Whatever your take on the recent flight by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin (with Katy Perry and an all-female crew), one thing that stuck out was that the flight took just 11 minutes and passed Kármán line, which at 62 miles above sea level is considered to be the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.

Whether you think that is an impressive feat for the crew or not it is worth noting that Virgin Galactic (which New Mexico taxpayers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to fund) takes 2.5 hours to achieve the same altitude. That’s because of the “mothership” and “junior” ship design. Virgin Galactic’s stock price has dropped a whopping 58% in 2025.

If/when manned spaceflight trips like those taken by Katy Perry et al ever DO become popular and available for the non super-rich are people going to choose the 2.5 hour trip from the New Mexico desert or an 11 minute shot right into space from West Texas. Notably Blue Origin is (obviously) still launching flights while Virgin Galactic flights have been on hiatus for almost a year as they attempt to come up with a spacecraft that works AND is profitable.

The Rio Grande Foundation is often on the road around New Mexico. Typically during legislative sessions this means heading up I-25 to Santa Fe, but now that the legislative session is complete that means traveling to other parts of New Mexico. That includes a recent trip to Gallup.

Gallup, of course, is about 2 hours from Albuquerque along I-40. I-40 is arguably the most important road in New Mexico with its heavy freight traffic and large number of automobiles. It has widely been reported that the road is deteriorating and that is backed up by my firsthand account on this recent Gallup trip. Here’s what I found:

1. It needs to be expanded to 3 lanes (at least) each way from the Arizona to the Texas line.
2. It needs be be shored up and completely repaved throughout much of its length.
3. Many on and off ramps (including those in Gallup) need to be re-engineered completely.

The GOOD news? While costly, this is an IDEAL use of New Mexico’s massive oil and gas surpluses. Of course, RGF STILL supports tax reduction, but from the perspective of a Gov. and Legislature that seem to think oil and gas are going to dry up and go away soon, a big investment in a safer, better route across New Mexico would be a wise investment of taxpayer dollars.

Notably, New Mexico has $6 billion in unspent capital outlay money. All or part of this money could pay for a significant portion of expanding I-40 to 3 lanes each way from ABQ to the Arizona line at a cost of $4.8 billion.

The Albuquerque Journal’s John Trever has a way of highlighting important issues with a simple cartoon. He does it once again with the following cartoon from Sunday’s paper. We offered our own analysis here showing that if you simply divide the District’s proposed $2.3 billion budget by the expected student population of 65,000 (that is the maximum expected) you get a whopping $35,384 per-pupil.

Needless to say, results haven’t kept pace with spending and those poor outcomes further drive students out of the District which (perversely) due to the State’s K-12 funding formula and state budget growth) leads to EVEN MORE funding for APS per-pupil.

Did you know that Albuquerque City Council may soon finalize a 3/8ths cent increase in the City’s gross receipts tax? The proposed “quality of life” tax increase is sponsored by Councilor Joaquín Baca. It could be heard (and adopted) by a simple majority vote of the Council at an upcoming meeting. The City’s current rate is 7.625% which means that if adopted the tax rate would shoot up to 8.0%. 

Notably, the tax hike was passed out of the Council’s Finance & Government Operations Committee on the following “eyebrow raising” vote  which included support from typically more conservative councilors Champine and Bassan. While Councilor Louie Sanchez was excused on this committee vote, this tax hike plan could provide a real understanding of how Councilor Louie Sanchez plans to govern if elected mayor.

As Councilor Dan Lewis recently noted, spending at the City of Albuquerque has nearly doubled to $1.5 billion since Mayor Keller took office eight years ago. There are too many problems to count in the City and raising taxes isn’t going to address any of them. We will keep you posted on the issue if/when the tax hike is scheduled for a final vote.

