Despite having graduated from St. Michael’s High School in Santa Fe Michelle Lujan Grisham is no fan of school choice. She doesn’t even like it when the federal government enacts programs to allow New Mexicans to obtain the education that works for them and their children. This is true even though New Mexico’s education system is ranked last in the nation. 

In the Big Beautiful Bill which was passed this summer a program to do the following:

• Taxpayers can receive a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for donations made to certified Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs).
• The maximum credit is $1,700 per taxpayer per year.
• Taxpayers cannot direct their donation toward a specific family or student. 

• Qualifying families receive scholarships from Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGO’s) to cover approved educational expenses.
• To be eligible, a student must be able to enroll in a public school, and their family’s income must not exceed 300% of the median gross income for their area.
• The scholarships can be used for a wide range of expenses, including private school tuition, homeschooling materials, tutoring, and special education services. 

The program is set to take effect on January 1, 2027, just as MLG leaves office (at the end of 2026). Sadly, this is an opt-in program, meaning states must voluntarily elect to participate. States must also approve the SGOs that operate within their borders. Lujan Grisham’s spokesperson Michael Coleman recently stated that New Mexico “would not opt into the program.” 

Hopefully New Mexico’s next governor will have a better approach than MLG. This is one of many questions that need to be asked of the candidates running for Gov. from both parties.  

On this week’s interview Paul talks to Dr. Jason Lucas an orthopedic surgeon from Farmington, NM. Dr. Lucas is a self-described fan of Tipping Point NM and we welcome his unique perspective on New Mexico’s medical provider shortage, especially his attempts to recruit other doctors to Farmington and the proximity of his practice to the Navajo Nation. Don’t miss this unique perspective on New Mexico’s medical provider shortage!

On this week’s conversation Paul and Wally discuss the Foundation’s recent media relating to the Albuquerque Public Schools $350 million bond. You can see the ABQ Journal article here and the KOAT 7 story here.

An update on the billboard campaign and state’s response.

Among the topics EDD has posted on is NM’s growth in manufacturing.

Another data point being touted by MLG’s administration is on the drop in child poverty. There is indeed good news albeit it is also a tacit admission that MLG’s prior statements have been misleading.

A pumpkin patch located near Albuquerque was attacked recently. Here’s more on the McCall’s attack by a local teacher union.

MLG is supporting a planned nuclear fusion facility and offering big subsidies for it. That contrasts sharply with her reaction to a nuclear waste storage facility’s decision to abandon New Mexico. 

RGF releases Freedom Index scores for the recent special session.

They say “agua es vida” in New Mexico (water is life). In the desert southwest water is critical to human flourishing and the broader economy of the state and region. So, when we were presented with an opportunity to put water that is produced alongside oil and gas, we had only one question: “Is it safe?” We spent 45 minutes on a recent Tipping Point NM episode discussing the safety of treating and using “produced” water. You can listen to that here.

You can read our letter in support of putting this water to work for the benefit of New Mexicans here.

If you’d like to submit your own comments to the New Mexico Environment Department on this issue you can do so here.

Even Gov. Lujan Grisham is generally supportive of this idea. Sadly, the opponents are powerful and well-funded radical so-called “environmental” groups who care more about killing oil and gas than expanding New Mexico’s water supplies.

There is an excellent opinion piece in support of using this water by Land Commissioner candidate Michael Perry.

Back in August we noted that the value of New Mexico’s sovereign wealth funds had risen from $58 billion at the start of 2025 to $64 billion by mid August. On October 12, 2025 the Albuquerque Journal again updated the worth of these funds to note that they total $66 billion. If you are counting at home that means the investment funds owned by the State of New Mexico have grown by $8 billion in value over the first 10.5 months of 2025 thanks to continued oil and gas growth as well as investments.

According to Rob Black of the NM Economic Development Department, ““You can look at Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and now, New Mexico, that are deploying a sovereign wealth fund aligned with strategic economic development.” We took a closer look at these countries’ economies and were rather surprised to see how low Saudi Arabia’s incomes are.

