New Mexico has another very big surplus. What should and shouldn’t be done with the surplus money?

An opinion piece by one “progressive” legislator calls out their Democrat critics calling them ignorant or shills for the rich. We discuss.

NM’s unemployment rate dropped to 4.5% in July and MLG is taking full credit, but New Mexico’s rate remains the highest among US states as it has been for 8 straight months. But, as an RGF opinion piece notes, workforce participation remains an issue and the state must encourage people to work.

PNM hasn’t merged with Avangrid (yet), but their marketing materials seem to have. What’s the deal? Is this even legal?

APS and their union are at an impasse, what does that mean and what are the issues at hand?

There is an issue affecting the health and even lives of tens of thousands of New Mexicans’ on a daily basis. State government policies have a big impact on the issue, but it has been largely ignored in the campaigns to date. The issue is New Mexico’s doctor shortage and the impact of New Mexico’s medical malpractice legislation (HB 75, passed in the 2021 session, but with delayed implementation) which will make New Mexico an even less attractive place for doctors to work than it already is, thus worsening our shortage of medical professionals.

Check out this detailed takedown of the law by an MD writing on a Democratic party website. Here are a few of the highlights:

1) Medical Malpractice Act (HB 75) increased the “cap” on malpractice lawsuits. That means physicians can be sued for a great deal more for punitive (punishment) damages, up to $4 million. That number rises to $6 million in just a few years. To give a comparison, in Texas, the “cap” is limited to $250,000.);

2) Because the “cap” is so high now, many Insurance Companies won’t cover doctors in private practices that do procedures like colonoscopies or other in-office surgeries. In other words, doctors can’t get malpractice insurance to cover them because the risk is too great to the insurance company;

3) Our Governor is well aware of the issues, but Democrats are often influenced by the Trial Attorneys because they are big contributors to the Democratic Party and, of course, they stand to gain a whole lot of money from such a large increase in the “cap”;

4) Because of this law, the physician shortage will get worse if this issue isn’t resolved.

The Legislature desperately needs to address this issue, but at best Lujan Grisham won’t do so before an election for which she needs the Trial Lawyers’ money. At worst, she simply won’t address the issue at all and will let doctors leave New Mexico in droves.

The Albuquerque Teachers Federation is NOT happy. The union has declared an impasse in negotiations with the newly-reconstituted, more parent-driven (as opposed to union-driven) board. According to one union document, “Power was a central theme. Some members of the Board of Education stated we have too much power to make educational decisions for our students. They said we have “taken” their power and it’s the board who should make educational decisions about what and how we teach.”

To be clear, under New Mexico statute, it is clearly state that the School Board “Develop(s) educational policies for the school district.” So, yeah, it IS the Board’s job.

We at the Rio Grande Foundation are still gathering information on this situation, but when it comes to unions, it is indeed ALL ABOUT POWER. Notably, while the APS unions is empowered to negotiate on behalf of ALL district employees, the reality is that less than 50% of eligible APS staff are members of the union. According to data requested from the District, 12,000 APS employees are covered by bargaining agreements but only 5,354 are actually members of the union.

And, if the unions want teachers to have more power over what and how they teach in the classroom, perhaps their work should be measured and (heaven-forbid) their “customers” (families and children) should be empowered to choose the options that work best for them. A captive customer base is certainly not the hallmark of competent, responsible professionals.

How long will this impasse last and what does it mean? It should result in some kind of compromise with a slightly renegotiated agreement. Who controls what is taught in APS classrooms? The APS board is elected by voters while the unions are not. You can watch the APS board meeting after which the “impasse” was declared here. 

The proposed contract can be found here.

New Mexico, fresh off a 15 percent spending increase, has ANOTHER $2.5 billion in “new” money (basically a budget surplus). Who knows what big-spending schemes the Legislature will cook up for the 2023 legislative session? Of course, what happens with that cash depends A LOT on what happens in November.

Here are the top 5 things the Legislature SHOULD do with the money (and a few things to avoid);

1) Address the gross receipts tax and both its “pyramiding” (taxes paid on top of taxes) as well as its taxes on business input services is an ABSOLUTE must. It won’t “cost” much in the grand scheme of things and as analysts told the Legislature recently, it is a big factor holding our state back.