The City of Albuquerque has been remodeling its offices, but according to the City’s Inspector General: thousands of Albuquerque taxpayer dollars have gone to waste amid a nearly three-year renovation project at old City Hall. You can check out the full story from KRQE along with RGF president Paul Gessing’s comments here, but according to the IG, the city paid for a design that they’ve since asked to change at least two more times. If the city approves that third plan, the IG claims the design process will have cost Albuquerque at least $55,000.

This is all typical behavior of Mayor Tim Keller’s Administration, but what is perhaps most shocking about the report is Keller’s utter disregard for the Inspector General and their findings. Keller’s administration put out the following statement, “This Inspector General lost credibility long ago, having been repeatedly cited by her own independent oversight board for misrepresentation without legal basis, lack of peer review, investigation standard violations, and clear bias—reducing her role to little more than that of an opinion writer.”

While Keller is putting on a show of trying to make it appear that his eight years in office have been a success and that the City is thriving, there can be no doubt that it is not and that the City is being managed in a corrupt way with myriad failures. As the Mayor’s statement makes clear, nothing is going to change or improve by giving Keller a third term.

The Albuquerque Journal recently reported that Albuquerque Public Schools has put out its latest planned budget for the 2025-2026 school year. The District continues to see increased annual budgets to serve a plummeting number of students. Shockingly, despite MORE money for FEWER students, the District once again claims it is facing a “deficit.”

As the article notes, APS is on the verge of adopting a $2.3 billion annual budget for next school year. The District estimates “fewer than 65,000 students” though we ran the calculation above based on an even 65,000 students just to be safe (a more specific number isn’t available). By that calculation APS will spend a mind-blowing $35,384 per-pupil during the next school year.

The so-called “deficit” faced by the District is for an estimated $4.7 million.

Of course, event these numbers don’t tell the entire story. According to a separate recent report “Only HALF of APS students attend school 90% of the time” and student performance at the already-low-performing district continues to drop.

There is no question that APS is a difficult (or impossible) institution to turn around. Allowing parents and families to take even a portion of the $35,000+ to a school of their choice as is happening in an increasing number of states would be a logical move, but that’s simply not going to happen with the current Legislature and Governor.

Whatever can be said about Gov. Lujan Grisham at this point in her tenure, she STILL remains abjectly unwilling to articulate a positive vision for New Mexico. BUT, she occasionally has valid critiques of Democrats in the Legislature (many of whom she helped elect). In her recent veto message on HB 14 (the tax bill) she stated that it “lacks both strategic coherence and fiscal responsibility.” 

Perhaps a bill (wasteful of time I’m sure) could be run to make the state motto “New Mexico, lacking in strategic coherence and fiscal responsibility.”

Of course, we don’t agree at all with what the Gov. means by these terms. We’re not even sure SHE does. The Legislature and Gov. have had zero strategy for New Mexico or how to best bring economic prosperity to our state. Does fiscal responsibility mean the government keeps all the money? It certainly seems like it.

Are prosperity and economic diversity even goals for these people? We are not sure.

Of course, voters have their say in who they elect to the governor’s office and legislature. And, for nearly 100 years New Mexico voters have tended to vote for legislators and governors that don’t have an understanding or even care for free market policies and growing the economy more broadly. Until that changes New Mexico will remain mired in economic stagnation with a slow-growing population and high poverty.

The Rio Grande Foundation’s Freedom Index is the pre-eminent way to see how New Mexico’s Legislature votes on issues of freedom. These include individual liberty, taxes, regulations, education reform/choice, and the Constitution.

RGF has more than a decade of results from our index. So, how does New Mexico’s 2025 session compare to other recent sessions? We took the average score of each legislator and compared those scores to other recent sessions. The answer is that the average score is quite similar to the other recent 60-day sessions which have taken place under Michelle Lujan Grisham’s term in office.