Regardless, New Mexico doesn’t need to hoard so much money. While growth in the sovereign wealth fund isn’t a bad thing. The State’s sovereign wealth fund is up 13.7% in less than a year. On the other hand it has obviously not done much to generate prosperity for average New Mexicans under the current Administration. It is time to us use those dollars to truly benefit New Mexicans.

Abu Dhabi’s per capita income was around $84,900 (2023),

Singapore’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita for 2023 was approximately $84,734;

New Mexico’s 2023 Real GDP per capita was $49,879

Shockingly, Saudi Arabia’s GDP per capita in 2023 was just $32,529

As part of the Department’s effort to tout positive data about New Mexico and its economy, the Economic Development Department sent out the following chart. The upshot of the chart is that over the last year New Mexico experienced 1.4% growth in manufacturing employment while the US as a whole experienced a slight decline of 0.6%.

To be fair, this is indeed good news, but yearly data bounce around all over the place. If you notice four of the top five states in terms of percentage change are small population Western states (including New Mexico). In fact, conveniently, several of the top performing states are in the Western US.

What is more notable than a small yearly change is the fact that New Mexico’s manufacturing employment is so small relative to our neighbors.

Colorado has 6 million people (about 3X New Mexico’s 2 million) but it’s manufacturing employment is more than 5X New Mexico’s.

Arizona has 7.3 million people (3.65X New Mexico’s 2 million) but it’s manufacturing employment is also more than 5X New Mexico’s.

Texas has 31 million people (15.5X New Mexico’s) but it’s manufacturing is 33.4X New Mexico’s.

Don’t get us wrong, New Mexico has seen some positive economic news recently, aided of course by the State’s massive oil and gas boom), but the year-over-year growth touted by NMED is trivial when the State’s fundamental manufacturing (and job growth) climate remains beholden to economically-harmful policies like the gross receipts tax which MLG once supported reform of. 

An effort to reform and reduce New Mexico’s tax structure would have a lasting positive impact on manufacturing and job creation in general. It’s too bad the Gov. and Democrat controlled Legislature won’t embrace them.

As noted in a recent post on Errors of Enchantment.com Albuquerque Public Schools is looking for a $350 million bond on this fall’s ballot. While RGF doesn’t necessarily oppose the uses of the bond we have looked closely at the APS budget and have seen a steep decline in the student population while the District’s budget has exploded.

RGF’s president recently discussed why voters should be skeptical about the need for such a significant bond. Check out the full report by clicking here or the image below:

Recently we covered a billboard campaign undertaken by one man in an effort to highlight New Mexico politicians’ failures on a variety of issues relating to crime and education. We happen to not only agree with him, but would add (and have extensively covered the fact) that New Mexico’s roads are falling apart, medical providers are in scarce supply, and that the Legislature and Gov. have failed to effectively use New Mexico’s massive oil and gas largesse in recent years to address these and other issues.

Well, New Mexico’s Economic Development Department responded with their own “campaign.” They are mock ups and they attempt to respond to the billboards. You can see several of them by scrolling through the Department’s Twitter feed. We’ll take several of them on here as of the afternoon of Friday, 10/10/2025.

1. NM has the 2nd largest sovereign wealth fund. Yes, this is true thanks to oil and gas. Why can’t we return money to New Mexico people and businesses in the form of tax cuts rather than government keeping all this money? New Mexico should be in great shape, but it is not.
2. NM is #1 in Family income growth.  We had an awful time confirming this data point because the EDD doesn’t provide a direct citation. One year of good data does not mean much. According to the Census Bureau New Mexico is the poorest state in the nation and nothing dramatic has improved during the nearly 8 years of Gov. MLG’s reign.
3. NM is first state w/ free child care and free college. So what? Has this led to higher incomes, improved outcomes for students/children? Are people and businesses moving to New Mexico for this? (the answer is no). It is time to judge New Mexico policies by their outputs, not their inputs in the form of more money).
4. NM is #1 in R&D spend intensity and PhD’s: Congratulations, we have two national nuclear laboratories thanks to historical accidents and federal taxpayers. The Labs are important to New Mexico, but haven’t gotten the State’s crime rate under control or improved educational outcomes overall.