2) AFTER the GRT is reformed, New Mexico should begin phasing down (and out) both personal and corporate income taxes. 9 states currently have NO personal income tax.  The corporate income tax only accounts for $200 million or so annually. It is time to diversify our economy and New Mexico can do so by eliminating the corporate income tax.

3) Pay down pension debt while reforming them AND giving workers freedom to invest their OWN retirement funds. Yes, that’s a lot, but New Mexico’s underfunded pensions are in need of not only more funding, but fundamental transformation. Dumping more tax dollars into them is not a particularly good idea, but paired with needed reforms and increased worker control, this is a worthy approach.

4) Infrastructure: repave our roads and bridges, water projects. While New Mexico roads are ranked okay nationally (despite our dangerous drivers) e all know of certain roads that need to be paved/improved across our State. It is time to get this infrastructure in top shape. Same with water. It is time to make every drop count and explore innovative approaches to improving our future water security.

5) Bring/keep more medical professionals. New Mexico needs more medical professionals. While basic reforms to our new, harmful medical malpractice law are essential, improving Medicaid reimbursement (and ending the GRT on medical services as part of a broader GRT reform) are two ways to make New Mexico a more attractive place for medical providers.

Things we don’t need

1) Another year of massive spending growth. New Mexico’s state spending as a percent of GDP is the highest in the USA in FY 2023 (vastly outpacing its neighbors as seen below). Broad new spending increases are not going to improve our State;

2) Socking the money away: this is only deferred spending growth. New Mexico needs to act prudently with this money to address important policy shortcomings NOW.

MLG extends her health orders again. Scrase claims “success” but with what evidence given New Mexico’s objectively poor COVID performance.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was here in NM recently. While MLG and her political allies call him “extreme,” there are few metrics on which New Mexico outperforms Florida when one considers economy, education, crime, and COVID. 

And, as if we haven’t talked about various rankings enough, New Mexico policymakers were recently presented with a variety of negative metrics.

Sadly, the Democrat legislators quoted in the article seem motivated to ignore NM’s poor rankings.

European energy prices should be a warning to Americans.

No electric car on the road today would qualify or electric vehicle credit in recently-passed federal legislation. 

At Monday’s meeting the City of Albuquerque Council placed a moratorium on proposed homeless encampments but kept the $250,000 in place to fund Planned Parenthood.

New Mexico’s Democratic Party, always liberal especially considering their incredibly long grip on power, has moved even further to the left in recent years. The 2022 election is in some ways a test of whether “moderate” Democrats in New Mexico are willing to continue down the “progressive” path no matter how far to the left they go. By our estimation (due in part to the governing obstacle presented by Gov. Susana Martinez), the government of New Mexico moved dramatically to the left starting in 2019 with the Lujan Grisham Administration.

Progressive Angeilica Rubio, one of those aforementioned “progressives,” took an interesting approach to defending “progressive” governance in the Albuquerque Journal recently. She cites some supposed accomplishments in the form of new government mandates and benefits: establishing statewide earned sick leave, raising the minimum wage, increasing the Working Families Tax Credit, increasing teacher salaries, and making our communities, land, water and air safer.

What she fails to mention is New Mexico’s failing education system, failing our kids, failing economy, and the fact that New Mexico is losing its young people to other states. Finally, to the extent New Mexico HAS expanded its social benefits, it has done so in part due to the largesse of an industry that she and the “progressives” would like to eliminate (oil and gas).

Finally, New Mexico has been controlled by Democrats (especially in the Legislature) for most of the last 100 years with the GOP having never had governing control since 1930. Voters need to ask progressives to answer for the failures of decades of Democrat policies before they send New Mexico even further to the left politically.

In what can only be called a big change of heart at Albuquerque’s City Council, a 6-3 majority changed directions and instituted a one year moratorium on “safe spaces” for the so-called homeless at Monday’s meeting. While the “safe spaces” concept has potential, it cannot be the only approach taken by the City of Albuquerque to address the issue. Enforcement of rules against camping in public parks, panhandling, and crime issues MUST be undertaken as part of any effort to create “safe spaces.”