For obvious reasons 30-day sessions have fewer votes and thus less positive/negative numbers. After 8 years of Republican Susana Martinez being in office 2019 (MLG’s first session) remains the worst session in terms of average vote totals. Better scores were seen in the Legislature under Martinez as well. Check out the details for yourself below:

We RARELY agree with Gov. Lujan Grisham, but she does seem to have moved ever so slightly to the middle in recent months. And, while we don’t expect to get invited to the Gov.’s Christmas Party (assuming she has one) this year, we are pleased that she has vetoed HB 14 a complicated and tax-hiking bill (20% wholesale tax on alcohol) that we weren’t fans of.

She also vetoed HB 143 which would have created a very complicated and onerous web of regulations around lobbying that would have made efforts to work with legislators both more complicated and unnecessarily confusing for the average person.

The following from Dan Boyd of the Albuquerque Journal explains the issue:

🚨 Alert: Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has vetoed a tax package approved by lawmakers and a bill requiring more disclosure from lobbyists.

In all, governor vetoed 16 bills today on her final day to act on legislation passed during this year’s 60-day session. #nmpol #nmleg

— Dan Boyd (@DanBoydNM) April 11, 2025

The Rio Grande Foundation philosophically supports low taxes and free trade. We don’t weigh in on every issue of importance in Washington, DC, but rather focus on federal issues only when they are of extreme importance. We believe that the issue of the Trump tariffs fits that bill. We oppose them strongly and for several reasons:

1. Tariffs are taxes: We don’t support raising taxes as a general rule, this time is no different. Like all taxes tariffs have negative impacts on economic activity and prosperity;
2. The process:  We believe that Congress should make the final decision on taxes and tariffs. This is obviously true for process concerns (one person shouldn’t have such control over economic policymaking) and by putting Congress in charge the process of making tariff policy slows down and allows outside influence to weigh in. Finally, slowing the process down enables businesses to prepare for the policy;
3. Unclear goals: What is the Trump Administration’s goal here? Are they trying to bring manufacturing back to the US (with a sustained tariff)? Are they trying to get to zero tariffs? Are we now trying a bold move to isolate China (if so, why start by placing tariffs on other nations and why leave 10% tariffs in place now?) Having a specific, achievable goal should drive trade policies. If isolating China is now the goal have we prepared for how they might react?
4. Credibility and Alliances: The US stock market is not pre-ordained to be the dominant stock market on the planet. That has happened due to America’s economic strength and credibility of the markets themselves. Allowing rules to be changed suddenly and for dubious reasons can undermine our market hegemony. Also, nations that have previously been our closest allies may take a more cautious and negative approach when dealing with the United States.

On this week’s interview Paul sits down with Troy Clark. Troy is head of the New Mexico Hospital Association which represents most hospitals throughout New Mexico. They discuss how hospitals are set up in New Mexico (government, non-profit, and for-profit), but quickly turn to the legislative session and the Gov.’s signing of a bill directly (negatively) impacting hospitals. Finally, the conversation broadens out to the health care provider shortage and what can and should be done to address it.

The Maxeon solar deal is perhaps the best example of an unflattering trend in which the MLG administration touts BIG things only to have to back off or change course completely. Her Economic Development Department (EDD) STILL includes a link to the original Maxeon “deal” on its front page. The page includes all manner of additional information tied to the company’s original plans which show no signs of EVER coming to fruition.

That deal involved building a brand new 2 million square foot manufacturing facility at Mesa del Sol. The problem is that back in November Maxeon backed off and said it would instead be moving into a MUCH smaller (110,000 sq. ft.) existing Honeywell facility. We haven’t heard anything about whether that facility is currently being worked on or not although the company “plans to begin solar panel manufacturing in the San Mateo facility in early-2026.”

Maxeon’s business situation certainly hasn’t improved since November of 2024 when the Albuquerque Journal noted that “Maxeon’s stock price was trading at $7.36 per share … a nearly 99% drop in value in 2024.” As of April 10, 2025, Maxeon’s share price had declined even further trading at just $3.18 a share. This has been a steady trend with Trump’s tariffs playing only a small role.

