Recently, we at the Rio Grande Foundation released a study analyzing each of New Mexico’s various film studies and their real economic impact. A letter to the editor on this report has published in this morning’s Albuquerque Journal. Also, Jim Scarantino was interviewed by columnist Robert Nott for the Santa Fe New Mexican’s “Pasatiempo” section. Check that interview out here.

I am told that the House Energy and Commerce Committee (chaired by Henry Waxman) is busily trying to get momentum to pass Waxman-Markey global warming legislation (still in draft form) through the committee (possibly even bypassing their own normal subcommittee process). This is obviously a tremendously important issue to all Americans, but especially here in New Mexico, a state that relies heavily on the 23,000 jobs created in the oil and gas industries (not to mention other natural resource intensive industries).
Paul Chesser, a colleague of mine in the State Policy Network movement has blogged about the Waxman-Markey bill over at American Spectator. The basic point Chesser makes is that Waxman-Markey would cost billions of dollars in energy taxes and lost economic growth with virtually no impact on the climate one way or the other.

Tomorrow morning from 9am to 10am, Jim and I will be interviewing Councilor Michael Cadigan on “Speaking Freely” on AM 1550. Cadigan had originally planned to run for Mayor and was not going to run for re-election to Albuquerque City Council. Recently, he decided to re-enter the Council race. Cadigan is also a strong critic of Mayor Martin Chavez.
This is the first “Speaking Freely” discussion we’ll be having with the candidates for Mayor and City Council in Albuquerque. Tune in and call in live (even online) or check out the podcast at our website.

Not surprisingly, New Mexico Sen. Comrade Ortiz y Pino is not a big fan of the Tea Party Movement. He shared his views of what he calls the “tea baggers” here in The Alibi. I responded to his negativity with my own take on the tea party efforts and why Ortiz y Pino is flat out wrong. You can see my response here (2nd letter on the page).

A friend of mine who considers himself to be an environmentalist just bought a new pickup truck — I believe it is a Chevy Silverado — not exactly a small truck. He’s not in the construction trade and as far as I know he doesn’t haul stuff very often (I question why he bought a pickup in the first place).
But, he tells me, this truck is environmentally-friendly because it accepts ethanol. Well, unfortunately for my environmentalist friend (and others purported to be concerned about global warming), the latest study of the topic shows that ethanol actually increases the gases that supposedly cause global warming.
The study concluded that:

Farmers under economic pressure to produce biofuels will increasingly “plow up more forest or grasslands,” releasing much of the carbon formerly stored in plants and soils through decomposition or fires. Globally, more grasslands and forests will be converted to growing the crops to replace the loss of grains when U.S. farmers convert land to biofuels, the study said.

So, it looks like ethanol really is not an environmentally-friendly alternative to gasoline. I look forward to Congress eliminating it from our fuel supply soon….but ethanol really never was about global warming or even “energy independence,” rather ethanol is a massive giveaway to the corn and food processing industries.

Robert Samuelson pretty much nails it in this column. This column although originally run in the Washington Post, appeared recently in the Albuquerque Journal While Obama claims to be attempting to grow our economy and increase the availability of jobs, he is attempting to quash the development of those jobs if it means upsetting his Luddite friends in the environmental movement.
In summarizing the situation, Samuelson writes:

Encouraging more U.S. (oil and gas) production would also aid economic recovery, because the promise of “green jobs” is wildly exaggerated. Consider: In 2008, the oil and gas industries employed 1.8 million people. Jobs in the solar and wind industries are reckoned (by their trade associations) to be 35,000 and 85,000, respectively. Now do the arithmetic: A 5 percent rise in oil jobs (90,000) approaches a doubling for wind and solar (120,000). Modest movements, up or down, in oil will swamp “green” jobs.

I hesitated and delayed for weeks. I don’t fancy myself to be on the cutting edge when it comes to technology…in fact, I consider myself to be a “late adapter” when it comes to most technology. But, other free market advocates have been very persuasive in convincing me of the benefits of Twitter. So, in case you are interested in following what I (and the Rio Grande Foundation) are up to, sign up to follow me at my Twitter profile page.
If you’re not sure about whether to make the plunge or not, find out more about Twitter here.

Since April 15 and the outpouring of taxpayer anger that manifested itself in the form of the tea party movement, a great deal has been made about what they mean. I discussed this issue with a couple of liberal skeptics on the Venus Transit Authority radio show on KRSN AM 1490 which is based in Los Alamos. Listen to the discussion below.
<a href="

“>

If you’ve been reading this blog over the last week, you are probably aware that the guys from “Motorhome Diaries” were in town over the weekend. I sat down and discussed the Rio Grande Foundation’s successes and the overall state of liberty in New Mexico. Check out the interview below:

It seems that Governor Richardson and the City of Santa Fe are dead set on saving the bankrupt College of Santa Fe. Richardson has pledged $11 million for the school — don’t you love how politicians, particularly the executive branch, can arbitrarily throw massive amounts of money around regardless of what the Legislature does or what might be best for the average citizen? The Governor is not alone. The City of Santa Fe is moving forward with a plan to purchase the College through a massive (and I might add, risky) issuance of bonds.
Of course, it would seem that perhaps the College’s failure might be due to inadequate demand for its services or a lack of perceived value for the price from potential customers (see the Big 3 for further details), but unlike the private sector which self-regulates by squeezing out inferior and unnecessary products, government has every incentive in the world to provide a taxpayer-funded bailout.
While the current economic situation would be painful enough by itself, it is government policies that are extending the pain to taxpayers and others who were largely blameless. Hopefully Governor Richardson and the City of Santa Fe allow the College of Santa Fe to play its part in the cycle of “creative destruction,” but if history is any guide, New Mexico taxpayers will soon be paying once again for someone else’s mistakes.

