Errors of Enchantment

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Opinion piece: 2023 Legislature Punts on Education reform

02.28.2023

The following appeared at KRWG and in numerous other media outlets.

In October of last year, results for the Nation’s Report Card (NAEP) placed New Mexico dead-last in education among all states, the District of Columbia, and DoD schools. The test covered reading for 4th and 8th graders and math for the same age groups. New Mexico was last across all categories. These results should have been a wakeup call for Gov. Lujan Grisham and the Legislature.

Bold solutions are needed and there’s no time like a 60-day session to enact big reforms. Unfortunately, as the legislative session hurtles onward, neither serious education reform nor prevention of future mistakes like those made during the COVID pandemic are likely to come to pass.

As a parent, I know first-hand that the Gov.’s COVID 19 lockdowns and chaos had a major, negative impact on young people. Kept out of their classrooms for over a year, often in rural areas with poor broadband service and working parents, it is no surprise that New Mexico students suffered more during the Pandemic than those living in wealthier “blue” states. Locking kids out of school is now widely seen as a mistake that had no noticeable impact on the spread of COVID.

Sadly, efforts to give the Legislature a seat at the table in future emergencies, HB 80 and HJR 3 (one was a bill, the other an amendment), both failed on party lines in the House Judiciary Committee. They would have simply required the Legislature to approve declared emergencies lasting longer than 90 days, but that was too much for the majority Democrats.

Having the Legislature debate and vote on whether to lock kids out of their schools for over a year shouldn’t be a partisan issue.

COVID is hardly the only reason for New Mexico schools’ poor performance. The system has always been near the very bottom in producing student outcomes. Sadly, aside from continuing to spend more and more money, the Legislature and Gov. remain unwilling to shake up the system in ways that would improve outcomes.

My organization has long pushed for “money to follow the student.” The best single bill attempting to do that was Sen. Craig Brandt’s SB 109 which would have set up a system of “education savings accounts” similar to the one adopted last year in Arizona. The bill was killed on partisan lines in its first committee (Senate Education).

Though necessary, school choice remains a dirty word among New Mexico’s education establishment. But choice isn’t the only way to improve education results. Just ask the folks in Mississippi where simple reforms to how reading is taught have resulted in massive learning gains, especially in 4th grade reading.

What did Mississippi do to achieve success? It pushed teachers to teach reading through phonics, it invested resources into teaching teachers how to teach phonics effectively, and it made sure that students understood the subject material before passing them on to the next grade (they ended social promotion).

If that sounds familiar, it’s because Mississippi’s initiative broadly reflects the reform efforts of former Gov. Susana Martinez. Sadly, union-backed Democrats in the Legislature prevented those efforts from being codified into law. Her reforms were immediately undone by Gov. Lujan Grisham.

But, as the New York Times notes, Mississippi went from 49th on 4th grade reading in 2013 to 29th in 2019. Mississippi further increased its already substantial lead on New Mexico in the first post-COVID NAEP test in 2022. Notably, Mississippi spends about $10,000 per student while New Mexico spends $15,000.

New Mexico’s children (and its employers) desperately need a high-performing education system. Unfortunately, without the Legislature and Gov. embracing bold reforms that upset the status quo, improvement is unlikely to occur anytime soon.

Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is a worthy definition of insanity. It also appears to describe New Mexico’s education policy.

Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility

Will the Legislature enact beneficial tax reform or economy-killing paid leave (or both, neither)?

02.28.2023

Many business leaders and advocates for New Mexico’s economic diversification (like us at the Rio Grande Foundation) are optimistic that the Legislature will finally repeal tax pyramiding of the GRT and remove the biggest single barrier to economic growth in New Mexico. Read an excellent opinion piece about HB 367 from several business leaders here.

But, the same Legislature that MAY give us GRT reform is the very same Legislature that MAY pass SB 11, an awful new paid leave mandate. The Albuquerque Journal editorializes against that here.

The primary issues WE have with the paid leave proposal are its complexity, especially the burden on small businesses. We have no idea if the tax increases levied on businesses or their workers (the bill contains both) will be enough to fund the open-ended benefit. And, finally, the proposal will certainly not help to improve New Mexico’s abysmal workforce participation rate.

The next few weeks (and perhaps the Gov.’s veto pen) will decide what happens on both of these big issues.

Medicaid for most New Mexicans?

02.27.2023

A decade into the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion with nothing to show for it in the way of improved health outcomes, some Democrats in New Mexico’s Legislature are pushing HB 400 which, if adopted, would make Medicaid “available for residents who have household incomes greater than 133 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) and less than 400 percent FPL.”

A December 2022 LFC report found that an astonishing 47 percent of all New Mexicans are on the welfare program and a positively mind-blowing 77 percent of births are on Medicaid. Sadly, despite massive spending growth, the LFC noted that “the state continues to face poor health outcomes overall.”

Expanding Medicaid to those making 400 percent of FPL would. If this latest Medicaid expansion were to be enacted an estimated 120,832 more New Mexicans would be placed on welfare and the percentage of New Mexicans on the program would rise another 5.7% putting more than half of the State’s population on the program.

what is dual eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid

 

New Mexico S.B. 42: A Legally Dubious, Speech-Chilling Proposal

02.27.2023

As passed by the Senate, S.B. 42 would make New Mexico’s already objectionable donor reporting requirement for independent expenditures (IEs) even worse. The bill doubles down on a law the Rio Grande Foundation (RGF) is currently challenging in court for being unconstitutionally overbroad.

