A version of the op-ed below ran in The Los Alamos Monitor on March 12.

What makes a tax “good” or “bad?” Fairness is often in the eye of the beholder. Should the wealthy pay more, as a percentage of their income? If so, a tax is said to be “progressive,” with the best example being the federal income tax.

On the other hand, if applied at the same rate regardless of income, a tax is said to be “regressive,” since less-affluent households pay a higher share of their income. A tax that is both applied at the same rate and applied to those goods disproportionately purchased by the poor is particularly regressive.

These issues are critical to several tax changes under discussion in the Land of Enchantment. Liberal groups, with New Mexico Voices for Children leading the charge, have been adamant in opposing the re-imposition of the gross receipts tax on groceries as a component of broader tax reform. While the proposed shift fits the technical definition of regressive, food-stamp benefits, currently claimed by a distressing 26 percent of the state’s population, reduce the sting significantly.

That is not to argue that groceries should be taxed, but rather that the merits of the measure must be judged against various alternatives. In fact, there are several proposals moving through the legislature — and other governing bodies in this state — that are equally regressive and more economically harmful. Yet when it comes to these taxes, our friends on the left are silent. Or even supportive.

Let’s start with the gasoline tax. Legislation raising the tax from 17 cents to 27 cents passed the New Mexico Senate, and it’s likely to pass the House of Representatives. The increase represents a stunning 63 percent hike, and its regressively isn’t in question. (And it’s worth noting that the poor often drive older, less-fuel-efficient cars. Ownership of hybrids and fully electric vehicles is not common among households of modest means.) But liberals don’t seem to care. At least we haven’t heard from them.

Another tax hike making its way through the legislature is a 33 percent increase in the levy imposed on automobile purchases. While not as regressive as the gasoline tax, a rise in the motor vehicle excise tax is no benefit to people on the fringes of the work force, who need affordable, reliable transportation to seek all available employment opportunities.

Finally, a bill moving through the legislature makes a breathtakingly massive boost to the tax on tobacco products. The rate on cigarettes would nearly double, from $1.66 per pack to $3.16 per pack — a 90 percent hike. Again, the levy is imposed at one rate regardless of income level. Since the poor disproportionately smoke, the tax hike will hit them much harder than middle- and upper-income consumers.

Even worse, the “anti-smoking” bill imposes, for the first time, taxes on e-cigarettes and vaping technology, tools that have been used by millions of people to quit cigarettes. While data from the U.S. is hard to come by, researchers at University College London have estimated that 891,000 people have used one of the devices when trying to kick the habit. Since vaping has been repeatedly found to be healthier than smoking, taxing it is likely to worsen health outcomes for many, a disproportionate number of them poor.

All this talk of raising taxes on New Mexicans would be understandable if the budget were truly “cut to the bone,” as some assert. But state government spends more as a percentage of economic output than any of our neighbors, and all but a few states nationwide.

Taxpayers subsidize the movie industry, tourism-related businesses, an outrageously bloated higher-education system, and out-of-control spending on K-12 schools. Yet neither liberal groups nor the hard-left politicians in command of the legislature have made any contribution to the effort to right-size state government.

This hypocrisy is doing great harm to our state, especially the working poor.

D. Dowd Muska (dmuska@riograndefoundation.org) is research director for the Rio Grande Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on the principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility.

Source: 2016 Annual Report, New Mexico Department of Transportation

At least we’re not alone.

Santa Fe’s solons are scheming to increase the state’s gasoline tax, in part to raise additional revenue for transportation. To our north, a bipartisan cabal of Colorado state pols wants more moolah “for transportation infrastructure funding purposes,” and the group has drafted a bill to ask voters for a sales-tax hike — from 2.9 percent to 3.52 percent — that “would start in January 2018 and remain in place for 20 years.”

The Rio Grande Foundation has warned, again and again, that there are many ways to boost spending on New Mexico’s roads, highways, and bridges that do not involve raising taxes. Repealing the state’s anti-taxpayer prevailing-wage mandate is an easy way to make all infrastructure dollars go further. Shifting 100 percent of the revenue raised by the excise tax placed on motor-vehicle sales to transportation is another promising reform. And walking away from the Rail Runner, however painful, will stop throwing good money after bad.

In Colorado, the Independence Institute has launched an effort to stop their state’s potential tax hike. Calling the measure the “Fix Our Damn Roads” initiative, the organization’s president called the proposal “a re-allocation of existing … spending to roads.”

