Three liberty-loving guys are coming to Albuquerque, NM as part of their year-long quest to find liberty. I was just in Los Angeles with these guys at the Heritage Foundation’s Resource Bank and Atlas Liberty Forum. The difference is that I flew back while they are driving their motor home all over North America, meeting and talking with people in an effort to find liberty in their travels in the US, Canada, and Mexico.
You can read up on the travels of these liberty-lovers at the Motorhome Diaries website. Better still, you can come out and meet them in Albuquerque at the Independence Grill — the location of the Tax Day Tea Party — this Saturday night, May 2nd, between 7pm and 10pm. The event is free and open to the public. Jason, Pete, and Adam are great guys and it is sure to be a fun evening. If you plan to come, please let us know by emailing: info@riograndefoundation.org

Channel 13 investigative journalist Larry Barker has done it again. This time he is exposing some very questionable travel and expense practices in the town of Bernalillo. I spoke to Larry for 30 minutes or so about the issue and appear in the report. Take a look at the report here.

Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez is accused of having retaliated against Bode Aero Services Inc., an operator at Double Eagle II airport on the city’s west side for the operator’s unwillingness to provide the Mayor with free and discounted service.
Of course, what the Mayor is accused of doing is wrong. Being the Mayor should not entitle you to special treatment. But if the City privatized the airport entirely, would the Mayor even think about trying to get cut rate or free flights? I highly doubt it. Better still, according to the Reason Foundation, privatization can save between 15 and 40 percent while generating immediate revenue for cash-strapped governments.
Hopefully this apparent abuse of power will spur the discussion about real reforms rather than simply fading into the background as other scandals will inevitably come to light throughout New Mexico.

We have certainly been critical of President Obama’s bailouts and his interventionist federal policies, but he has a real opportunity now to bring another nation, Cuba, into the fold as a trading partner. This opportunity is something Obama can take credit for and following through on the logical next step, eliminating the US trade embargo and travel ban would strike a blow for freedom.
Obama has already taken a small step by allowing U.S. telecommunications firms to start providing service for Cubans and ending limits on family travel and money transfers by Cuban Americans in the United States to Cuba. These are good moves, but I am hoping for real change in our Cuba policy from Obama that would finally restore Americans’ legal right to visit and trade with Cubans.
Such a move would have the following impacts according to recent studies:

— Embargo costs the U.S. between $3 and $4 billion in lost exports per year. (Preeg, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1998.)
–Lifting sanctions on agricultural exports to Cuba for the 50 states and 22 commodity sectors, will result in increases in exports of $1.2 billion per year. (Rosson and Adcock, Texas A&M University, 2001)
–Such increase in exports would stimulate an additional $3.6 billion in total economic output and 31,262 new jobs in the U.S. labor market. (Ibid,Rosson, 2001)

Obama’s top economic advisor, Larry Summers, says trade liberalization with Cuba is “a long way off.” Hopefully he is merely posturing and that Obama turns out to be a free trader in a way that his predecessors going all the way back to Eisenhower were not. Nonetheless, it is one issue on which free market advocates can be cautiously optimistic relative to Obama’s policies.

Gerry Bradley of Voices for Children, the left-wing counterpart to the Rio Grande Foundation, had an interesting article in the Albuquerque Journal yesterday. In the article, he discussed so-called “tax loopholes.” Of course, one man’s tax loophole is what another would simply call an incentive. That’s because every tax creates perverse incentives and penalizes behaviors that society and politicians (not always the same) want to promote.
While I don’t necessarily agree with the specific changes as Bradley outlines them, particularly if these increased revenues are not offset by tax cuts elsewhere, his point that some objective analysis is needed before specific provisions are written into the tax code is a good one. The problem I have with Bradley’s entire point of view, however, is that he seemingly operates from the assumption that the government has a right to tax any and all activities that occur within the state and that we taxpayers should consider ourselves blessed to keep anything. We’d also love to see Voices for children take a stance against wastes of taxpayers money like the Spaceport and film industry.