No, this is not a sales pitch for anything — except my writing I suppose. The Examiner is a website that aggregates locally-focused content and allows users to choose the content that interests them. There are “left-liberal”, “libertarian,” and “immigration” Examiners so that you can look for the content on local topics of interest that you want. I am the Albuquerque “conservative” Examiner.
Some of you may even consider yourself an expert on particular issues may want to consider writing as an Examiner on a particular topic for the site. Check here to find potential openings. They do pay, but only if people actually read what you write. Anyway, it is yet another way to access local content and I’m sure the site will only grow and improve over time.

We at the Rio Grande Foundation have been harshly critical of both the Albuquerque Streetcar and the Rail Runner. It is not because we have an irrational hatred for trains, rather it is the burdens these projects place on taxpayers. After all, while roads and airlines are largely self-sufficient (and I’d be happy to see government cut them free to become even more-so) trains are incredibly expensive.
President Obama’s plan to spend at least $5 billion to subsidize a high-speed rail network is the latest example of a politician who has fallen in love with the lure of taxpayer-subsidies for passenger rail. Like the RailRunner (but on a larger and more expensive scale because it is supposed to operate at higher speeds) Obama’s plan will prove to be a wasteful and costly boondoggle.
Obama’s high-speed rail plan is actually nothing new. In fact, back in 2001 when I worked for the National Taxpayers Union, I critiqued a plan put forth by then-Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, (a Republican) Don Young to spend $71 billion to build a nationwide high speed rail network.
Thankfully, Obama’s plan is scaled back relative to Young’s, but the massive $787 billion “stimulus” passed earlier this year actually put the plan into motion.

With New Mexico’s State Investment Council (SIC) mired in scandal and under attack from the Rio Grande Foundation, the media, and others concerned about rampant mis-steps and improprieties, Governor Bill Richardson has taken a first step by firing a private equity adviser under scrutiny in a kickback probe of New York state’s pension fund. This is a good start and a victory for the Rio Grande Foundation, but firing one investment is not going to solve the systemic problems inherent in the SIC.
Sen. Steve Neville’s legislation (SB 460) that would have expanded the SIC and taken it from under the thumb of the Governor was, not surprisingly, vetoed by Governor Richardson. Of course, expanding the SIC will have some positive impact, but restricting the Council’s discretion to invest for job creation is also an important change that could be made. Ultimately, rather than letting government bureaucrats control massive pools of money, we need to ask ourselves whether these resources would be better managed by individual New Mexicans making decisions in the broader economy.

Despite the drumbeat out of Washington from the media and special interests, a recent poll conducted by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, shows that Americans don’t trust the federal government to improve America’s health care system. An article about the poll results can be accessed here.
The most important finding is that 57% of Americans have little or no faith in “a panel of experts appointed by the federal government to make recommendations on which tests and treatments insurance should pay for.” Given all the focus on the federal government as that solution to our problems, it is heartening to know that Americans are not blindly following those who would lead them down the primrose path towards socialized medicine.
In fact, many of the worst health care problems we face nationally and in New Mexico are the direct result of current government policies. Does anyone really think that the government which manages the Post Office, failing schools, and so many other areas of the economy that are not achieving their potential.

Ever wondered whether New Mexico’s film subsidies have a positive or negative impact on the state economy? We’ve certainly had a hunch for a long time that such targeted and generous economic incentives are unwise and not economically beneficial.
Well, now we know…and we were right. First, there was the Arrowhead Center Study which found that the subsidies provided a return of only $.14 on the dollar. Then there was the Governor’s study by Ernst & Young which found returns of $1.50 on the dollar.
Now, there is a third study by the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) that was buried. As our investigative journalist, Jim Scarantino discusses in his new report “A Modern Spaghetti Western: Shooting Holes in the Ernst & Young Study of Film Industry Subsidies,” the LFC found numerous problems with the Ernst & Young Study.
Among the major problems:

* Instead of looking at payroll data, Ernst & Young utilized information collected from on-line and telephone surveys of the film industry – surveys coincidentally commissioned by a defensive Film Office. Furthermore, that information was collected at a time when the film industry was aware of the growing skepticism about the generous film subsidies they were receiving.
* Then Ernst & Young did something not seen in any other film industry study. They added in the income of millionaire movie stars, producers and directors, some of whom make 100 times or more the income of a film crew member. As a result, the average New Mexico film industry job income jumped to $91,396! That figure is also higher than reported in any other film industry study – higher than studies conducted in Louisiana, Arizona, Seattle, Florida, even New York City.
* Lastly, Ernst & Young excluded the cost to taxpayers of making interest-free loans to Hollywood. At a simple annual interest rate of 5% on a $15 million loan (the largest given out under the program), taxpayers are giving up $750,000 in interest annually. On a six-year loan, the loss to taxpayers exceeds $13 million. Yet, Ernst & Young completely excluded this enormous expense from its calculations of the cost to New Mexico of the film industry subsidies.

The fact is that New Mexico’s film industry is not a money-maker for taxpayers and with $60 million being spent annually to attract the industry, legislators need to cap or reduce the generosity of these subsidies. Using the leftover money to cut taxes on all New Mexico businesses would be a nice way to use the money to increase economic growth.

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.