be agreed upon by the left and right — that can go a long way toward closing the federal budget deficit.

National Taxpayers Union and the lefties over at PIRG have come up with $600 million in specific spending cuts;

Brian Riedl at the Heritage Foundation has put together his own list of $343 billion in spending cuts;

Ben Friedman and Christopher Preble over at Cato have put a list together of $1.2 trillion in defense-related spending cuts (over the next ten years).

These are just a few of the specific spending cut proposals I’ve seen. If the new Republican majority in the House is serious about cutting spending, they need to start with a few items on these lists and add their own touches.

President Obama is traveling through India and the far east and while we at the Rio Grande Foundation have had many differences with the President and his economic policies, Obama rightly noted that India’s economic development helps rather than hurts America’s economy and creates rather than destroys jobs. The broader point here is that free trade is economically beneficial.

The question I have is why Obama has not supported free trade agreements like the pending one with Columbia and South Korea.

These initiatives would help open new markets to American goods and services. Obama should work with Republicans to expand free trade as a means of helping to turn the US economy around.

I talked to Mike Jaxson of KSVP Radio in Artesia about the 2010 election, Susana Martinez’s victory, Steve Pearce’s return to Congress, and the Environmental Improvement Board’s carbon cap power grab.

Take a listen here.

Mayor Berry has wisely announced that Albuquerque cannot afford to waste taxpayer money on an expanded convention center complex. While the Mayor left the prospect of this project open for the future, he did take a firm stand against those like Councilor Ken Sanchez who see no problem with raising taxes in a down economy for a project that will benefit only a small sliver of the business community while adding to the City’s debt burden (which includes $78 million in outstanding debt on the current facility).

The Mayor’s decision shows that he is serious about fiscal restraint and turning around Albuquerque’s economy by making it attractive to businesses and entrepreneurs rather than using taxpayer dollars to target specific industries and groups for largess. Thank you Mr. Mayor!

I admit it: I am a fan of late-night comedian/political host Jon Stewart and his Daily Show. So, it was with great interest that I followed his “Rally to Restore Sanity” last weekend in Washington, DC.

While Stewart is definitely to the left of center, he has an anti-establishment streak that I enjoy. He gave an interesting speech at the end of last weekend’s rally that I think sums up Stewart’s frustrations — and those of many on both sides of the political spectrum in this country — over the lack of civility in the political discourse.

While I agree with most of what Stewart says, he (and most on the left) fail to understand that one of the big reasons for the lack of civility is that the use of government force to take over health care or control the economy (through cap and trade), and the generally-expanding role of the federal government is bound to generate increased hostility. After all, no person or group of persons can make decisions for 300 million other people that makes everyone happy. That doesn’t even take into account the reality that frustration increases when some are forced to pay the bills for others.

That is why the Founders emphasized both voluntary interaction and federalism. The reality is (as Stewart notes in his speech) that Americans get along extremely well when we interact voluntarily (the double-thank you moment, for example). It is when a distant and isolated federal government must make one-size-fits-all decisions on education, health care, and the economy in general that people start to get frustrated.

Hopefully, the folks in Washington get the message from the voters that Washington is simply incapable of solving our problems and that average people working voluntarily together have always done a better job at this. We’ll see whether they got the message.

Last night’s election results certainly represented a shift towards conservatism and the GOP here in New Mexico and nationally. With the election of Susana Martinez as the nation’s first Hispanic female Governor, fiscal restraint and limited government will hopefully be the dominant paradigm for the next four years.

While it was not as prominently reported — and it would seem they announced their decision on Election Day to keep it that way — New Mexico’s Environmental Improvement Board approved a New Mexico-only carbon cap.

So, Governor-Elect Susana Martinez faces an important early decision as far as what she should do with regard to the EIB’s carbon cap (which she has said she strongly opposes). An executive order rescinding the would be one way to repeal the new regulation which will, if it is not stopped, harm New Mexico’s economy by forcing 63 large industrial sources of greenhouse gas emissions – including power plants as well as oil and gas companies – to reduce emissions by 2% per year until 2020.

I hope Martinez takes action upon her inauguration to rescind the carbon cap. It will undoubtedly be an important early decision for the Governor-elect.

