On this week’s conversation Paul sits down with Zack Fort of the New Mexico Shooting Sports Association to discuss the myriad anti-gun bills currently moving in the New Mexico Legislature. While the Rio Grande Foundation is not expert in gun issues, we are concerned about preserving New Mexicans’ constitutional rights. Don’t miss this timely conversation.

New Mexico’s Legislature is considering a bill that would ban plastic bags statewide. 

Paul was in the Roundhouse yesterday to discuss a bill that would quintuple alcohol taxes.

A few of the notable emergency powers bills died last week in the House Judiciary Committee: HJR3 and HB80.

HB 88 which would have addressed New Mexico’s doctor shortage/medical malpractice dies in committee.

Paul believes Interior Sec. Deb Haaland has a conflict of interest involving her daughter’s political activities. 

At the Rio Grande Foundation we’ve been talking about Mississippi’s astonishing education success since May of 2021.  But, the Journal article is worth a read. New Mexico is indeed doing some of the things that Mississippi did to train teachers on phonics-based education.

There is also the lack of willingness by the unions in New Mexico to embrace ending 3rd grade social promotion as was advocated during the Susana Martinez administration. And, there is the usual bellyaching about teaching Native American kids.

Regardless, it is a solid article. The author could have given more credit to Susana Martinez for proposing a system that worked to achieve many of the same goals in reading education, but were stymied by the unions and legislative Democrats.

Anyway, will the Legislature and Lujan Grisham push hard enough to achieve Mississippi-style results? Only time will tell. If they hadn’t stood in the way of Martinez, we could already be seeing these results.

HB 322 is being heard this morning (Wednesday the 22nd) in House Tax Committee. The bill does two things: It creates a single corporate income tax rate of 5.9 percent and requires all business income to be apportioned by the single sales factor. Currently, there are two corporate income tax rates with 4.8% which applies to corporations with profits below $500 thousand (and larger businesses on their first $500,000 in profits). 

The factor of taxation has mixed implications for different industries, but overall, this is a tax increase. The FIR is for $7 million annually. 

With all the talk of economic diversification and the massive budget surplus available to the Legislature, New Mexico should be looking to eliminate entirely, not raise or even mildly alter our corporate income tax. In recent years revenues from the tax have hovered between $300 and $400 million annually.

As is usually the case when it comes to taxes, New Mexico’s rate is higher than that of any of its neighbors.

The Rio Grande Foundation is among the large number of entities concerned by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s lack of knowledge about basic environmental issues and her broader qualifications to perform the role of Interior Secretary.

Recently, the federal watchdog group Protect the People’s Trust released documents obtained from the Department of the Interior that reveal alarming connections between organizers of a violent protest in 2021 and Secretary Haaland. On October 14, 2021, a protest was staged at Interior headquarters as part of a week of anti-fossil fuel activism in Washington, D.C. called People vs. Fossil Fuels. Events featured rallies of indigenous people from New Mexico opposed to leasing near the Chaco Culture National Historical Site. Organizers also planned civil disobedience actions in front of the White House, Capitol Building, and other locations in the city.

Events got out of hand, as planned, at Interior. Protesters breached the agency building, handcuffed themselves in place, and staged an unruly sit in. When security personnel from multiple federal agencies who’d been on alert all week attempted to remove the protesters, things turned violent. As a result, multiple police officers were injured, one was sent to the hospital, and 55 protesters were arrested.

The documents reveal Sec. Haaland is connected to protest organizers. Her daughter, Somah, is a paid climate activist who works for the Pueblo Action Alliance (PAA), a New Mexico-based climate group. The organization actively participated in the violent protest, along with several other members of the Chaco Coalition. PAA is also a member of the protest steering committee. Somah’s connection to anti-government activities targeting the federal agency her mother leads create significant conflicts of interest.

As if that wasn’t enough, Somah’s activism directly related to Chaco Canyon raises several ethical concerns about Sec. Haaland’s upcoming decision to implement a 10-mile buffer to prevent federal leasing around Chaco Canyon. BLM is currently undergoing the federal rulemaking process to finalize this policy. By law, the secretary has the sole decision-making power. Yet, that hasn’t prevented her daughter from personally profiting from her special access to a Biden Cabinet member, lobbying members of Congress on the issue, helping produce a documentary movie advocating for the buffer that features the secretary, and conducting community organizing across New Mexico.

Notably, Somah Haaland has lived in New York City, not New Mexico, for the past several years. And despite her claims of caring about NM residents and tribal members, the policy she’s advocating for will cost Navajo tribal members with allotted mineral rights around Chaco Canyon $200 million.

Back in April of 2022 the City of Albuquerque (thankfully) ended its absurd and    ecologically-harmful plastic bag mandate. Now, Democrats in the New Mexico Legislature are pushing legislation (SB 243) that would impose a statewide plastic bag ban. The bill heads to Senate Tax Business and Transportation Committee. 

