Last Thursday afternoon I testified in opposition to Ben Lujan’s minimum wage bill before the house Labor and Human Resources Committee. The hearing was scheduled to begin at 1:30 and was gaveled to order at 1:55 (so much for economizing on labor and human resources — but after all this is government).
The economic nonsense I heard was unbelievable. No one seems to know this (or even care):

Most economists believe that the minimum wage is an unwise policy, not because they are against helping the poor but because the minimum wage is such an ineffective way to achieve this goal.

There seems, instead, to be this belief that there is a big pot of money held by the rich, and those rich ought to be giving it to the poor in the form of higher wages. One lady testified that she had no problem paying her employees $9.50 per hour, so why shouldn’t everyone be willing to pay 7.50 per hour? I wondered what her position would be if the government suddenly “forced” her to pay her employees $11.50 per hour.
An “economist” (and advocate) spoke for Rep. Lujan on behalf of the legislation. His empirical analysis of Santa Fe’s “living” wage was so full of holes I don’t know where to begin. The big problem from a real economists standpoint is that he made no attempt to isolate the effect of the “living” wage ordinance on unskilled workers. If he is an economist he should know this, otherwise it is fraud pure and simple.

Today’s New York Times editorializes (rr) about the sorry state of math and science education in grades k-12. The editorial is motivated by this report from the National Academies. The report contains a hodgepodge of incentives for training more teachers, more government spending on sexy, high tech stuff and more corporate welfare. The Times does not think the report goes far enough:

But, commendable as this impulse is, it hardly addresses the central problem of teacher preparation. Many education colleges have become diploma mills where the curriculum has little or nothing to do with the employment needs of the public schools in the state. Thanks to poor planning – or no planning – they place no particular emphasis on training teachers who actually major in subject areas like math and science. The data suggests (sic) that more than 60 percent of the public school students in some areas of math and science learn from teachers who have not majored in the subject taught or have no certification in it.

I tend to agree that we should be providing our kids with more opportunity in math and science. But more government? Give me a break! Instead of union-driven, uniform, soviet-style compensation for all teachers why not the simple, productive solution of markets in education? Let consumers and education providers interact in education markets to determine the compensation of math and science teachers. School choice would lead to smaller government and solve the problem!

You may already know that Santa Fe’s “living” wage law will put some unskilled workers out of work. That means, of couse, that their wage suddenly becomes ZERO.
But unemployed, unskilled workers will look for work where they can find it. One place they can find work is with businesses that are exempt from the “living” wage law (less than 25 employees). More potential unskilled workers looking for work at these exempt businesses will tend to drive wages in those businesses down! Read all about it (and more) in today’s fine column by Alan Reynolds.

Here is another fine essay by Arnold Kling. It raises some questions for New Mexicans: 1. Who do you think benefits from raising the minimum wage? 2. Who do you think benefits from trains to nowhere? 3. Who do you think benefits from a publicly financed spaceport? 4. Who do you think benefits from expansion of welfare?
You might be thinking about these questions as you listen to or read about the governor’s state of the state speech today.
A final question: who do you think pays for the groups’ benefits in the questions posed above?

As hints for the forthcoming legislative session are beginning to appear I am reminded of Groucho the great philosoper:

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
– Groucho Marx –

Drip, drip, drip.

Quote of the Day (HT to John Fund of WSJ)
“Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), hosting a morning roundtable with
reporters, had nothing nice to say about Alito… Briefly, Kennedy
rewrote the outcome of the 1964 election. ‘This nominee was influenced
by the Goldwater presidency,’ he said. ‘The Goldwater battles of those
times were the battles against the civil rights laws.’ Only then did
Kennedy acknowledge that ‘Judge Alito at that time was 14 years old’” —
Washington Post’s Dana Milbank.

Former FEC chair Brad Smith has some good advice for Republicans, although I doubt they will take it:

…use this [Abramoff] scandal to cut the size of government. Go forward and make the case: “This, dear people, is what big government is. It is favors for special interests, unrestrained pork barrell spending, and a government so big you, dear voter, can’t begin to keep an eye on all parts of it. It is lobbyists and money and corruption. Lobbyists lobby because government is giving out favors and subsidies, writing exemptions into the tax code, regulating most things you do and claiming the right to regulate everything else. The solution is not more regulation. It is smaller government. Take the power away from the politicians.”