Why won’t EDD update their website? What’s the latest on Maxeon’s efforts to get the old Honeywell Plant ready for production next year? Is Maxeon EVER coming to Albuquerque?

MLG has until Friday to sign or veto bills that passed this session. She signed a few on Monday. Paul and Wally discuss some of the bills signed. Many of them were not relevant to RGF, but nonetheless will impact the State in important ways.

Then, Paul and Wally have a lengthy discussion of the most important economic issue facing our nation, the tariff situation. What does it mean, what are the goals, and how might it turn out in the end for New Mexico and the United States?

Crude oil prices have dropped significantly for the first time in months.

SB 16 is a bill that passed the Legislature and was signed into law by Gov. Lujan Grisham. The Rio Grande Foundation did not take a position on the issue, nor did we include it in our “Freedom Index” for 2025. The bill allows “Decline To State” or “Independent” voters to choose to vote in the party primary of their choice when they vote in a primary election.

Somewhat uniquely the bill received support and opposition from both parties in the Legislature. The interesting thing is that it opens a potentially interesting strategy for voters in both parties, but especially the GOP. After all, New Mexico is a “blue” state meaning that their political primaries are often much more competitive (with more candidates) than those held for Republicans. Take the prospective 2026 gubernatorial election. We have seen no serious Republicans announce a run for that office while Deb Haaland and (soon) DA Sam Bregman are already in on the Democratic side. We don’t know how Bregman will run (let alone govern), but there are numerous aspects of Bregman’s record that make him more attractive to Republicans than Haaland who toes the far left line on every significant issue.

It is difficult to organize a movement among Republican primary voters to influence Democratic primaries, but it would seem that unless you are involved in GOP (or Democrat) party activities and thus need to be registered in one party or the other, registering as an Independent (DTS) maximizes your flexibility come primary election day.

The Rio Grande Foundation has finalized its legislative tracking tool called the “Freedom Index” for the 2025 legislative session. The Index is the Foundation’s effort to shine light on (and enable citizens to hold their legislators accountable) on how New Mexico legislators vote on freedom. Do they vote for lower taxes, reasonable regulations, educational choice, and constitutional liberties or do they vote for higher taxes, unnecessary regulations, the same failed education policies, and less freedom?

As is explained on the Freedom Index page on the Rio Grande Foundation’s website “We evaluate legislators by how they vote on legislation. The legislation is analyzed and scored on a scale of -8 to +8. -8 is reserved for the most liberty-depriving legislation. +8 is given for legislation considered to be among the best of advancing freedom.” Legislators are then scored based strictly on their voting record on the floor (not committee votes which are not reported publicly).

Since members of the House and Senate vote on different bills it can be difficult to compare the two.

Top performers in the House were:

202 score Randall Pettigrew (R-Hobbs)

196 score John Block (R-Alamogordo)

194 score Jonathan Henry (R-Artesia)

190 score Elaine Sena Cortez (R-Hobbs)

Top performers in the Senate were: 

62 score Jim Townsend (R-Artesia)

53 score Pat Woods (R-Broadview)

51 score Candy Ezzell (R-Roswell)

47 score Nick Paul (R-Alamogordo)

Worst Performers:

House
-214 score Andrés Romero (D-Albuquerque)

Senate
-192 score Jeff Steinborn (D-Las Cruces)

Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies for the libertarian Cato Institute was in Albuquerque for some talks to RGF and Federalist Society. He sat down with Paul to discuss the medical provider shortage in New Mexico and broader issues in healthcare.

Michael especially takes on the issue of Medicaid which is a joint federal/state program to (supposedly) provide Medicaid for the poor and how this program’s perverse incentives drive health care costs upward, doctors out of business, and are driving America into a debt crisis. You don’t want to miss this timely conversation!

Kenneth Costello is an Adjunct Scholar on Energy Policy with the Rio Grande Foundation. He wrote the following piece for the free market Independent Institute based in California. New Mexico did not become one of the poorest states in the nation overnight. It took decades of bad policymaking, and—as we saw during the recently-completed legislative session—that poor policymaking shows no sign of turning around soon.