Unfortunately and somewhat shockingly, the City Council failed to redirect $250,000 the Council “donated” to Planned Parenthood recently. The funds would have been redirected to Barrett House shelter, which aids women and children experiencing homelessness. Instead, Council kept the $250,000 in place while also handing an additional $100,000 to Barrett House and $100,000 to a community energy efficiency project.

City officials claim the City’s “contract” with Planned Parenthood covers only certain health care services, such as breast exams, cancer screening and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. The Planned Parenthood funding and additional funding was supported by a 5-4 majority that included Trudy Jones.

The ABQ Journal (presumably) capped off its series of reports on New Mexico’s poor workforce participation rate with an excellent editorial and appropriate cartoon by Trever.

Unlike the articles by the various reporters who relied on comments from politicians, the editorial board provided much more robust discussion of reforming welfare programs, improved vocational education, and broadly incentivizing work.

We welcome the Journal’s coverage of the issue and hope that New Mexico’s elected officials will do something productive to address the issue.

Surprising absolutely no one, Gov. Lujan Grisham has (yet again) extended her public health order relating to COVID 19 for another few weeks, this time until August 26.

There are some changes in the latest order to limit the amount of reporting necessary by businesses and other entities, but the fact remains that Lujan Grisham shows no signs of abandoning her “emergency” powers.

An interesting quote from David Scrase as the Gov.’s COVID advisor attempts to justify what can only be described as a failed response to COVID by the Lujan Grisham Administration, “Over the past eight months we have excelled in implementing the tools to minimize the spread of COVID-19 such as: vaccines, boosters, home testing and oral treatments that have helped reduce hospitalizations and deaths.”

Sadly, New Mexico ranks 6th highest in deaths per capita due to COVID and New Mexico was ranked 3rd-worst among US states by the definitive study of state COVID responses:

Recently, a group of New Mexico legislators heard numerous negative comments regarding the State’s business climate from national organizations like Tax Foundation and the Council on State Taxation.

As Dan Boyd at the Albuquerque Journal noted, New Mexico achieves poor marks in several categories relating to business taxation. Here are a few choice quotes, “I think we have to take a lot of those so-called rankings with a grain of salt,” Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos. Furthermore, Sen. Liz Stefanics, D-Cerrillos, said factors like a state’s population and average income levels should be factored into tax rankings, but frequently are not.

These comments reflect nothing more than a case of denial. There are two kinds of data: anecdotes and hard data and if New Mexico was one of the fastest growing, most economically successful states (independent of the oil and gas industry), that would be one thing, but very few people believe that New Mexico has a thriving, diversified economy that could survive a major hit to the oil and gas industry on which it relies.

And it’s not JUST economic policy on which New Mexico fails, our policymakers are also failing our kids as the recent “Kids Count” report highlights. These people have no plan to improve New Mexico so they simply deny that a problem exists.

With GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis coming to Southeast NM over the weekend in support of Mark Ronchetti’s campaign to unseat Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham, some current and former Democrat politicos in New Mexico have attempted to throw “shade” at DeSantis.

Mark likes to pretend to be a moderate, but then there’s this. pic.twitter.com/9mcHcjxZIG

— Matthew McQueen (@mcqueenfornm) August 9, 2022

Rep. Liz Thomson also had these “kind” words to say about DeSantis regarding his more open COVID policies.

But whatever you think of DeSantis, it is hard to find ANY significant policy area where Democrat-dominated New Mexico performs better than DeSantis’ state of Florida (which has been much more politically-competitive but overall more conservative).

Despite Rep. Thomson’s statement above, Florida has performed better on COVID;

On the recently-released “Kids Count” report (by a left wing think tank), Florida ranked 35th while New Mexico came in dead-last.

According to Wallethub, New Mexico spends the 28th most on K-12 while our results are 51st while Florida spends 44th most but performs 14th-best.

RGF put the following together awhile back on a variety of data points which all point towards Florida.

If you can find a legitimate measure of governance in which New Mexico outperforms Florida, please email it to us: info@riograndefoundation.org

The problems faced in many European countries that have abandoned traditional energy sources has been exposed due to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. European nations will either adopt better policies or continue to suffer. And by suffer it isn’t just prices, in Germany they are rationing hot water now and telling people to prepare for home heating to be limited this winter.