The initiative’s language charges that “Colorado’s elected officials have decreased funding for road and bridge construction, maintenance and repair by 9 percent over the last decade,” and decries the diversion of funds “that should have gone to roads pursuant to state law” to “programs outside the core responsibility of state government, such as, inter-city bus services (duplicating many services of the Regional Transportation District and unfairly competing with private sector transit providers), resort town housing, duplicative education programs, subsidies for large out-of-state businesses and automatic raises for state officials.”

“Fix Our Damn Roads” would pay for $2.5 billion worth of “road and bridge expansion, construction, maintenance and repair” with revenue anticipation notes.

As the chart above indicates, the major, indigenous sources of New Mexico’s “road fund” haven’t seen much growth in the past dozen years. And federal funding, which contributes nearly half of all “transportation” spending, is an highly unreliable revenue stream.

So it’s time — long past time, really — to prioritize. Ditch the regulations that drive up infrastructure costs. Allocate transportation dollars more appropriately. And follow the “Fix Our Damn Roads” approach of stopping expenditures on projects that return little (or no) value to the taxpayer.

Smart, not more, transportation spending is the answer. While there’s not much chance of a “Fix Our Damn Roads”-style solution being enacted in New Mexico anytime soon, we’ll keep watching our neighbor to the north, and report on the initiative’s progress.

There are several solid reasons why New Mexico should not raise taxes this legislative session. An economy that hasn’t climbed its way out of the Great Recession and a political establishment that won’t pursue a thorough right-sizing of state government lead the pack.

But keeping an eye on the competition is another justification for no new taxes. As the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) puts it, a “large volume of academic literature finds taxes negatively affect economic growth.” In a country where picking up and bolting for lower-tax jurisdictions is relatively simple, states that enjoy thriving economies get that simple truth.

ALEC’s annual “Tax Cut Roundup” is out, and the organization found that in 2016, nine states “provided substantial tax relief for their citizens.” The best of the best included:

* Arizona, which eliminated the sales tax placed on electricity and natural gas purchased by manufacturers and hiked its bonus depreciation schedule to 100 percent of the federal allowance

* Mississippi, which “passed what may be the largest tax cut in state history,” including lower income taxes and a phase-out of the “business franchise tax on investments in business property and capital”

* North Carolina, which made 2016 “another year of substantial tax relief,” dropping the rates for both its income and corporate taxes

* Tennessee, which adopted a full zeroing-out of its tax on dividend and interest income and put a final end to its death tax

* Florida, which continued cutting taxes “for the fourth consecutive year” by making permanent the sales-tax exemption for manufacturing equipment and reducing “the ‘required local effort’ property taxes for schools”

ALEC notes that “more than half the states have cut taxes over the last five years.” And there’s sure to be more tax-cutting in 2017, including, possibly, Ohio, Florida, Idaho, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Texas, and Iowa.

So where does that leave the Land of Enchantment? With Santa Fe’s revenue-grubbers pushing tax hikes on gasoline, “smoking,” and motor-vehicle purchases (as well as a constitutionally shaky extension of the GRT to sales from beyond-borders vendors), New Mexico is headed in the wrong direction, and offering individuals and entrepreneurs one more reason to leave — or avoid — the state.

Here at the Rio Grande Foundation we stick to New Mexico policies, especially the economy. Of course, the state of the economy greatly impacts New Mexico although we tend to lag the national economy in most areas. We don’t expect the 2017 legislative session to do much positive although tax hikes and minimum wage increases could have negative impacts.

So, barring a massive run-up in oil and gas prices, New Mexico’s most likely path out of recession is a strong national economy. This brings us to President Trump. Like him or not (and we have concerns about his trade, spending, and now health care policies),  the first month’s worth of economic data are in and the stock market boomlet that we’ve seen since the election is trickling down from Wall Street to Main Street.

Check out some of this data from this US News & World Report article (which relies upon data from payroll processor ADP):

Happy International School Meals Day!

Yes, that’s a thing.

“Managed” by “Children in Scotland,” ISMD “is a unique campaign with the aim of raising awareness of good nutrition for all children regardless of their circumstances.” Federal “agriculture” bureaucrat Yibo Wood writes that the day raises “awareness of nutritious school meals and their importance to the health of our kids,” gushing that “nearly every country provides some form of school meal for about 368 million children each school day worldwide, including more than 30 million children here in the U.S. through USDA’s National School Lunch Program.” ISMD, she claims, “brings the world a little closer, helping kids understand the importance of healthy nutrition to a healthy future.”

Here in New Mexico, one school district recently decided to take a pass on federally funded meals for the young ‘uns. Los Alamos Public Schools is planning to “cut ties with the National School Lunch Program by next school year.” Local donors — imagine that — will provide grub. The shift, according to the district’s food-services manager, “just gives us the opportunity to give some larger portions and be a little bit more creative with our menu.”