There is simply no justification for such onerous regulation. Even National Public Radio covered the issue in 2019 asking, “Are plastic bag bans garbage?” As NPR noted (of a bag ban study):

Bag bans did what they were supposed to: People in the cities with the bans used fewer plastic bags, which led to about 40 million fewer pounds of plastic trash per year. But people who used to reuse their shopping bags for other purposes, like picking up dog poop or lining trash bins, still needed bags. “What I found was that sales of garbage bags actually skyrocketed after plastic grocery bags were banned,” she says. This was particularly the case for small, 4-gallon bags, which saw a 120 percent increase in sales after bans went into effect.

On this week’s conversation Paul talks to Daniel Suhr an attorney with the Liberty Justice Center, a conservative public interest law firm. The firm is best known for representing Mark Janus in the landmark Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court case.

Currently the Liberty Justice Center is representing the Rio Grande Foundation on two important cases. One deals with Albuquerque City Council “donating” your tax dollars to Planned Parenthood. The other lawsuit is against NM’s Secretary of State and rules that limit free speech. 

February 17, 2023 marks one year since New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham eliminated New Mexico’s indoor mask mandate. All reasonable New Mexicans are happy to be done with masks although you still see some wearing them (as is their right).

A recent, definitive study of masks by the Cochrane Library found (as we said long ago) that masks “made little or no difference” on COVID 19.

This is an anniversary worthy of celebration. The bad news? Two bills that would have limited the power of this and future governors in an “emergency” were killed in committee yesterday (with all Democrats in House Judiciary voting to kill them). After three years of COVID New Mexico is one of just a handful of states still in an emergency.

Friday the 17th will mark one year since Gov. Lujan Grisham ended New Mexico’s mask mandate. A new, perhaps the most comprehensive analysis of the issue says mask mandates don’t work.

A bill to reform New Mexico’s GRT has been introduced and Gov. MLG supports it. Find out more about HB 367 here.

Legislation targeting nuclear storage facility passed the NM Senate.

HB 28 which would have indexed New Mexico’s minimum wage to inflation has failed.

RGF has data highlighting the fact that NM’s Legislature has become increasingly partisan in recent years.

WalMart closing San Mateo store. Local activists are concerned about “food desert”. Paul and Wally discuss what is causing this and the fundamental issues at play.

A new report ranks New Mexico a mediocre 31st for remote work. 

Alamogordo Public Schools’ superintendent was recently put on leave for some remarks. Wally and Paul have the story here.

A hidden video recently came out showing Alamogordo’s School Superintendent both blasting his own community and talking about how he and his “team” smuggle Critical Race Theory ideology into the schools. The video was put out by Casey and Micayle Petersen Founders of Freedom Families United. Casey was a  Sandia National Labs Whistle Blower and the couple appeared on Tipping Point NM to discuss their activism.

You can see the video of the Superintendent below:

The current legislative session MAY see long-overdue changes to the State’s gross receipts tax. Reform may or may not happen this session, but it has been introduced and even Gov. MLG supports it.

But New Mexico still needs to embrace further tax reforms including to its personal income tax. Texas is notable for its zero income tax and strong economy. Arizona just dropped its top income tax rate to 2.5%. Even in deep blue Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis has said he wants to eliminate his State’s personal income tax.  Utah is considering income tax cuts and so is Oklahoma.

Despite New Mexico having a historically-large budget surplus, sadly, no serious income tax reductions are being discussed in the Land of Enchantment. Crazier still is the fact that HB 119 which would put NM’s top rate at 6.9% was not dismissed immediately as foolhardy.  During Gov. Bill Richardson’s Administration New Mexico’s income tax was reduced from 8.2% to 4.9%. It was widely seen (by economists) as an economic success. Sadly, Democrats since then have been pushing to increase taxes on personal income.

On this week’s conversation Paul sat down with Hal Stratton. Hal is a former New Mexico legislator and the only Republican Attorney General to serve New Mexico in modern history. He also co-founded the Rio Grande Foundation back in 2000. Paul and Hal discuss the founding of the Foundation and his reasons for helping to create it. Finally, they discuss Hal’s tenure as Chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The CPSC recently made headlines when one of President Biden’s commissioners publicly discussed banning gas stoves.

Legislation, HB 367, has been introduced in the New Mexico Legislature,  that would reduce New Mexico’s GRT rate by an additional 0.25 percent tax (on top of a .25% reduction that is already being implemented) meaning the state’s gross receipts tax rate would drop to 4.625% in July. You can read news reports no the plan here and here.

What’s even more critical is that this proposal would FINALLY address the biggest current problem with New Mexico’s gross receipts tax (pyramiding of taxes especially those on business services).