As I wrote last week, analysts on both the right and left don’t completely “get” the tea party movement. And while I’ll never change my opinion that both parties are to blame for our current economic problems, given some of the reaction from the left to the tea parties, it would seem that there are some particularly out-of-touch people out there. Take Janeane Garafalo and Keith Olbermann…please.
Rather than going into their entire sorry and absurdly ignorant viewpoint discussion of the tea parties, I’ll let the New Mexico-based blogger Moralia do the job. Too bad Janeane and Keith didn’t come to Albuquerque. They’d have seen a broad-based movement with people of all races and from all walks of life taking part in a non-partisan expression of their concern over the direction in which our country is heading. If there was so much as a racist thought expressed among the crowd, it was not voiced.

The tea parties are now the issue of the day. What do they mean? Were they a true grassroots efforts or simply top-down “astroturf” as Nancy Pelosi said? For my part, what I saw in Albuquerque was a group of people organizing from the grassroots, with housewives who had never done anything political before leading the charge.
This is why neither side (neither Republican nor Democrat) understands what the tea parties mean. For starters, there is Eugene Robinson whose column appears in both the Washington Post and the Albuquerque Journal. Robinson leans to the left and denigrated the rallies, claiming they were “generally small, and the only thing they proved conclusively is that that some Americans don’t much enjoy paying taxes.”
Then there is former Bush right-hand-man Karl Rove who wondered in his column how Republicans can harness the movement. At the same time, Rove didn’t attempt to explain and never really questioned why the tea party movement has arisen at this moment since we hadn’t seen a federal tax hike for 15 years until Obama’s tax hike on tobacco recently.
First and foremost, both writers miss the point. The rallies, while they did take place on tax day, were not really about taxes. Rather, they were, I believe, an expression of frustration at Republicans and Democrats, both of whom have supported out-of-control spending, bailouts, government takeovers and subsidies of private business, and unbelievable increases in indebtedness levels for the better part of the last decade. The unfortunate truth is that the Obama Administration has simply continued and expanded upon many of Bush’s policies and the people who work every day and make this country great are not happy. That is the message I got from the tea parties (at least in Albuquerque where politicians were specifically kept out of the limelight).
I wasn’t able to go to other tea parties because I did four hours of live radio (available here) from Albuquerque, but if the other tea parties had anywhere near the grassroots leadership that Albuquerque’s had, April 15 was the start of something big.

Along with gubernatorial candidate Greg Zanetti and others, Peter St. Cyr interviewed me about the Tea Party movement and what it means, particularly moving forward. Check out Peter’s thoughts and interviews w/ Zanetti and I here.

If you didn’t make it out to one of the tea parties around New Mexico, you missed out on an incredible experience. First and foremost, regardless of media reports, turnout in Albuquerque — where Jim Scarantino and I broadcast for four hours on AM 1550 — was between 5,000 and 10,000. In fact, according to the Albuquerque Tea Party group which organized the event, 7,000 people signed up for the group’s mailing list.
Here’s a good report from Albuquerque (including a photo of us at the radio table). According to news reports from Santa Fe, Roswell, Las Cruces, and Farmington attendance was heavy all over the state.
Hopefully, this is the start of some real grassroots action in New Mexico, a state that has not had enough non-partisan pro-taxpayer activism for too long. Participants in the tea parties who want to get some great training in how to build a sustained grassroots, pro-taxpayer movement should consider attending the National Taxpayers Union conference in Washington in June. Contact us at 505-264-6090 or info@riograndefoundation.org if you would like to receive this training.