Of course, the advice is good for politicians of all stripes, not just Republicans.

Chuck Muth has a nomination:
I hereby nominate lobbyist Jack Abramoff for Humanitarian of the Year. I’m dead serious. Ever since his guilty plea, scores of politicians from both parties have been donating money they received from Abramoff to various charities by the bucket-full. How long will it be before Howard Dean calls on a windfall profits tax on the American Heart Association on all the Abramoff money they’ve receive from politicians?

The Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal have just released their 2006 index of economic freedom.
It isn’t government-sponsored spaceports and the like that lead to prosperity. I wonder why New Mexico (and numerous others) don’t get this?

Good to the last dropping.
HT: WSJ’s opinion journal.

Dave Barry’s take:

Of all the wonderful things government says, that’s always been just about my favorite. As opposed to if you get to keep the money. Because what you’ll do is go out and bury it in your yard, anything to prevent that money from creating jobs. They never stop saying it. They say it with a straight face and we in the press will write that down. We will say, “This is expected to create x number of jobs.” On the other hand, we never say that the money we removed from another part of the economy will kill some jobs.

How many net jobs do you think will be created by Medicaid spending, the Spaceport, the train to nowhere? Inquiring minds want to know.
Read entire Dave Barry interview here.

Like Matt, I am more than a little bit nervous about eavesdropping on domestic phone calls.
Nevertheless I had to laugh at this gotcha to both sides of the partisan debate.
Let us not forget the perspective of Ben Franklin:

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty not safety..

You can be sure that your Foundation will be working tirelessly to defend liberty in 2006.
Update 12/28/05: More on giving up essential liberty in other contexts here.

You mean the government itself would actually enforce a cartel agreement so as to boost the prices you have to pay?
Government enforced cartels are pervasive in NM too. You can begin to find their sources here and here and here. Notice that the so-called “missions” of these cartel sources generally produce results that are just the opposite of the “mission” statements.

Here is a great perspective on the politics and economics of ANWR. What is really relevant for New Mexico is this (just substitute “Otero Mesa” or “Valles Vidal” for “ANWR” and “Quail” or “Rattlesnakes” or “Spotted Owls” or whatever turns you on for “caribou”):

…the ANWR debate ….. would not be an issue if the land were privately owned. If we abandon the farce of “public ownership” and if private individuals owned the land, we’d find out pretty darn quickly whether caribou migration or drilling is more valuable, given the available technologies.
So here’s my policy proposal: privatize ANWR. Better yet, have the federal government grant the title to the land to a joint venture of the Nature Conservancy and the residents of the area, and let them figure it out. Then if it’s worth it to drill, let the firms interested in drilling make them purchase offers. That will satisfy those worried about income distribution effects of “big oil” being able to buy their way in. Establish the property right on the other side. But if we believe Coase, establishing the property right and reducing the transaction costs will end up with the optimal combination of drilling and caribou migration.

This week’s “The Line” on KNME Channel 5 in Albuquerque (8:30 pm Friday, 7:00 am Christmas Day) features our good friend John Dendahl. Tune in and you will see an informing and entertaining discussion of
* boondoggling in state government
* groping in state government
* pay-to-play in state government
* and more.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah.

Here is a great blog that contains breaking news. Thanks to John Onesti for the link.

Here is an update on the Lost Liberty Hotel project of Logan Darrow Clements. Recall that the project seeks

to build a hotel on the land currently owned by Judge Souter. The town has declined Clements’ request for the land, but he and some residents of Weare, New Hampshire, are working to bring the issue to a vote of the townspeople.
The Lost Liberty Hotel will feature the “Just Desserts Café” and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon’s Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.”
Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.