This is genuinely good news and both Gov. Lujan Grisham AND Rep. Jason Harper (who has been dogged in his determination to address this issue) deserve credit for taking it on.

So far the main opposition comes from revenue-rich local governments like Albuquerque which says it could lose up to $30 million under the proposal. Will the proposed reform have enough momentum to get over the finish line? Would some kind of “hold-harmless” like what was done when Bill Richardson ended the tax on groceries help? We don’t know but we are certainly pleased with this development.

Which counties are New Mexico’s economic drivers? A new study from the Arrowhead Center at NMSU has the details.

School Choice managed to pass out of a committee last week: SB 113 by Sen. Ortiz y Pino would create a system of tax credits for school choice and it moved out of its first committee. Here are where things stand now that the session has been going on for 3 weeks as of Tuesday.

The ABQ Journal took a look at New Mexico’s medical provider shortage. 

New Mexico now produces more oil than the nation of Mexico. 

Legislative consultants are again pushing the narrative that New Mexico faces a “budgetary abyss” if something bad happens to the oil/gas industry. They may be correct, but NM faces plenty of problems already and has tended to waste the oil and gas money available to it already. Here is an op-ed written by the consultants.

The Rio Grande Foundation tracks and rates legislation in New Mexico and has done so since 2014 (find our Freedom Index archive here). Bills are given scores as bad as -8 and as good as +8 and when those bills move to the floor for votes, the points with a “yes” or “no” vote are attributed to all of the legislators in both parties.

Currently just a few floor votes have been tallied, but that number is starting to grow along with the numbers associated with each legislator. We strongly encourage citizens and anyone interested in what is happening in New Mexico to check out our Freedom Index and use it.

A side benefit of our software provider BillTrack50 is some interesting “data nuggets.” For example, the chart below shows whether bills enacted by the Legislature and Gov. were sponsored by Democrats, Republicans, or both parties. Understanding that a Republican, Susana Martinez was Gov. from 2010 through 2018, Democrats remained quite influential in passing bills throughout that time.

Since Lujan-Grisham and the Democrats took over all three branches of New Mexico government in 2019, the number of GOP-sponsored bills passing began to shrink dramatically. Just one GOP-sponsored bill passed in 2022.

You can find out more interesting nuggets for yourself here.

Considering New Mexico’s usual location at the top of the bad lists and bottom of the good ones New Mexico’s 31st ranking on a new National Taxpayers Union Foundation report which ranks the US states on their attractiveness as places to work remotely. You can find the full report here.

Since the COVID 19 Pandemic remote work has become an increasingly popular option including right here in New Mexico.

The authors had the following to say about New Mexico’s status as a work-from-home location:

While the states that come out best are those with no income tax, there are lots of other things that states can do to make their policy environments friendlier to remote workers.

The state manages to salvage an average rank by virtue of its 16-day withholding threshold. Though this is half the gold standard of 31 days, a 16-day threshold is a not-insubstantial protection. New Mexico could improve its rank further by reaching reciprocity agreements with high-traffic neighbors and instituting a filing threshold to benefit individual mobile employees.

To improve, New Mexico should consider adopting a defined-day filing threshold and raising its existing withholding threshold to greater than 30 days, as well as entering into reciprocity agreements with neighboring states.

Of course, with the massive surplus New Mexico policymakers have available to them, they could and should consider reducing income taxes. You can click through on the interactive map below.

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In Sunday’s Albuquerque Journal two stories highlighted the self-inflicted policy issue that are pushing doctors out of New Mexico. You can see the articles for yourself here and here along with a telling chart below.

The stories echoed RGF’s solutions which include addressing the medical malpractice bill passed a few years ago, reducing Medicaid dependency, and eliminating GRT taxation of medical services (as we pointed out in a new report).

One of the challenging aspects of policies like the medical malpractice bill (HB 75 in 2021) is that it was a “compromise.” Trial attorneys and Democrats were pushing even worse legislation on the issue, so final passage of the bill attracted support from numerous GOP senators (you can find out who at the link).

New Mexico’s problems (like nearly all of them) are driven by bad public policy. But until voters hold the politicians accountable for their bad policies, we will continue to get more of them.

We have already expressed our reservations about the New Mexico Legislature’s “favorite” consultant PFM and their recommendations. But, in yet another recent Albuquerque Journal article we (and the Legislature) are told again that if New Mexico’s oil and gas industry “go bust” the State will face dire budgetary and economic conditions.

New Mexico is indeed over-reliant on oil and gas, but as I point out below, that’s not the State’s biggest issue. Rio Grande Foundation is at the forefront of researching and advocating for policies that would diversify our economy, here are a few points PFM is missing.

1). See the chart below, oil and gas in New Mexico is being driven by new discoveries. Prices could go down for a sustained period of time and that would be a challenge, but oil and gas are not “going away” anytime soon. Stop the fearmongering.

