While we at the Rio Grande Foundation focus a vast majority of our time and attention on public policy and how it impacts average New Mexicans, personal finance and money management are important as well. This is an excellent blog on personal finance with a New Mexico-specific focus. There is also an excellent book called “Common Sense Economics” that was written by James Gwartney, Richard Stroup, and Dwight Lee that connects the worlds of personal finance and economics.
The fact is that too many Americans don’t understand economics at any level — as it impacts them directly or in the broader policy context — that’s why Americans are paying an average of 18.9 percent interest on credit card debt of $60 billion.
With the average American mired in debt, it is no coincidence that the federal government, which is run by people who get to spend money that belongs to others and largely free of personal repurcussions, is in debt to the tune of more than $8 trillion.

Yesterday, the state Senate passed a bill that would force the split up of Albuquerque Public Schools into smaller districts. Remarkably, only two Senators opposed the bill, which would work by prohibiting school districts larger than 35,000 students. Currently, APS has more than 90,000 students in captivity, so simple division implies a partitioning into at least three independent districts.
Yet APS Superintendent Elizabeth Everitt, as quoted by the Albuquerque Journal and in her Call to Action posted on the APS website, has responded as if APS would be split in two along the river, posing a false dichotomy between “a wealthy district east of the Rio Grande” and a “less affluent district” across the river.
If the state Senate’s move is carried into law and Dr. Everitt ‘s fiefdom is reduced in size, at least some Albuquerque schools might be overseen by a superintendent capable of elementary school math.

It looks like there is some good news coming from Congress for a change. No, Nancy Pelosi has not embraced the flat tax…the news is not that good, but for the first time in recent memory, the number of earmarks passed by Congress actually fell according to the newly-released “Pig Book” from Citizens Against Government Waste.
As it turns out, Democrats deserve credit for paying heed to their campaign promises to put a stop to Washington’s culture of corruption (for now at least), but conservative stalwarts like Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Jim DeMint (R-SC) also played a major role in limiting the pork in this year’s budget.
These are small victories, but it shows what can happen when the American public expresses its outrage over wasteful and fraudulent practices in Washington.

If you’ve read the opinion pages of the Albuquerque Journal recently, you’ve probably noticed that health care has been discussed on an almost daily basis. Representative Dan Foley, for his part, had an article today that started off strong by explaining why government is not the best provider of health care. Foley is absolutely correct when he writes that “with a finite number of dollars available, the government will have to decide who gets how much health care and how much health care that should be.”
Unfortunately, Foley then goes on to outline a plan to provide “universal coverage” that sounds suspiciously like the plan adopted by Massachusetts. Unfortunately, the plan adopted by Massachusetts is quickly turning out to be a costly failure.
Interestingly enough, in the Journal’s business outlook section, another article called “Why Health Savings Accounts Save Money,” appeared (subscriptinon required). This excellent article outlines the simplicity and relative ease with which consumer-driven health care can cure what ails our health care system. Rather than embarking on universal coverage boondoggles, Richardson and the Legislature should focus on ways to expand consumer-driven solutions like HSA’s.

Got a hold of a recent copy of US News & World Reports last night and they had an interesting article on the 10 Worst Presidents in US History. I have always felt that rankings like these, whether they have a “liberal” bias or not, tend to give undue weight to those who accrue power to the executive branch and expand the power of the federal government.
This survey is no different as presidents were ranked (positively) according to their doing the most “progressive” things during their time in office. My list looks quite a bit different: in no particular order Woodrow Wilson, FDR, LBJ, and Nixon are among my candidates for worst president for their roles in massive expansion of government.

Some New Mexicans, especially those directly involved in promoting economic development are feeling rather proud of themselves. The new Tesla motors plant will be built in Albuquerque and Intel is keeping its plant in Rio Rancho. A new study from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) may throw some cold water on that.
Apparently, New Mexico is losing ground in the battle to “create an environment that fosters innovation and high skills in order to help fast growing entrepreneurial firms and innovative existing firms expand.” With an oppressive gross receipts tax and a reliance on government favors and largesse, this is nothing new to the Rio Grande Foundation. It is true that studies and rankings are plentiful and can make economically-healthy states look worse than they are, but think about it. Does New Mexico really “create an environment that fosters innovation and high skills in order to help fast growing entrepreneurial firms and innovative existing firms expand?” Not by a long shot. Hopefully Governor Richardson and the Legislature will avoid the 11% spending hike they’re expected to approve. We’ll see.