Amongst all of the election coverage I totally missed reports like this one which states that the recently completed runway at the taxpayer-financed “Spaceport America” in southern New Mexico was named after Governor Richardson.

Personally, I find the practice of naming public buildings and other taxpayer-funded things like the spaceport runway after sitting public officials to be rather offensive. Our Capitol Reporter, Rob Nikolewski has reported extensively on this here, here, and here. I happen to agree with the Las Cruces Sun-News editorial that taxpayers are getting the short end of the stick here. After all, if the Spaceport is going to be the international attraction that we all expect (not), why not sell the naming rights much as they do for sports stadiums?

Of course, selling naming rights would have deprived Richardson of his “legacy” and we couldn’t have that. I’m surprised he didn’t name the Rail Runner after himself. Of course, he took credit for “funding” it a long time ago.

Robert Samuelson has a great piece in today’s Washington Post on President Obama’s misguided efforts to create a national high-speed rail network.

Samuelson notes, quite rightly, that high speed rail will be tremendously costly, will not reduce traffic congestion, and will serve a tiny, preferred minority group of passengers. Randal O’Toole said many of the same things during his visit to New Mexico (and in a policy brief), just as we at the Rio Grande Foundation said about the Rail Runner.

How does a government monopoly compete against itself? Good question. Perhaps the author of a recent Albuquerque Journal column, Natalie Medina Coggins, has some idea because she asserts that this is the case throughout her article explaining why New Mexico’s higher education system is not only efficient, but could grow.

The assertions made in the article contradict research by the Legislative Finance Committee and the Rio Grande Foundation (to name just two entities that have studied the issue). Medina Coggins takes Sen. John Arthur-Smith to task for pointing out the obvious fact that “duplicate courses are too expensive and risk diluting the state’s best academic programs.”

Medina Coggins cites her husband’s experiences as a professor of social work as “proof” that New Mexico couldn’t possibly cut spending on higher ed, but makes no specific, substantive arguments. After all, this would be tough to do as it would be quite difficult to “prove” that taxpayers benefit from the millions of dollars annually spent to produce new masters in social work and other areas of interest that may or may not provide a real return to society.

While an educated society is important, taxpayer subsidies for higher education clearly benefit middle and upper-income citizens at the expense of families whose children do not obtain a college degree (more than 75% of the population). Like all expenditures of taxpayer money in tough economic times, higher ed spending needs analysis and transparency. Contrary to Medina Coggins’ assertions, Sen. Smith and Rep. Saavedra should be applauded for taking a closer look at the issue.

Jim announced a while back that he was retiring. With all of the work he’s done for the Foundation in keeping an eye on the politicians and the ruling class here in New Mexico (and nationwide), we decided to have a going away party and honor him with a Lights of Liberty award.

Here is Jim receiving the award:

We also gave Jim a few gag gifts including a framed map of New Mexico’s 40 Congressional districts — as found by Scarantino in his “Phantom Congressional Districts” story.

The map — including some whimsical districts — was created by Albuquerque cartoonist Rex Barron and can be found below (if you are interested in obtaining a similar map, email us at info@riograndefoundation.org:

I knew that my writing (here and here) on the success of tax cuts in driving New Mexico’s economy would eventually get a rise out of some left-wingers. Today, Gerry Bradley of New Mexico Voices for Children rose to the occasion with this article decrying both the Bush and Richardson tax cuts. The gist of Bradley’s article reminds me of Bill Clinton’s quote from some years back “sure, we could cut taxes, but what if you spent your money wrong?”

Bradley seems to assume that anyone who saw their tax burden reduced under the Bush and Richardson tax cuts of the past decade took off for a European vacation and that these cuts had no positive economic impact at home. This is just silly. Richardson’s tax cuts, for example, reduced rates for everyone earning more than $16,000 annually. This hardly qualifies as “rich.” Even those who are earning more money — which includes small business owners — are spending a vast majority of that money here at home in New Mexico, not on vacations overseas.

Lastly, Bradley fails to even address why New Mexico’s personal income level rose above several other states (and has continued to rise even as oil and gas prices have fallen). Yes, we had a housing boom, but so did many other states. He also does not address findings by Arthur Laffer and others that states with no personal income tax are magnets for population and investment. Bradley just doesn’t like tax cuts. He and his cronies at “Voices” would rather have government control all economic output. That is the argument, plain and simple.