The best quote comes from the man behind the billboards (keep an eye out for an upcoming podcast with him):

While I applauded everything positive New Mexico does to improve childcare and college tuition- the fact remains that 80% of eighth grader cannot read or do math at their grade level. And overall, our national ranking in education is Last Place— KRQE Facebook page shows over 3,000 likes and 1,000 heartfelt positive comments stating that we need to first admit that we have enormous problems so we can work together to solve them.

On this week’s interview Paul talks to Jennifer Bradfute and Matthias Sayer about the Water Access Treatment and Reuse (WATR) Alliance and ways they are working to increase the supply of water in New Mexico. Ironically, the effort is being opposed by well-funded radical environmentalists.

Agua es vida and this effort will bring more needed water to New Mexico. Find out more and how you can help on this episode.

It’s not “normal.” In fact, this was an “extra special” session of New Mexico’s Legislature. The Governor called it because she wanted to keep subsidies flowing to core political constituencies and keep New Mexicans dependent on government. She and the Legislature dominated by her fellow Democrats have had ample opportunities (including the special) to reform the State’s failing health care system and improve/diversify our economy, but she and many legislators in her party remain steadfastly opposed.

The Rio Grande Foundation didn’t just work at the Roundhouse this session, we also tracked the votes in our Freedom Index. You can find the votes for YOUR legislators and those of the rest of the Legislature here.

Nuclear energy is having a bit of a resurgence right now for obvious reasons. It is widely seen (by many on all sides of the political debate) as the only source of electricity that is: steady, zero-carbon, and can be implemented at a reasonable cost. Conservatives like it because unlike wind and solar it is steady and takes up less space than wind farms and solar fields while some (not all) environmentalists are willing to admit that wind and solar can’t fulfill our energy needs.

Which leads us to three developments in nuclear pertaining to New Mexico and Gov. MLG.

1. 1. Recently the Gov. touted a $1 billion investment from a company called Pacific Fusion which is planning to build a research and manufacturing facility in Albuquerque. We have concerns about the subsidies which include $9 million in State of New Mexico LEDA funds and $776.6 million in Industrial Revenue Bonds. There are also MANY reasons to be concerned about the viability of fusion as a technology which has not been implemented anywhere in the world. 
   2. The Gov.’s “Energy Transition Act” passed in 2019 does  include nuclear as a “zero carbon fuel” but focuses on wind and solar, not nuclear which is considered “non-renewable.” 
   3. MLG just announced that she has “successfully” chased Holtec away from building a potential nuclear storage facility in Southeastern New Mexico. Had Holtec built its facilities here New Mexico would have been the beneficiary of hundreds of jobs and hundreds of million of dollars of economic benefits, without state and local subsidies.

On this week’s Tipping Point NM Paul and Wally discuss:

What happened during the special session?

The federal budget shutdown and NM’s recent special session are connected in some pretty profound ways.

APS is asking for a $350 million bond.

New Mexico resident puts up billboards discussing New Mexico’s problems.

Fusion company plans to invest $1 billion in New Mexico research and manufacturing facility.

Recently, the New Mexico Legislature in a special session DID NOT address the existence of ICE facilities in three New Mexico counties. Apparently there are enough Democrats who wish these facilities or at least the jobs and tax revenues they provide to continue. But, the Albuquerque Federation of Teachers union in the post below not only made their position clear but is attempting to harm the McCall’s Pumpkin Patch because one of the owners also serves on the Torrance County Commission and has supported allowing ICE to continue working in his County.

Whatever your views on ICE or immigration may be, this is one of many examples of why government employee unions shouldn’t exist. They don’t care about representing teachers and their interests. They never polled their member on this issue. This is a political position taken by the union bosses that could do real harm to a tax paying, hiring business here in New Mexico. On the flip side it is a great example of why the US Supreme Court’s Janus vs. AFSCME decision which prohibited the forced collection of dues and fees by government employee unions remains such an important protection of workers’ First Amendment rights.