Check out Kenneth’s insightful piece.

At their most basic level tariffs are taxes on foreign goods brought into another country (in this case the United States). The Rio Grande Foundation supports lower taxes, not more. Thus, we are firmly opposed to these tariffs and support low/no tariffs in general.

But other countries impose high tariffs on American goods, you might say. Yes, that’s unfair, but ultimately a majority of the harm done by high tariffs is inflicted on those who pay the tax, not those who impose it.

Even if you believe that imposing tariffs is a “small price to pay” for “fair” trade, we believe that the better route would have been to negotiate reduction/elimination of tariffs across-the-board, not by imposing the tariffs and their costs first and then seeing what happens. We’d be thrilled to see tariffs reduced worldwide and here in the US. The evidence that this is Trump’s plan is simply not there.

But let’s talk about New Mexico in particular:

1. New Mexico is not a major manufacturing state. Few companies based here will benefit from the protection tariffs afford. Any manufacturing operations that DO relocate to the US to avoid tariffs aren’t likely to come to New Mexico anyway.
2. But, New Mexicans will pay the cost of higher prices for the items they buy.
3.  New Mexico is primarily an energy producing state. Trump specifically exempted foreign energy from the tariffs. To the extent that other countries either slap tariffs on American energy or look for other sources, this could profoundly impact energy politics and New Mexico. And, if a recession or economic slowdown hits this would impact the price of oil and New Mexico as well.
4. Tariffs are “regressive” meaning they are borne more heavily as a percent of income by those with lower income. As a poor state New Mexicans are going to be more impacted than most by tariffs.

But then there’s the political aspect. Americans don’t support Trump’s tariffs. If the US economy goes into a recession New Mexico is going to move even FURTHER to the left politically (if that’s possible). But certainly Deb Haaland is a threat if elected governor  with a potentially even more left-wing Legislature. It is a long way to the fall of 2026, but the party in power tends to not do well anyway in that first midterm. As a reminder, New Mexico’s statewide offices are up in 2026 as is Sen. Ben Ray Lujan and the New Mexico House. We want a strong, Trump-led economy at that point, not a Trump-caused recession.

Also, we SHOULD note that Congress is responsible for raising and lowering taxes. The president (of either party) should not be allowed to take such drastic action without congress.

Someone appears to have committed arson at NM GOP HQ.

According to a new Wallethub report, New Mexico is dead last when it comes to the Return on Investment (ROI) for taxpayers

And, another new Wallethub report places New Mexico first on “most stressed.”

The best part of what happened in the session is the death of several bad bills.

State data on Albuquerque Public Schools finds the District’s performance on education metrics wanting which broadly reflects the recent findings of NAEP.

A travel journalist on Youtube named Nick Johnson recently traveled to Albuquerque’s Warzone. He called it: “The Most Frightful Neighborhood In America.”

New Mexico’s film industry is in a “lull” but the state expects to pay out $118 million in tax credits in the current fiscal year, while $117 million was paid out last year and $73 million the year before that.

Recently data from the annual New Mexico Vistas test were released. You can find the data here. Unlike the NAEP scores which were released earlier this year this is an annual report and it breaks down results by district. This post specifically addresses Albuquerque Public Schools, the State’s largest school district.

According to the ABQ Journal report on the issue, “APS saw a 2.9% decrease in graduation growth, a 2% decline in math, a 1% drop in reading proficiency and a 13% drop in regular attendance.” Sadly, the issue seems to be significantly driven by attendance problems.

According to the article, “According to the report card, 66% of New Mexico students attended school 90% of the time or more, compared with 50% of APS students.” Only HALF of APS students attend school 90% of the time. Albuquerque Teachers Federation President Ellen Bernstein noted that “Ever since the pandemic, our whole culture thinks school is optional because obviously, and controversially, we sent the kids home.”