See you today in Albuquerque. I look forward to continuing to work on issues of limited government and personal responsibility with tea party activists statewide.
ALBUQUERQUE
April 15, 2009
4-7 p.m.
Independence Grill (Montgomery one block west of Louisiana)
Please bring a can of pork and beans, a box of red or green tea, and a home-made sign.
www.albuquerqueteaparty.com
ALAMOGORDO
April 15, 2009
11:00- 1 p.m. and 4:00- 6 p.m.
10th and White Sands Ave. NW corner
Contact: edomey31@yahoo.com
ARTESIA
April 15, 2009
5:30 p.m.
Elks and Ritter Parking lot on South Roselawn Ave.
Contact: dorothy@tberryweb.com
AZTEC
April 15, 2009
12:00 p.m.
100 S. Oliver at the County Complex
Speaker: Rep. Paul Bandy
Contact: reidabaca@aol.com
CARLSBAD
April 15, 2009
5:00 p.m.
Courthouse lawn
Contact: tak555@yahoo.com
CLOVIS
April 15, 2009
12:00 p.m.
Curry County Courthouse (Main Street between 7th and 8th)
Tea will be provided, please bring your own lunch.
www.clovisteaparty.com
Contact: pennyandjd@aol.com or timlashley@msn.com
FARMINGTON
April 15, 2009—2 events
12-6 p.m. (speakers from 12-1:30)
Farmington Gateway Museum (3041 E. Main St. East side of parking area)
Please bring a non-perishable food item to be donated to ECHO food bank and a homemade sign.
4-6 p.m.
Southwest Shooting Authority
1301 W. Main Street
Speaker (at both): Congressman Steve Pearce
Contact: Farmington.tea.party@hotmail.com
HOBBS/LOVINGTON
April 15, 2009
4:00 p.m.
Lea County Event Center
Contact: taxpayersforjustice@gmail.com
LAS CRUCES
April 15, 2009
4:30-8 p.m.
Loretto Mall (Main St. and Lohman)
Group will be marching to Johnson Park at 5:00 p.m., down Church St., past City Hall and Post Office. Rally in Johnson Park by Brannigan Library will begin at 6:00 p.m.
Please bring tea bags and wear red, white and blue. Food will be for sale.
Contact: lcnmteaparty@yahoo.com
LAS VEGAS
April 15, 2009
11:55
City Hall
Speaker: Naomi R. Montoya
Group will go to VFW after marching at City Hall.
VFW Post 1545 Building on 146 Mills Ave.
Contact: paulmaes7@hotmail.com
MAYHILL
April 15, 2009
12:00- 2 p.m.
Storefront’s Mayhill Café and Feed Store
Parking at the Mayhill Baptist Church & Community Center
Speakers: R.L. Posey and Patt Patterson
Contact: pattnpat@gmail.com or (575) 687-3035
RATON
April 15, 2009
12:00- 1 p.m.
Ripley Park
Hot dogs will be served, please bring non perishables to share.
Contact: myspace21@hotmail.com or www.nmyouth.zoomshare.com
ROSWELL
April 15, 2009
6:00 p.m.
Courthouse on North Main
Contact: jnrothschild@hotmail.comor (575) 347-9935
SANTA FE
April 15, 2009
5:00-6:30
On the Plaza
Bring friends, signs and canned goods to be donated to the food bank. There will be live music and fun for the kids.
Speaker: Governor Gary E. Johnson
Contact: www.santafeteaparty.blogspot.com or santafevictory@live.com
SILVER CITY
April 15, 2009
12:00- 7 p.m.
Gough Park
Please bring tea bags, flags, posters, chairs, water and friends.
Contact: silvercityteaparty@hotmail.com or (575) 534-8285
TAOS
April 15, 2009
11:30 a.m.- 1:30 p.m.
Taos Plaza
Bring tea bags and canned goods; these will be donated to the Taos food bank.
Contact: dobbsiemg@aol.com
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES
April 15, 2009
12:00 p.m. – 1 p.m.
Triangle Park at Date and Broadway
Contact: 894-0747
RUIDOSO
April 15, 2009
4:00 pm – 7 p.m.
Wingfield Park
Contact: ruidosoteaparty@windstream.net