If you would like to help with the project you can purchase a new song called “Preeminent Domain” for only $2.00 here. Here are the song’s lyrics:

Allow me to make it eminently clear
It’s a free country Judge, or didn’t you hear.
Facts are facts, and rights are rights
Take my land and you take my life
So easy to give when it ain’t yours
So easy to take what you didn’t create
Nothing grows on trees but leaves
And if you don’t leave us free, that’s all there’ll be
All we want is to be left alone
From the Right and the Left they invade our home
So easy to give when it ain’t yours
So easy to take what you didn’t create
When did we fall asleep, when did we turn to sheep?
How did we get so dependent, how did we get so dumb?
Why did we let this happen?
When did our government becomes our master?
It’s time to remember who we are…
I hear you laughing, but it won’t be funny
There’s only so far you can push this country.
‘Cause facts are still facts, and rights are still rights
Take our land and you take our life
So easy to give when it ain’t yours
So easy to take what you didn’t create
It’s upside down and inside out
But not for long as you’ll find out .

HT: Mickey Barnett

Chuck Muth comments today on how Colorado voters are like New Mexican voters. They have been fooled:

It was only a little over a month ago that voters in Colorado, spooked by “the sky is falling” rhetoric of the left and a few misguided souls on the right, decided to suspend the spending restraints imposed by the state’s TABOR law (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) and allow the government to keep budget surpluses for the next five years. Voters were warned in ominous terms that unless they loosened TABOR’s restrictions, critical and necessary government operations would have to be cut.
Voters bought it, proving once again that it IS possible to fool a majority of the voters a lot of the time. And as Brendan Miniter points out in Monday’s Political Diary, “The state is now allowed to keep an estimated $3.7 billion in revenue it otherwise would have had to give back to the people.”
So what are the politicians planning to do with their share of the loot?
Well, in Boulder, Colorado, local officials intend to use some of the new-found dough to fund efforts to make their county “climate neutral” by 2025. As Miniter explains, this means “offsetting any greenhouse gases (the county) creates by planting trees and funding other ‘green’ programs.” One of those other “green” programs already being discussed is requiring “contractors to use both sides of the paper they use to submit bids.”
Good grief.
Your tax dollars are the football. The politicians are “Lucy.” And the taxpayers are “Charlie Brown.” The TABOR referendum in November was Lucy telling Charlie Brown to “trust her,” that she wouldn’t yank the football away at the last minute as Charlie Brown tries to kick it.
And once again voters are finding themselves flat on their backs. Will we never learn?

On December 15, 1791, the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. It read:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Two hundred and fourteen years and one day later, we learn this.
The President may not be familiar with this part of the Constituiton. I wonder if he is familiar with Article II, Section 1 which requires him to:

solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

(Need I mention Article II, Section 4?)

Here is a good article on the politics of immigration. Despite the recent hardline rhetoric, there is hope for a bipartisan consensus that immigration is good for the country. Putting up our own iron curtain is not an effective and efficient way to combat terrorism.

Why does a poor state like NM rank among the highest in mortgage closing costs? Could it be excessive regulation?
HT: Craig Newmark

New Mexico has its train to nowhere, and now it looks like Alaska is actually going to get its bridge to nowhere! Wouldn’t it be cool if the train to nowhere could take passengers to the bridge to nowhere (we have already bought some track in Colorado)? And while we are making such wise use of the taxpayers money, let’s not forget the run the nowhere train down to the spaceport that takes passengers to nowhere.
Update 12/23/05: Alaska is actually getting its BRIDGES to nowhere. At least Alaska is in the national news with its taxpayer ripoff. In New Mexico we ripoff the taxpayer while managing to keep the train to nowhere under the radar.

The new spaceport will cost our taxpayers an estimated $225 million. The recipient of this corporate welfare will be Virgin Galactic. Virgin Galactic estimates that up to 2300 jobs will be created as a result of them receiving the welfare. That estimate is somewhat vague since we don’t know whether that is all for direct employment or some of it is for businesses that would have sprung up somewhere else absent the welfare. Also, we are told that 100 “founders” have paid $200,000 each for the cost of a flight. In any event, let’s take the 2300 jobs estimate and ask the following questions:
1.) How much is it costing our taxpayers for each job “created?”
2.) How much are our taxpayers subsidizing each founder for his/her flight?

Answers:
1.) Almost $98,000 per job! Isn’t it wonderful that we can afford such a payment to bring in those poor, unemployed rocket scientists.
2.) $2.25 million per founder! Is that enough to put you into orbit?
I am glad to see at least one other person thinks this is too inconsequential a payload for our taxpayers.