Of course, Bernstein ally Gov. Lujan Grisham made the decision to send our kids home for over a year. Bernstein and her union didn’t exactly push back on MLG’s lock out at the time. How do policymakers restore the cultural norm of kids attending school and at the same time improve student outcomes? When will the media call out MLG for this massive mistake and its harms? Will MLG EVER admit she made a mistake keeping kids out of school for so long? And, if you have a product that is a key to long terms success, it is free to the user, and barely 50% of those eligible take advantage of the product, what does that mean?

We believe that both the Mississippi model for teaching and improving reading and/or school choice would help a lot. But, the Legislature and Gov. are unwilling to make needed changes and unless or until New Mexico’s voters are willing to hold them accountable for our failing education system AND restore limits to future governors’ emergency powers, there is little reason to be optimistic about improving our education systems.

While the recent New Mexico legislative session passed without any MAJOR harmful tax hikes or regulations being adopted (yes, the alcohol tax increase in HB 14 and the royalty increase in SB 23 are unnecessary). But, Paid Family Leave and numerous other bills failed, meaning that the Legislature again could have been MUCH worse. But, as is usually the case these days, the Legislature failed to do anything significant to improve the economy  or education systems. They also failed to restrain executive “emergency” power. Here are a list of issues (and often associated bills) that the Legislature failed to address.

 Economy: New Mexico’s economy is too dependent on both oil and gas and the federal government. Residents of the state are also the most impoverished in the nation. Despite another massive oil and gas surplus ($3 billion) nothing of substance was done to improve the economy.

• No significant tax cuts, no elimination of the personal income tax (HB 275).
• No elimination of Social Security taxes (HB 293).
• No reform of the gross receipts tax was even introduced.
• No right to work legislation was introduced.
• No reform to New Mexico’s “prevailing wage” law was introduced (but HB 6 expanded the prevailing wage).
• No attempt to deregulation New Mexico’s economy was introduced.
• The State’s lousy workforce participation rate and how to increase it were never seriously contemplated.

Education: New Mexico’s education system remains the worst performing in the nation despite massive spending growth.

• No school choice proposals were adopted.
• No broad effort to implement Mississippi-style reading reforms was adopted and New Mexico’s commitment to improving reading was only marginally addressed. Efforts to improve reading instruction in New Mexico require buy-in from all levels of government and a robust series of reforms. New Mexico has not done this.
•  Even a constitutional amendment to reform New Mexico’s boards of regents due to a recent scandal at Western NM University failed.
• The BEST bill that got real traction relating to education was HB 65 which saw the Legislature (with zero “no” votes”) attempt to clearly give school districts the right to have 4-day school weeks. Sadly, the veto override effort for this bill did not get done in the senate.

Health Care Reform: Nothing of significance happened to improve New Mexico’s health care system or reduce medical provider shortages. No medical malpractice reform, no compacts, and no reform of Medicaid.

EV mandates: Bills (like HB 270) to end New Mexico’s unrealistic and economically-harmful EV mandates failed.

Constitutional liberties: Gun rights were unfortunately attacked again (HB 12), but nothing was done to restore free speech, gun rights, or balance in public health orders by restoring the Legislature as an equal branch of government (HB 535).

Yet again, the 2025 Legislature failed to address New Mexico’s biggest problems. This is nothing new. It is deeply unfortunate for the Legislature to spend 60 days doing nothing significant to make New Mexico a better, more attractive place to live.

On this week’s Tipping Point interview Paul sits down with Tego Venturi, a realtor in Albuquerque. He recently won realtor of the year from the National Association of Realtors. Tego and Paul discuss the local housing market and current conditions in the metro area and then move on to talk about housing legislation and whether the bills being passed (or considered in Santa Fe) would address the housing “crisis.” Is the Legislature moving in the right direction or do they need to consider other approaches to addressing housing in New Mexico? Paul and Tego may not agree 100% but this is an informational conversation about an important part of New Mexico’s economy.