Recently, I discussed health care policy at the statewide New Mexico Right to Life Meeting. While the Rio Grande Foundation does not take positions on abortion or other “life” issues, we are supportive of life broadly-speaking in the sense that socialists tend to view the earth’s resources as being strictly limited with various groups battling over an ever-dwindling piece of the pie. Combining that attitude with the inevitable need to reduce costs in the ongoing push for socialized medicine, it is not a big leap to euthanasia and other anti-life policies.
Here are a few “pro-life” reasons to support free-market health care reform:

— Government will control who lives/dies and who receives treatment. Decisions will be based on political calculations, not concern for human life;
— It stifles innovation and the creation of new drugs and treatments, through the Food and Drug Administration “Evidence-based medicine;”
— It sucks – and will suck even more – resources from all of us, thus taking more of your life from you and especially your children/grandchildren.

At the conference I presented this compilation of socialized medicine horror stories from around the world. Also, bioethicistWesley J. Smith presented his thoughts on the current debate over the push in some circles to blur the line between humans and animals. A fascinating day indeed.

Commentator and syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock will be speaking at an upcoming event on May 14 in Albuquerque. Check this site for additional information. His recent column in the Washington Times arguing that federal bailouts now equal 90.14 percent of GDP.

This $12,798,140,000,000 costs every American man, woman, boy and girl $42,105. A family of four’s share of the bailout equals $168,420. Bloomberg reckons this $12.8 trillion invoice is more than 14 times the $899.8 billion in U.S. currency coursing through the economy. This signals inflation ahead.

This is why tea parties are breaking out all over the state (and nation).

If you missed our event last week with Sheila Weinberg of the Institute for Truth in Accounting, here is Ms. Weinberg’s powerpoint presentation outlining the scope and depth of the fiscal problem our nation and taxpayers face.
This realization forms the basis of the Tax Day Tea Parties all over the nation that are taking place on Wednesday.

While some of Governor Richardson’s harmful health care proposals — guranteed issue and mandates that insurance companies spend 85 percent of their premiums on actual treatments — to name just a few went nowhere once during this legislative session.
Thankfully, legislation passed and the governor has signed HB 438, legislation that demands co-pays from Medicaid recipients who have incomes above certain levels and use emergency room services unnecessarily. While the HB 438″>fiscal impact report fails to come to a conclusion regarding the cost or cost savings associated with the legislation, it seems hard to believe that the effort will not save money. After all, emergency room trips are very expensive and if you are receiving taxpayer-financed care, these co-pays can at least cause people to think twice before an unnecessary emergency room visit.
Kudos to House Minority Whip Keith Gardner for this successful effort.

In a move that is sure to hurt New Mexico’s energy producers and the nation’s long-term economic future, Obama’s Secretary of Energy Ken Salazar has named former Richardson advisor and Albuquerque Journal columnist, Ned Farquhar as deputy US Interior secretary for land and minerals management.
Giving a radical environmentalist and true believer in global warming such a powerful position in control of our public lands can only mean that the Obama Administration is going to reduce domestic energy production and further stifle economic growth as, despite assertions to the contrary, more costly “renewable” energy is shoved down Americans’ throats. Unfortunately, New Mexico’s biggest expert seems to be statist politicians and bureaucrats.

Back in 2006, the Albuquerque City Council tried to pull a fast one on the voters by passing a streetcar system into law on the night before a big Congressional election. While there has been no public push for the streetcar since then on the part of elected officials, Councilor Isaac Benton has not let the project die and he has worked to promote it within his 21st Century Task Force. There are of course many property owners downtown and rail buffs out there who have kept a candle alive in hopes of bringing the streetcar back once the upcoming Mayoral election is over and the economy recovers.
So, when this article in support of the streetcar appeared in the Journal, I took notice. The article was written by J.W. Madison, the Founder, Rails Inc. an organization with some ambitious goals for 2012, including “regular rail service from Raton to Las Cruces and 50% of our electricity (being) renewably generated, especially from wind and solar.” I’m not exactly sure what the latter goal has to do with promoting rail service in New Mexico, but I digress.
Anyway, I couldn’t allow Madison’s assertions to go unanswered, so I wrote this column which appeared in the paper this morning.