  • Background and Ongoing Litigation. The existing law that RGF is challenging requires any organization that spends more than $3,000 on IEs in connection with a non-statewide race, or more than $9,000 on IEs in connection with a statewide race, to publicly report any source of “contributions” to the organization of more than $5,000 during an election cycle.

Importantly, IEs include not only election campaign ads, but also any messages that merely refer to a candidate within 30 days before a primary or within 60 days before a general election that are targeted “to the relevant electorate.” This includes messages asking elected officials to support or oppose legislation or take a stance on a policy issue.

  • Chilled Speech. The existing law already chills organizations’ speech about issues. Donors give to their favored causes with the expectation of privacy, and nonprofits shouldn’t have to choose between speaking out about issues that are important to their mission and their supporters and violating those individuals’ privacy. This is especially so in an age of “cancel culture” when Americans can be targeted for retaliation based on the causes they support.
  • Junk Disclosure. The existing law already results in junk disclosure by associating donors on public reports with messages they didn’t necessarily support or intend to fund. New Mexicans give to nonprofit causes for countless reasons and rarely give specifically for the purpose of paying for particular communications.
  • An Attack on Personal Privacy. S.B. 42 doubles down on existing New Mexico law by replacing the word “contribution” in the statute with the word “donation.” Current law defines a “contribution” as funds given “for a political purpose.” Therefore, an argument could be made that an organization making IEs is only required to report donors who give “for a political purpose,” even though the context in which the existing law uses this term argues for a broader and general requirement to report all donors. S.B. 42 makes it explicit that donors who give for any purpose – not just “a political purpose” – are required to be reported if an organization makes IEs.

This makes no sense. While the IE reporting requirements purport to be aimed at organizations engaged in some political activities, S.B. 42 makes it clear that donors who give for no political purpose have to be identified on political activity reports. The intent of the bill seems to be to name and shame donors to organizations that speak out about policy issues and to deter those nonprofits from voicing their opinion in public debates.

  • A Constitutional Quandary. If existing New Mexico law is held to be unconstitutional in the pending RGF litigation, S.B. 42 will be even more unconstitutional because it takes the existing law RGF is challenging and makes it worse. Even if the existing law is upheld, S.B. 42 may still be unconstitutional because it purports to require a broader scope of reporting than current law.
  • Why is freedom of speech important?

Project Veritas expose: APS hides transgender students from parents (and more thanks to help from CDC

02.23.2023

If you are a parent (especially at Albuquerque Public Schools), this video will probably cause outrage. If you are part of New Mexico’s Democrat majority pushing HB 7, this is your preferred policy outcome.

According to APS staff students in the district may simply announce one day that they are the opposite gender and proceed with using that restroom.

Also, ALL APS staff MUST use the student’s preferred pronoun.

And, parents are not told if their child is “transitioned” at school. Check out the video below from Project Veritas:

Tipping Point NM Episode 480: Bills for: Plastic Bag Ban, Alcohol Tax, Emergency Powers, Medical Malpractice and more

02.23.2023

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. 

ABQ Journal does write-up on Mississippi education success

02.22.2023

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.

 

 

Why not REDUCE (or eliminate) corporate taxes?

02.22.2023

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.

State Corporate Income Tax Rates and Brackets | Tax Foundation

Sec. Haaland’s potenial conflict of interest?

02.20.2023

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.

Deb Haaland on Twitter: "Happy Birthday to my wonderful daughter Somah  Haaland. I love being her mother, and I am proud of her kind heart, her  compassion, and her street smarts! In

NM’s left-leaning Legislature is coming for your plastic bags

02.17.2023

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.

Bag the Ban: Say no to bans and taxes on your grocery bags

Tipping Point NM episode 479: Daniel Suhr, Attorney with Liberty Justice Center – RGF Litigation

02.17.2023

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. 

Celebrating one year since the masks came off

02.16.2023

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.

People Celebrating The End Of The Covid 19 Quarantine Stock Illustration -  Download Image Now - iStock

Tipping Point NM episode 478: GRT Reform, Nuclear Facilities, Minimum Wage Bills, NM Ranks Low for Remote Work and more

02.15.2023

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.

Alamogordo Schools Superintendent put on administrative leave after being caught on hidden video

02.14.2023

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:

New Mexico’s personal income tax SHOULD be reduced to be in line w/ neighbors

02.13.2023

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.

Tipping Point NM Episode 477: Hal Stratton: NM politics history as legislator/AG and Consumer Product Safety

02.13.2023

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.

HB 367 to address GRT pyramiding introduced: and MLG publicly supports!

02.12.2023

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.

Explaining the Trump Tax Reform Plan

Tipping Point NM Episode 476: Counties That Drive NM Economy, Medical Provider Shortage, NM Produces More Oil than Mexico and more

02.08.2023

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.

New Mexico’s increasingly partisan Legislature

02.07.2023

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.

New Mexico ranked mediocre 31st for “remote work” in new report

02.06.2023

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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ABQ Journal highlights medical provider issues in NM

02.06.2023

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.

PFM talk of “budget abyss” misses the point about New Mexico tax/economic conditions

02.02.2023

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.

 

Episode 474: Administration Departures, School Choice Week/Bills, Tax Hike Proposed, NM Wealth Gap

02.01.2023

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.