It is not widely known by Americans that the UK banned “fracking” in 2019. The UK actually has decent prospects for oil and gas, but the anti-fracking policy makes it impossible to get them. What does this mean in practice? It means massive increases in utility bills in the UK which also means that businesses and energy-intensive industries will be unable to compete.

If US and New Mexico policymakers from Joe Biden to Martin Heinrich and Michelle Lujan Grisham have their way, we’ll be energy poor like Europe soon.

Gov. Lujan Grisham has announced a new $123 million grant program to expand broadband access in New Mexico. The effort, financed in part through legislation passed in the Legislature in the 2021 special session  will award grants to cover up to 75 percent of total project costs for network expansion in unserved and underserved areas of the state. See graphic below:

Interestingly, one of the prime beneficiaries of this spending is Sceye with operations in New Mexico which is supposed to launch dirigibles to provide broadband service to areas lacking traditional broadband. Sceye’s general council is none other than Rep. Dayan Hochman-Vigil. Of course Hochman-Vigil was present in the Legislature to vote on HB 2 in the affirmative.

On this week’s interview Paul sits down with Republican Attorney General candidate Jeremy Gay. Paul and Jeremy discuss the role of Attorney General in New Mexico. What can he do to fight out-of-control crime? What are some limits of the office? What is the role of the AG in the economy? Will Jeremy allow billionaires like Michael Bloomberg pay the salaries of employees in the AG’s office as current AG Hector Balderas has done? Gessing and Gay discuss this and numerous other issues.

Whatever you may think of the PNM/Avangrid merger that had been rejected by all five members of New Mexico’s Public Regulation Commission, the folks at Seeking Alpha seem to be on-target in their view that the merger is a “likely to close.”

Based on conversations and marketing materials like that below, it appears that once Gov.  Lujan Grisham names the new Commission to their seats on January 1 (under New Mexico’s new constitutional amendment), they will approve the merger.  After all, you don’t get the kind of branded marketing materials like for this upcoming balloon glow in Corrales without some level of confidence that the merger is indeed happening.

During this week’s conversation Paul and Wally discuss the recently-passed and poorly-named “Inflation Reduction Act.” What’s in the bill and why is it so bad?

Next, the latest “Kids Count” report put out by Annie E. Casey Foundation and Voices for Children is out and New Mexico is back to 50th. What does it mean and why does “Voices” wish to undermine the findings of their own report?

Virgin Galactic announced that it has again moved back its launch date from New Mexico’s Spaceport America. News articles indicate even more serious issues with the company’s spacecraft.

The City of ABQ has offered “free” bus service in recent months. While there is little evidence of success, “free” bus ridership could prove very expensive.

A few months ago ABQ City Council gave $250,000 to Planned Parenthood. They will be voting on August 15 to potentially redirect that money.

A new report by Axios includes some interesting data on electric vehicles and their lack of market penetration.

The ABQ Journal has additional reporting on workforce participation.

The headline of this blog post is the same as that of a recent article from The Verge. The new EV tax credit is contained in the wasteful and misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act.” The legislation includes a $7,500 tax break for the purchase of electric vehicles.

But, the rules are written in such a way as to effectively disqualify every EV that’s currently on the market today because the rules adopted in the legislation mandate that  eligible vehicles use batteries that are made in North America.

China currently produces 76 percent of the world’s lithium-ion batteries, while the U.S. produces only 8 percent.

Automakers could ask for waivers from the requirements, given the precedent that allowed many manufacturers to avoid “Buy America” rules that were enacted as part of last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law, according to Politico.

The obvious solution is for the US to increase domestic mining for lithium and other components of EV’s, but the very same “environmental” groups pushing EV’s tend to be the loudest in shutting down proposed mining operations. 

The latest “Kids Count” report has just been published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation with the assistance of the left-wing New Mexico Voices for Children. Sadly, New Mexico again comes in 50th, dead last in the report for overall child well-being.