It is amazing how much can get done in the Legislature when there is no money to spend. With a 60 day session this year and little in the way of money for pork projects and new programs, the Legislature seemed to focus on actually giving citizens and taxpayers more information on what they are doing in Santa Fe. Of course, as I pointed out before the session in the Wall Street Journal, New Mexico’s historical lack of transparency has been a big problem in some of the scandals that have plagued the state over the years.
Well, there is still work to be done, but huge strides have been made and, with Governor Richardson having signed legislation to open conference committees to the public today, New Mexico has come a long way. In addition to open conference committees, here are a few of the transparency achievements from this session:
Audio broadcast of House and Senate floor sessions began. The Senate will also film and broadcast the session;
Governor Richardson also signed legislation introduced by Al Park (HB 546) that requires state agencies to create a searchable database of state contracts worth $20,000 or more.
These are significant accomplishments. Of course, there are additional steps that could and should be taken. For starters, if you want to find out how your member of the House of Representatives voted on legislation, the only way to do that online is at www.newmexicovotes.com. Rep. Tom Anderson had a bill (HM 62) that would have put House votes online, but it went nowhere. Senate votes are available although not in a user-friendly format.
Also, while Park’s legislation is a good start, there is much more that needs to be done when it comes to making the state budget transparent. We need all state spending placed online in a simple, easy-to-use format and the salaries of government workers should be available online as well. It was a good year for open government and this will pay off in long-term dividends.

In today’s Albuquerque Journal, economist Micha Gisser (a senior fellow w/ RGF), discusses a few ways in which our health care system might be reformed with an emphasis on both free markets and “universal” health care. The basic idea of Swiss health care is to generally free Americans of some of the most absurd and silly regulations — by allowing, for example, individuals to receive the same tax benefits as their employers do and by purchasing care across state lines — and to demand that each American purchase a very basic plan to cover emergencies.
Gisser makes many good points in his column. Given the choice between the Swiss model and what Obama is proposing, I’d certainly go for the Swiss model. There are a few major questions before we impose the Swiss model here: 1) how do we ensure that everyone has health care and enforce that? After all America is a much bigger, more open society than Switzerland 2) How do we ensure that bureaucrats and politicians don’t demand larger and more ambitious “basic” coverage as happened in Massachusetts with its “connector” plan?

Kudos to our friends at Think New Mexico who achieved a big success in the recently-completed legislative session with the reform of title insurance, a form of insurance that is required when you purchase a home. As Fred Nathan, the head of Think New Mexico, pointed out, until the passage of these reforms, “Only three states in the country allow the government to set prices for the title insurance industry: New Mexico, Texas and Florida. As of 2006, all three states were in the top five for the price of title insurance, according to a 50 state comparison performed by Bankrate.com.”
While the legislation introduces some reforms, it does not create a purely free market. It does, however, move New Mexico in that direction. As Barry Massey of the Associated Press notes:

The state will continue to establish a price for title insurance but insurers can charge a lower rate in a county if it’s approved by the superintendent of insurance, who runs the division of insurance in the Public Regulation Commission.
Regulators also are to provide the public with information about title insurance rates for residential property. A listing of rates on the PRC’s Web site will allow consumers to shop for the best price.
Another provision in the legislation will provide for greater discounts on title insurance policies for homeowners refinancing their loans.

A fiscal impact report containing more information on the legislation is available here. The Governor is apparently going to sign the bill shortly.

From time to time different groups of historians get together and rank the various presidents of the United States. All too often, these rankings simply focus on personal charisma and “effectiveness” in getting their agenda passed, regardless of what that agenda actually entails.
Ivan Eland at the libertarian Independent Institute has his own thoughts on the issue and unlike these other rankings, Eland, in his new book “Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty,” he ranks each president through George W. Bush based on their performance in expanding or contracting Americans freedoms.
Some of the “great” presidents in US history defy expectations…John Tyler, Grover Cleveland, and Warren Harding appear towards the top of the list, but Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, and even Ronald Reagan perform poorly at preserving peace, prosperity, and liberty for Americans. To check it out for yourself, get the book here and look for Eland to appear on an upcoming “Speaking Freely” show on Saturday mornings on AM 1550 from 9am to 10am.