While the federal school-lunch program is sacred to the left, the subsidy is long overdue for some serious scrutiny. As The Heartland Institute’s Teresa Mull explained last month in The Hill, “Feeding a child is the fundamental duty of a parent.” (If moms and/or dads are unable to provide a decent breakfast and pack a nutritious lunch for their kids, what else aren’t they providing? Isn’t it time to get family services involved?)

The Heritage Foundation’s Darren Bakst and Rachel Sheffield add that the program’s “community eligibility provision” incentivizes “schools to give students free meals regardless of whether or not they come from low-income homes.” It’s an outrageous policy — one that wastes scare funds and “imposes a wealth transfer, taking hard-earned money from lower-income taxpayers and using it to subsidize higher-income families who have no need for such welfare.”

According to the latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics, in New Mexico, a colossal 67.6 percent of government-school students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. (Only Mississippi, at 70.6 percent, is higher.) Let’s hope that more districts follow Los Alamos’s lead, and question the “wisdom” of “partnering” with the feds for school meals.

With all of the bad legislation coming out of the Legislature in Santa Fe, HB 228 (“Right to Try” by Rep. Rebecca Dow) is one of the few bills that would expand freedom in the 2017 session. This opinion piece ran in today’s paper.

Source: “PADDs 1 and 3 Transportation Fuels Markets,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, February 2016

In news that must surely come as a shocking surprise to the Trump administration, Bloomberg reports that last year, Mexico “relied on U.S. gasoline … for nearly 50 percent of its total consumption as refineries operated by state-owned oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos … malfunctioned.” In the final month of 2016, the country “imported a record high of 1.2 million barrels a day of U.S. fuels.”

How many of those barrels were imported from New Mexico’s refineries? Zero.

While the Land of Enchantment produces over 400,000 barrels per day of crude (more than double the figure for 2010), its refining capacity is just 127,500 barrels per day. And the state’s two refineries — one in Gallup, one in Artesia — don’t ship a single barrel of petroleum products south.

As the the map above depicts, infrastructure is an issue. New Mexico’s pipelines don’t do exports. Given Bloomberg’s finding that “the U.S. refining industry has shifted its game over the last five years, taking advantage of gaps left by struggling refiners in Latin America, Africa and Asia,” that’s a distressing reality.

The U.S. is experiencing a bit of a refinery boom. Four new facilities came online in 2015 — three in Texas, one in North Dakota. And Raven Petroleum is building a $500 million refinery east of Laredo that’s geared toward exports to Mexico.

Given its own reservoir of crude, as well as its proximity to other oil-producing states, New Mexico could be a refining powerhouse. So why isn’t it? Regulations, taxes, eco-hysteria-driven NIMBYism, a lack of a right-to-work law? Something for the state’s well-compensated advocates for “economic development” to ponder.

In today’s Albuquerque Journal, Democrat Sen. Howie Morales made his case for higher taxes on tobacco and e-cigarettes. We at RGF share Gov. Martinez’s concerns about any and all tax hikes, but that’s not really the point of this post.

Rather, Morales justified his tax hike, in part, by noting that a near-doubling of the tax “means there will be thousands of fewer smokers in the future.” He went on to say that “making smoking more expensive would save the lives of 7,000 New Mexicans,” presumably by reducing demand.

The idea that artificial price increases reduce demand is a basic tenet of economics, but just a few days ago Morales’ colleague Sen. Clemente Sanchez argued in the Albuquerque Journal that raising the minimum wage would “stimulate the economy and job creation.”

So, which is it? Do government-mandated price increases reduce demand for a good (as basic economics and logic imply) or do they somehow increase demand? You can’t have it both ways Senators!

Higher education is a mess. Here in New Mexico it is clearly unsustainable as a line-item in the budget and nationally the cost is growing faster than almost any important good purchased by large numbers of people:

Enter Praxis which essentially moves to replace the costly (in both time and money) traditional college diploma with an apprenticeship program. The program (started by a libertarian young man named Isaac Morehouse), touts an average starting salary at a real job of $50K annually and a 98% placement rate all after 9 months in the program.

Morehouse recently appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News to discuss the program:

At a time when the New Mexico Legislature seems hell-bent on making life more difficult for businesses and entrepreneurs, Praxis is a reminder that sometimes the best way to deal with bloated, expensive, and inefficient government is to just go around them.
 