At the Rio Grande Foundation, we have long held that the “Kids Count” report, while imperfect, is  a useful and largely accurate reflection of where New Mexico stands (it is a national report), but Voices for Children consistently tries to use the report to boost Democrats’ big-spending, economically-destructive, and failed policies regardless of their actual impact on children.

So, despite sliding back to 50th we get a defense of Gov. Lujan Grisham’s policies with Amber Wallin of Voices undermining her organization’s own report saying, “What’s not reflected in the data book is ‘great policy progress in the past few years that put kids first,’ she said, noting a number of legislative changes made from 2019 forward (when MLG took office).”

Attempts to defend failed policies of New Mexico’s Democrat politicians are nothing new from Voices as we noted last year. And, while RGF may not buy into pre-K as a driver of improved educational outcomes, Voices certainly does, yet they gave former Gov. Susana Martinez zero credit for her massive spending in that area. You can check out the results for yourself below:

In yet another sign that Virgin Galactic may simply never make it to its goal of manned space tourism launches out of taxpayer-financed Spaceport America, the company has once again pushed back its planned launch schedule. While the company claims the latest delay will ‘only’ push space tourism flights back to the 2nd quarter of 2023, according to Michael Colglazier, CEO of Virgin Galactic, “the company now expects those flights (on its Imagine craft) to begin no earlier than the fourth quarter of 2023.”

The reason for the latest delay is even more troubling with Colglaziier saying, The “most acute” issue was work on the central wing section of the plane, where workers were replacing the pylon to which SpaceShipTwo is attached. There are differences between the designs for the plane and what was actually built.

If this doesn’t sound like the kind of problem that can be easily resolved or the kind of issue that should be happening more than a decade into the Spaceport’s existence, you likely see why this latest delay should be of concern.

The City of Albuquerque’s foolish “free” bus program will, unless City Council puts a stop to the situation, result in good money following bad. The Albuquerque Journal editorialized recently in tepid support of the program, but also argued that in order to address increased security issues on City buses due to the program that it might have to raise pay for bus drivers AND increase security on buses due to increased incidents and problems with homeless etc.

While the Journal touts ridership growth of 36 percent over the first 6 months of 2022, the reality is that ridership is WAY down (40%) since 2019. And, there has been a sustained nationwide decline in transit ridership in the wake of COVID 19.

With the Biden Administration and Gov. Lujan Grisham constantly touting (and subsidizing) electric vehicles, the following discussion of electric vehicles from the news site Axios is worth considering.

The article is chock full of data which, if considered by policymakers, should throw cold water on the headlong push for EV’s, but as we know, that push is agenda-driven, not policy driven.

“EVs account for only about 0.6% of all registered vehicles in the U.S.”

And, “while California leads the U.S. in electric vehicle ownership accounting for 39% of all EVs registered nationwide…EVs represent less than 2% of all vehicles on the road in the Golden State.”

“As of April 1, Florida has the second-highest share of the country’s EVs, at 6.7%. Then comes Texas (5.4%), Washington (4.4%), and New York (3.6%). Yet, EVs account for only 1% or less of all vehicles within each of these states.”

Finally, New Mexico which has .6% of the US population has just .3% of all electric vehicles (according to the article). Under a new rule put in place by Gov. Lujan Grisham recently 7% of all vehicles sold in New Mexico will have to be electric as of 2025.

According to Carol Wight of the New Mexico Restaurant Association, more than 1,000 New Mexico restaurants shut down thanks to Gov. Lujan Grisham’s COVID lockdowns.

Paul talks with Carol Wight of the New Mexico Restaurant Association about the current state of the restaurant industry.  They discuss how the industry fared through the challenges of COVID-19 as well as the post pandemic challenges of inflation, difficulty in finding workers, the impact of new regulation and more. They also discuss federal and state programs that restaurants were able to use to help survive in tough times as well as future policy changes that could benefit the industry including expanding the elimination of New Mexico gross receipts tax on food to include restaurants.

The group EdChoice does polling on various education issues on an ongoing basis. You can find details on their New Mexico and national polling here.

Here are two particularly interesting items. Simply put, anywhere between 2/3rd and 3/4ths of New Mexico adults/parents support money following the children. And, vast majorities of people feel the education system is headed in the wrong direction.