Okay, if you care about your children and grandchildren, the topic of the federal deficit and our out-of-control government are really depressing topics. Despite that fact, our politicians are spending us into oblivion and we’re responsible because we’ll either have to pay those bills or our currency will be devalued.
Jim Scarantino and I had Ms. Weinberg and one of her associates from the Institute for Truth in Accounting on our radio show, Speaking Freely on Saturday. You can turn in to the podcast of that show here. Ms. Weinberg will be speaking in Albuquerque tonight from 7pm to 8:30pm at the Albuquerque Museum at a free event sponsored by the Rio Grande Foundation. Stop by!
Jim and I discuss the recently-completed 2009 legislative session w/ Sen. Mark Boitano in the second part of the show. If you can’t get enough of me or Ms. Weinberg, we’ll be on Bob Clark’s show from 9am to 9:45 on 770KKOB. Check it out!

The 2009 legislative session is in the books and — particularly compared to recent sessions — this one was relatively successful for both doing good (improved transparency and reforming government pensions) and not doing bad (like raising taxes). I discussed the accomplishments and shortcomings of the session w/ Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones and hosts Nicole Brady and Dennis Domrzalski on Eye on New Mexico this Sunday morning. Check out the 15 minute video here.

This article on Obama’s pouring 8 billion of our taxpayer dollars into “high speed rail” appeared in today’s Albuquerque Journal. The reporter actually does a pretty good job of discussing the very real drawbacks associated with both traditional passenger rail and high speed projects.
The fact is that money is limited and America is not a densely-populated nation. As Randal O’Toole pointed out in his policy paper, “High Speed Rail The Wrong Road for America,” high speed rail is not as big a success as American tourists might think. In fact, despite heavy subsidies for rail and massive taxes on gasoline, rail is losing market share in Europe:

While high-speed rail is convenient for tourists who want to travel through Europe without the expense of renting a car, it has done little to change European travel habits. In 1980, intercity rail accounted for 8.2percent of passenger travel in the EU-15 (the 15 countries that were members of the European Union as of 2000). By 2000, intercity rail had declined to 6.3 percent. Auto driving gained almost exactly the same market share that rails lost in this time period, growing from 76.4 to 78.3 percent. This is a coincidence, as the real challenge to high-speed rail has come from low-cost airlines. Thanks to Europe’s “open skies” policies, domestic air travel increased from 2.5 percent of travel in 1980 to 5.8 percent in 2000. Intercity buses and urban transit both lost shares.

The Rio Grande Foundation released our latest story on the poor record of New Mexico’s State Investment Council this week. The release can be found here and the full story is available here. The story was also covered on Joe Monahan’s blog.
The gist of the story is as follows:

In 2004, at the urging of Governor Bill Richardson, the State Investment Council (SIC) loaned $9 million dollars to Earthstone International. Governor Richardson said he was “encouraged by Earthstone International’s pledge to create high-paying jobs in Doña Ana County.” The problem, Scarantino found, is that Earthstone appears to have used the state’s money to create jobs in Old Mexico and Arkansas instead of New Mexico.
Earthstone orignially pledged to construct a 200,000 square foot plant at Doña Ana County’s Santa Teresa border crossing. At least 200 new jobs were touted. In one report, Andrew Ungerleider, the company’s co-founder, said that plant would be operational within approximately 18 months from when the loan was approved.
In researching Earthstone and the company’s use of the $9 million loan the SIC made on behalf of taxpayers, Scarantino found that Earthstone never built a New Mexico plant. Instead, New Mexicans’ money has helped Earthstone shift money and jobs to Juarez, Mexico and Bentonville, Arkansas. The loan has never been repaid. In fact, it has been converted to an ownership stake in Earthstone itself.

Given this poor track record, it is clear that the SIC is in need of serious reform.