Stuff happens. It is part of life. But when you are a member of Congress, what happens to your family often colors your worldview to the point that rightly or wrongly you act in ways that are inconsistent with your beliefs. This is especially true for New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici and Senator Michael Enzi of Wyoming who are teaming up with Sen. Ted Kennedy in an effort to add mental health to the long list of mandates on your health insurance.
While the big-government mindset of Sen. Kennedy is widely known, Senators Domenici and Enzi are usually level-headed conservatives. Unfortunately, personal tragedy has led Domenici to support bad policy, but I’m not sure what happened to Enzi.
At a time when Congress and the states are fixated on reducing the costs of health care, it simply makes no sense for our elected representatives to force consumers to bear the costs of even more coverage they may not need.

While most free marketers did not support President Bush’s massive expansion of Medicare, the introduction of Health Savings Accounts (I love my HSA!) was a positive outcome of the costly legislation. Curiously enough, as Investor’s Business Daily points out, the percent of increase in health care costs has actually slowed down in recent years.
While this is something of a minor victory, it is a promising sign that increased reliance on consumer driven health care (HSA’s are the best example) will slow the rapid increase in medical spending. This is something that Governor Richardson and Democrats in Congress may want to consider before they again expand government’s role in health care.

According to a new study by fellow State Policy Network think tank, Tennesse Center for Policy Research, “Al Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year.”
“Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.”
“Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.”
“Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.” This story made the front page of the Drudge Report.
“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.
In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006. Great work Drew and the TCPR team for exposing the ringleader of the global warming crowd for being an energy hog.

On Friday, I recommended readers of this blog check out the movie Amazing Grace which is playing in theatres now. I enjoyed the movie, but as someone who has been involved in the political process for much of my adult life, I found the movie to be something more akin to a history/civics lesson than a movie for entertainment as many of the film’s reviewers have pointed out.
I still recommend the movie and believe that anyone who struggles daily against the establishment will gain from watching it, but I think that it is an even better choice for the average movie-goer who is less interested in politics than in the story itself. These are the people who may realize that the world around them is not a “given” and that they can change it for the better.

The Journal’s Outlook section contained an interesting article about the fact that New Mexico has lost some earmarks that were supposed to be coming from Washington. The author quoted several recipients of federal largesse who worried about the impact such relative restraint in Washington giving the impression that somehow New Mexico is “losing out.” Of course, while this year’s numbers are not available, it is important to note that New Mexico gets more money from Washington relative to what it sends than any other state in the nation.
The author ended the article by saying “the cry is out for stronger private-sector support to emerge.” This certainly makes sense and the business-friendly income and capital gains tax cuts of recent years have been helpful even though other taxes have been raised. Ultimately, however, it is not up to businesses to “pick up the slack” because entreprenuers will always try to make money when the incentives are right.
Instead of jacking up spending by 11 percent, Richardson and the Legislature should keep cutting income taxes, thus laying the groundwork for a stronger private sector to emerge.

If your weekend plans are not already booked, may I suggest you check out a new movie coming out this weekend in most areas of the country called “Amazing Grace.” The story is of William Wilberforce’s efforts as a member of Parliament in 18th-century England to end slavery and the slave trade in the British empire.
I first heard the story of Wilberforce and his compatriot Thomas Clarkson from Larry Reed, President of our sister think tank in Michigan. Reed visited New Mexico in November of last year and those who attended the events also heard the story of Clarkson and Wilberforce.
Essentially, Clarkson started the world’s first think tank with the “libertarian” goal of ending the slave trade. He and Wilberforce acted as a team and over nearly 50 years accomplished their goals. The lessons are that ideas matter and you should never give up.
I can’t do the story justice here so see the movie. I’ll have my review posted over the weekend.

Very interesting article in the Journal today regarding the fact that the San Juan/Chama project may not be the panacea our friends at the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Water Authority may think due to the Colorado River’s propensity for drought conditions.
The report by the National Resources Council does bring up one interesting point about that I have been considering with regard to water in the West and that is the inherent conflict between agriculture and population growth. The report points out that 75 percent of water in the state of New Mexico is used for agriculture (I have heard as much as 90 percent). It seems to me that this situation could be resolved by creating an actual marketplace for water in which prices are set by the market as opposed to government fiat. Only when the economic benefits of agricultural usage are weighed against urban usage will water be allocated effectively.

Check out Rio Grande Foundation President Paul Gessing on KNME’s show “In Focus.” Gessing and the rest of the panelists discuss the use of eminent domain by the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Water Authority to take over the privately-run New Mexico Utilities.