New Mexico’s Tax and Revenue Department just released new data on child poverty rates in New Mexico. The press release highlights poverty reductions in New Mexico in both the “supplemental (including government benefits)” and the “official (not including government benefits)” rates. This is a bit of good news and of course Gov. Lujan Grisham is VERY pleased with herself.

As we noted back in January, the Gov. had previously claimed more significant reductions in child poverty rates that were an attempt to conflate the two poverty rates and mislead New Mexicans and the media. This time around the data are accurately represented. Notably, as the release points out, “the national official poverty measure for children improved just 0.4% in the new survey, New Mexico reduced child poverty by 3.2%.” So, with an ongoing oil and gas boom that has generated unprecedented revenue for the State and the Permian Basin, New Mexico’s children are finally seeing some positive momentum in terms of poverty rates. New Mexico’s children remain the third most impoverished in the nation.

On the Supplemental side of things the release touts the fact that the difference between supplemental and official poverty rates is “the largest difference of any state — and an indication that recent initiatives have effectively moved thousands of New Mexico families out of poverty.”

New Mexico has expanded direct benefits to low- and moderate-income families, such as food and housing assistance, free college tuition, affordable health insurance
coverage, and expanded early childhood education in recent years. New Mexico’s tax code has been extensively revised since 2019 to become more progressive, benefitting low- and moderate-income families. Since 2019, the state has twice expanded its working families tax credit, created a targeted child income tax credit, expanded the low-income comprehensive tax rebate, reduced the statewide gross receipts tax for the first time in 40 years, and exempted most Social Security income from taxation.

Indeed, thanks to oil and gas surpluses New Mexico has had the money to enact positive tax reforms and reductions like the GRT rate reduction and reducing Social Security taxes for most people. The question is whether the panoply of government policy measures will have long-term positive impacts on New Mexico children or whether government dependency is a poor replacement for jobs and economic independence.

A recent report by New Mexico’s Legislative Finance Committee found that “To improve the state’s wages and thus its poverty rates, New Mexico will likely need to increase educational attainment, particularly for those at or near the poverty level. ”

KRQE Channel 13 did a story recently on one man’s billboard campaign which asks a question we ALL need to be asking. Here’s a hint: people need to stop voting for the same leftist policies that have gotten us to this point. As we have discussed on our podcast Tipping Point New Mexico, New Mexico is led by people who do not want the State to do better. They are happy the way things are and are unwilling to change because high crime, poor education, our young people leaving, and numerous other problems fit their political preferences.

Check out the full story here:

On this fall’s ballots in addition to votes for mayor, city council, and school board, local voters will be asked to decide on a $350 million bond for Albuquerque Public Schools. These bonds (another name for debt which is typically used to pay for construction and other infrastructure) usually pass, but I hope voters will consider whether the District really needs this year’s massive bond measure.

For starters, the student population at Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) continues to plummet. Student enrollment has dropped by more than 20,000 since 2016, going from approximately 85,336 in FY16 to an estimated 64,995 in FY25. Along with spending growth at the state level this decline in its student population has led to massive spending growth on a per-pupil basis which now sits at $35,384 per-pupil.

Demographers see no sudden increase in the number of young people attending school in New Mexico or APS specifically. That’s in part because birth rates nationwide are down and show no signs of reversing course anytime soon. There has been a particularly pronounced decline in the number of young people in New Mexico from 2020 to 2024. During that time frame New Mexico saw the 2nd-biggest decline among US states in its 0-18 demographic according to the Census Bureau.

And, of course, while APS has made some strides under the current superintendent Gabrielle Blakey in recent years, the District continues to struggle to provide academic results. This has led to an uptick in home schooling and the pursuit of other options for many families.

While we applaud the efforts being made by the Superintendent and School Board to turn APS around, it is high time for the District to get serious about consolidating and closing old and unneeded schools. After all, a 20 percent drop (with a further decline expected) should free up buildings and other infrastructure for repurposing at great savings to taxpayers.