2). With serious social and economic issues New Mexico policymakers should be considering ways to improve conditions right away. Unfortunately, the big-government approach that have been relied on for decades in New Mexico have ALREADY failed. PFM should recognize that fact.

3). Diversifying the economy and diversifying government revenue sources are not the same thing. It’s no surprise that their recommendations are so “off” given the consulting is funded by the left-wing Rockefeller Family Foundation.

Several members of the Lujan Grisham Administration have departed recently in the midst of the legislative session. Paul and Wally discuss some of the more notable departures.

RGF recently released a study about the medical provider shortage. 

Last week was School Choice week. Bills have been introduced on both the Democrat and Republican sides of the aisle to create choice. These bills will be heard in the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday, February 1.

Despite a massive surplus some powerful Democrats are pushing to raise taxes. One bill, HB 119 would add a 6.5% and 6.9% top rate on top of the 5.9% rate and the 6.5% rate would kick in at $200,000 annual income for married couples.

Under Bill Richardson NM’s top income tax rate was dropped to 4.9%.

Some bills reining in the Gov.’s emergency powers have passed out of their first committees and are on their way to House Judiciary Committee.

The Foundation’s Freedom Index bill tracking site is a tool people can use to find out how the bills they support/oppose are faring and how their legislators are voting on them.

A new Wallethub report says New Mexico has one of the smallest wealth gaps by race/ethnicity. This undermines a lot of left-wing talking points, but notably New Mexico is poor AND even the wealthiest in New Mexico don’t register relative to other states.

Anyone who follows New Mexico’s budget and politics is well aware that the State is going through an incredible oil boom. As can be seen in the chart below from the Financial Times, New Mexico now produces more oil than the entire nation of Mexico.

This is a testament the American ingenuity, but it is incumbent upon New Mexico’s Legislature and Governor to use this windfall to improve the State’s economy and move the state toward economic prosperity.

Most New Mexicans are at least vaguely aware of the outsize impact the State’s oil and gas industry has on the State’s economy. A new report from the Arrowhead Center at New Mexico State University called “State of New Mexico County-Level Revenue & Expenditure Analysis, 2015-2021″ highlights that economic impact by examining revenues and expenditures on a county-by-county basis. 

The list of top-5 counties in terms of their net contributions can be found below. When contributions and expenditures (by the state) are taken as a whole, Lea and Eddy County contribute massively to the State budget with Los Alamos, Bernalillo, and San Juan counties all contributing significantly as well.

Interestingly, Santa Fe and Doña Ana both have negative net returns per person in the $10,000 range. Here’s the full report with data from each of New Mexico’s counties.

It is way to early to be optimistic about them passing, but for those who (like the Rio Grande Foundation) would like to see a restoration of balance of power between the Legislature and Gov. in future emergencies, a few bills that would restore that balance have moved through their first committees.

HJR 3 and HB 80 would require some form of legislative approval to change or end a state of emergency in New Mexico. The former would amend New Mexico’s constitution to do it while the latter would do it legislatively (constitutional amendments are lengthier but do not require the Gov.’s signature).

After nearly three years since the Gov. declared COVID 19 an emergency. According to the National Academy for State Public Health New Mexico is one of just eight states in a declared emergency and MLG shows no sign of letting go of her powers.

We hope that now that the 2022 elections are behind us the partisan Democrats in control of both houses will make separation of powers and “democracy” in New Mexico government a priority.

Despite New Mexico having an unprecedented budget surplus the “progressive” Legislature seems hell-bent on raising YOUR taxes.

HB 119 which is being sponsored by the Chairs of the House and Senate Tax Committees AND the Senate Majority leader is one of the most concerning bills of the 2023 session. It also highlights the rapid leftward shift of New Mexico’s Democrats.

Back during the Richardson Administration New Mexico’s top income tax rate was dropped to 4.9 percent and as the Rio Grande Foundation noted, they were successful in moving New Mexico’s economy in a positive direction. 

HB 119 would create TWO new rates and would NOT index them to inflation, meaning that over time more and more New Mexicans would be pushed into them.

For Married couples filing jointly, the income tax rate is 4.9% up to income of $315,000. The rate rises to 5.9% after that.

Under HB 119 the new, higher top rate for married couples would move to 6.5% while kicking in at $200,000 and the 6.9% rate would kick in at $500,000.

The bill awaits hearing in the House Tax and Revenue Committee, but given the sponsors it must be of concern.

On this week’s interview Paul talks to his old friend Drew Johnson. Drew and Paul both worked in Washington, DC for the National Taxpayers Union (and Foundation). Drew and Paul discuss government waste and their past and current efforts to reduce it. Also, Drew recently ran for office in Nevada which allows for mail-in ballots and vote harvesting among many other questionable practices. You don’t want to miss this informative conversation.