The Rio Grande Foundation loves “teachable moments” in tax policy and that is exactly what happened recently as the New Mexico Senate passed a bill to exempt certain non-athletic events from the state’s gross receipts tax. According to a press release from Senator Rawson’s office: “The Pan American Center at NMSU is having difficulty competing for headliners now that it has competition from the Don Haskins Center at UTEP in El Paso where there is no sales tax for the concert tickets. We want the concert business and all non-athletic entertainment to be in New Mexico, and not go across the border,” So, “In order for the Pan American Center in Las Cruces to have any significant impact in the non-sporting events venue, the tickets need to be exempt from the state’s gross receipts tax.”
Simply put, taxes do matter. As Dr. Messenheimer pointed out recently, given the very real impact of New Mexico’s gross receipts tax — Las Cruces levies the tax at 7.125 percent — even a small rate increase can have a big economic impact. Unfortunately, as innocuous as exempting certain activities from the gross receipts tax may seem, these efforts invariably lead to higher taxes on other economic activities.

All I can say is It’s about time corporate leaders took on the nation’s education problems at their source. With people like Bill Gates throwing money at the schools, Jobs commented that no amount of technology in the classroom would improve public schools until principals could fire bad teachers.
Jobs went on to say, “I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way,” and “This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy.”
Finally, a business leader who understands that stifling work rules and an abject lack of competition within and outside of the public schools is at the root of our problems. Hopefully, more of our corporate leaders speak out. As I write this on my Dell Compute, I am disappointed by Michael Dell’s lame reasoning.

It’s not every day that we agree with the editorial board over at the Albuquerque Tribune, but their editorial “10 days is enough for legislative session” hit the nail on the head. Legislators are like college students facing their mid-terms: rather than paying attention in class and studying for weeks in advance, they procrastinate — debating extraneous issues like cock fighting and resolutions on impeaching the President — until the last minute and are so rushed that they don’t take the time to carefully look at what they are doing.
Of course, it could be worse, several states like California and New York have year-round legislative sessions…that is the last thing we need here.

Many Americans mistakenly believe that they are not getting what they pay for relative to health care consumers in nations with socialized medicine. Although there are indeed numerous problems with the provision of and payment for health care in this country, the problem is not that we are not getting our money’s worth, rather it is misaligned incentives. As Investor’s Business Daily points out, other nations also measure their health care outcomes rather differently than the US does, thus downplaying our successes and inflating their results. Given the momentum behind plans that would give government bureaucrats more power than they already have over the health care of New Mexicans and Americans alike, it is more important than ever to use accurate data.

Last night’s fascinating report by KRQE’s Larry Barker on the trends (or lack thereof) behind DWI arrests in Bernalillo County should be required viewing for New Mexico politicians. Barker’s DWI timeline displays monthly arrests since 1991, highlighting key events in our ongoing battle against drunk driving. Barker’s conclusion? Tighter enforcement and stricter penalties are not reducing the number of drunk drivers arrested.

The DWI Resource Center and Steven Flint’s accountablegovernment.org have compiled and posted on the web a treasure trove of traffic safety data from NM Motor Vehicle Division records. Looking at yearly data over a twenty year period, 1985-2005, we can take a more thorough look at any trends, not just for Bernalillo County but also state-wide, and hopefully offer a more conclusive analysis than eye-balling a graph.
Applying some basic statistical tools, Larry Barker’s conclusion is affirmed. There has been no statistically significant change in the number of DWI arrests over the past two decades, not in Bernalillo County and not in the state as a whole. Statewide, DWI arrests have simply fluctuated up and down around a mean of 20,300 per year, a third of those (6,782 on average) in Bernalillo County.
Why are we making the same number of DWI arrests every year despite increasing penalties, banning drive-up windows, installing ignition interlocks, and saturating the airwaves with public education campaigns? Unfortunately, another key variable is showing a significant downward trend–the DWI conviction rate. Though the number of arrests has remained relatively stable, the number of convictions based on those arrests has dropped on average by a startling 129 per year statewide. In 1985, 74.8% of those busted for DWI in New Mexico were convicted, down to 62.5% in 2005. The problem is even more severe in state’s most populous county. Bernalillo County had 22 more DWI arrests in 2005 compared to 1988, but in 1988 we followed through on those arrests with 752 more convictions. Bernalillo County’s DWI conviction rate fell from 67.3% in 1985 to a shameful 55% in 2005, bottoming out (hopefully) at 49% in 2003.
Thinking about driving drunk in Bernalillo County? Why worry about harsher penalties if you’ve got even odds of getting off scot-free?
Another significant trend emerges that might help explain this pathetic conviction rate. While the number of DWI arrests has remained relatively stable, the number getting hearings has tripled, 30.2% statewide in 2005 up from 10% 1985, while in Bernalillo County the percentage granted hearings rose from 11.3% to 44.3%. Tougher penalties lead more people to seek hearings rather than simply paying a fine, and it seems our courts (and arresting officers) are being overwhelmed. Tougher penalties are only as good as our ability to dish them out, and in this we are failing. We shouldn’t have to wait for drunk drivers to become murderers for the justice system to treat them seriously.
But there is some good news in the DWI statistics. As Rachel O’Conner, New Mexico’s DWI Czar, pointed out in Larry Barker’s report, drunk driving is killing fewer New Mexicans than before. This is due to a significant overall reduction in the number of alcohol-related crashes. The percentage of DWI arrests made after accidents has fallen steadily from a statewide peak of 21.3% in 1988 to 15.4% in 2005, a trend mirrored in Bernalillo County. Although we’re making roughly the same number of DWI arrests per year, there has been an important shift in the timing of those arrests–New Mexico’s law enforcement officers, with the help of vigilant civilians, are catching more and more drunk drivers before they hurt people. Checkpoints and other measures on this front appear to be working. The result is nearly 1,100 fewer alcohol-related crashes annually in the state, nearly 400 fewer in Bernalillo County.
If our goal is simply to pull drunk drivers out of their cars before they maim and kill, we’re making progress, though we still have a long way to go. But if our goal is to stop drunks from getting on the road in the first place, it’s time to reevaluate our approach. Doing more to make sure those arrested for DWI face the consequences of their actions seems like a good place to start. The data suggests that making sure arresting officers show up at the courthouse will do more to solve our DWI problem then siccing those officers on bartenders and gas stations.