One big-ticket item that will be added if the bond is passed is for a $40 million new special needs education facility on the West Side as well as a new career technical education training facility. Why not repurpose existing assets for these needs instead? Of course, the District is also planning to spend another $40 million worth of bond money to improve HVAC systems and put refrigerated air units in schools.

That’s not a bad idea, but why are we spending millions of dollars to add fancy new air conditioning units on half-empty schools? The same is true for security upgrades and numerous other items contained in this bond.

No doubt, closing schools isn’t always popular with certain parents, but that is why the entire community, not just APS parents, are being asked to vote on this bond. Whether you think APS is heading in the right direction overall or whether you think they have a long way to go and need more fundamental reform, the District will only act if voters (especially taxpayers) push them to do so.

This isn’t about harming students or preventing them from putting air conditioning in schools, it is about common sense stewardship of taxpayer dollars. Voters should be very skeptical of APS’s $350 million bond request.

On this week’s Tipping Point interview Paul talks housing policy with Salim Furth, Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Urbanity project at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. His research focuses on housing production and land use regulation. They discuss New Mexico’s housing shortage and what can be done about it. What policies can be enacted at New Mexico’s state and local government levels to increase the housing stock and housing affordability? Check out this critical conversation.

We knew going into it that the special session called by Michelle Lujan Grisham would be a spending spree at taxpayer expense and that the Democrats were not going to address important issues like the medical provider shortage or the dire state of our roads.

What DID happen during the special session? The Legislature passed and MLG will sign $161 million worth of spending. Most of the spending from the special session is contained in HB 1 which includes the following provisions:

1. Appropriates $5.6 million to NPR and PBS with an additional $430 thousand for tribal and pueblo public TV/radio.
2. Spends $45.9 million on various food stamp (SNAP) related programs:

• $17.3 million to subsidize healthcare premiums relating to ObamaCare;
• $7.9 million to the Regulation and Licensing Department to cover up a budget deficit;
• $450 thousand for the CAMP program for college-bound migrant and seasonal farmworkers.
• $30 million from the general fund to the appropriation contingency fund and transfers
• $50 million from the general fund to the rural health care delivery fund.

Much of this is in response to federal actions including increased work requirements and limits on SNAP in the BBB, elimination of federal funding for PBS and NPR, and the expiration of certain “enhanced” subsidies under ObamaCare. Our friend health care expert Michael Cannon of Cato Institute said, “Democrats are particularly insistent on preserving subsidies that were pitched as a temporary COVID measure because they help hide the costs of Obamacare.”

The law known colloquially as “ObamaCare” has been around for 15 years. Whatever you think of it, the fact is that ObamaCare expanded health care coverage through two primary mechanisms: Medicaid expansion and a raft of subsidies. The federal shutdown currently happening in Washington is primarily about the latter:

During the COVID pandemic the Biden Administration passed enhanced subsidies eliminated the income eligibility caps for those subsidies and also made them more generous for current recipients….The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it would cost $340 billion a year to continue those. Republicans oppose that.

On the flip side, letting the tax credits expire would result in about 1.6 million higher-income earners losing subsidies completely. Millions more would continue receiving a smaller subsidy and see their premiums rise as a result….

HB 2 is legislation being considered (and likely adopted due to Democrat control of New Mexico government) in New Mexico’s current special session that would put New Mexico government/taxpayers on the hook for those subsidies at a cost of $34 million annually.

The problem is that ObamaCare remains flawed. It expanded health care “coverage” without actually expanding “access.” It is based on a combination of unsustainable taxpayer subsidies for both the ACA plans and for Medicaid which is just an ineffective welfare program that hasn’t improved health outcomes (as New Mexico’s own Legislative Finance Committee recently noted).

The fix (of course) requires getting government out of the way of the doctor/patient relationship both in the office and in terms of the payment situation. But, Republicans in Washington have been unable to repeal and replace ObamaCare and New Mexico’s Democrats simply cannot and will not look outside the government for solutions. Here is one excellent article from Reason Magazine that outlines how ObamaCare’s myriad failures have led us to this.