The greatest tax increaser in New Mexico history is starting a doctorate in corporate welfare (see yesterday’s Business Outlook p.2. “NMSU plans a doctorate” — no link available). The acronym for the program is DED (we could only wish it were so — but this is New Mexico).

The first must-read article is Minority Leader Tom Taylor’s excellent discussion of the need for constitutional spending lmits here in New Mexico. Regular readers and followers of the Foundation are undoubtedly aware that we’ve made tax and spending limits the centerpiece of our long-term strategy for transforming New Mexico from an economic weakling dependant on handouts from Washington into a powerhouse.
The second article involves Sandoval County’s misadventures in government-run broadband. Unfortunately, a subscription is necessary for that article, but here are a few choice quotes:

“The County is more than two years and almost $3 million deep into the project;”

“So far, no links in the network have been proven reliable for long periods;” and

(The group tasked with creating the network) “have not provided a clear picture of where the $2.8 million spent so far on the project has actually gone.”

Recently, Albuquerque became the fourth city in the nation to impose its own local minimum wage, following the lead of Santa Fe despite the well-documented harm to The City Different’s low-skilled workers. Before we can begin to measure the effects of this mandate on the state’s largest economy, Governor Richardson is set on imposing this scheme on the entire state, and the state Legislature has been happy to comply.
For a glimpse of what this policy holds for New Mexico’s future, all we need do is look to our neighbors to the west. Arizona’s state-wide minimum wage of $6.75 per hour has been in effect for just six weeks, but already the negative, yet foreseen consequences are beginning to show themselves: “cutting hours, instituting hiring freezes and laying off employees,” preventing inexperienced and low-skilled workers from gaining the experience and skills they need to move up in the labor market and earn higher wages.
Some of us learn this lesson the hard way. For me, the 1996 increase in the Federal minimum wage meant fewer hours flipping burgers at Dairy Queen in high school, the evening shift trimmed from three cooks to two. And some of us never learn–it wasn’t the minimum wage that kept a young Bill Richardson from being drafted to play professional baseball. But hey, he’s doing “what’s right for the working men and women who drive our economy.” Even if that means putting them out of work.

Governor Richardson wants to enact some form of universal health coverage in New Mexico by 2008. The justifications for this, latest expansion of government have been discussed ad nauseum in the media and by politicians, but what are the alternatives to socialized medicine?
President Bush’s proposal to alter the tax incentives associated with health care to make it more affordable to those who do not receive health care from their employers would be a good start. How about state reforms? The fact is that if Richardson — or any state politician — were really serious about reforming health care, they would start peeling back mandates. New Mexico mandates 45 different procedures (eight more than the national average) be included in health care coverage, thus driving health care costs up tremendously.
It would be a political challenge to take on the special interests that have fought so hard for their own particular mandate, but if health care costs are ever going to come down, mandates need to be reduced significantly or even eliminated.

The Rio Grande Foundation is not alone in looking out for the interests of limited government and taxpayers. Albuquerque’s grassroots taxpayer advocacy organization — which goes by the moniker SWAT (stop wasting albuquerque taxes — is getting national attention as well.
While there will undoubtedly be battles to fight between now and June, the SWAT activists (and any others who may be interested in learning about the fight for limited government) will be heading to Washington for a “nuts and bolts” conference held by the National Taxpayers Union.
Once the activists get back from Washington with new information and weapons in the fight against higher taxes, Mayor Chavez and the tax-and-spenders on City Council better watch out!