Source: Site Selection, March 2017

Site Selection is out with its annual look at capital investment in the states. The publication, using information obtained from the Conway Projects Database, tabulates projects that cost at least $1 million, create 20 or more jobs, and take up a minimum of 20,000 square feet.

Don’t bother sitting down for this: Texas’s chief executive took “his third Governor’s Cup,” and “the Lone Star State’s fifth consecutive such Cup.” At 642 projects, the contest wasn’t even close.

But states vary considerably in population, so Site Selection provides a helpful look at investments per capita. Surprisingly, New Mexico did not rank at rock bottom. The Land of Enchantment did, however, tumble into the bottom 15 states, excluding Alaska and Hawaii. We’re in lousy company — e.g., Delaware, Connecticut, New York. And every state that borders New Mexico fared better. (See graph above.) Note that energy-rich (and right-to-work) Texas and Oklahoma secured the most investments in the Southwest.

Like the Rio Grande Foundation’s ongoing analysis of job-creation in right-to-work vs. compulsory-unionism states, Site Selection‘s data are particularly valuable, because they track real-world investment. Surveys of CEOs and projections of the future have their place, but it’s tough to argue with facts.

Think the legislation emerging from Santa Fe in the final weeks of the session — more regulations, higher takes — will improve New Mexico’s capital-investment performance in 2017? Errors of Enchantment doesn’t, either.

The Albuquerque Journal did an important public service to New Mexicans with its two-part series on New Mexico’s unsustainable higher education system. Part 1 is the most important part containing the big-picture data and a broad overview of the problem. Unfortunately, as New Mexico’s Legislature grapples with the budget, it shows no signs of systematically addressing the fundamental issues in higher education.

As we’ve noted before, New Mexico’s spends 6th-most of any state per full-time student. Clearly, it is not getting a great return on that investment in terms of economic growth or an educated workforce.

Amazingly, while the map that ran with the Journal story (below) was dotted with campuses, it actually under-reports the issue. CNM is listed as one dot on the map, for example, yet it has 7 branches not including its main campus.

Western New Mexico University has campuses in Gallup, Deming, and Lordsburg, none of which are shown on the map.

NMSU has an Albuquerque campus and UNM has its West Side campus which is also not found on the map.

In other words, New Mexico’s higher education bureaucracy is extremely bloated and expensive. Cutting back would be an important means of saving limited resources and concentrating them in ways that improve the system’s mediocre outcomes. Alas, the Legislature has not addressed the issue in any serious way this session.

As we at the Rio Grande Foundation have previously noted, New Mexico government is bloated. The number cited is typically total state spending including all of the federal pass-through money, but even the General Fund (which represents 1/3rd of total spending) has grown in recent years. See our latest chart illustrating that growth below:

Thanks to our friends at Americans for Tax Reform for the research!

Click here for registration form.

At the Rio Grande Foundation, we feel very confident that the ideas of free markets and individual liberty are the best methods for economic and social organization. We have repeatedly debated the merits of various such policies over the years.

Unfortunately, the political left – from college campuses to the media to congressional town halls – is increasingly unwilling to tolerate differing views.

• Location:  Albuquerque Marriott Uptown, 2101 Louisiana Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM  87110.
• When:  Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 12:00 noon to 1:00pm.
• Cost:  Seating is limited and can be purchased at the discounted price of $30 until Friday, March 10, 2017; $40 after that.

Mary Katharine Ham (current CNN contributor and former Fox News Channel contributor) and Guy Benson (currently a Fox News Channel contributor) rank among the most recognizable and influential young conservatives in the American media today. Ham serves as Contributing Editor to HotAir.com; Benson is Political Editor at Townhall.com and appears regularly on the Hugh Hewitt radio show.

Close friends for nearly a decade, the pair has collaborated on numerous projects &ndash coauthoring political analyses, co-hosting radio shows, and speaking jointly to live audiences across the country. Ham graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Georgia in 2002 and lives in Arlington, VA. Benson graduated with honors from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in 2007 and lived in Obama country (Chicago) prior to relocating to the Beltway in 2010.

Click here for registration form.

Last week Errors of Enchantment called HB 252 a “silly billy,” since it would spend $125,000 “to educate the people of New Mexico about the missions of the nuclear-powered submarines USS New Mexico, SSN-779, and USS Santa Fe, SSN-763, and the effort to retire the USS Albuquerque, SSN-706,” as well as recognize “the state’s naval junior reserve officers training corps,” and lobby to “name a navy warship after Los Alamos county.”

In response, a helpful reader, who is also a retired naval officer, informed us that two “bases” of U.S. Submarine Veterans, Inc. exist in New Mexico — and if members are anything like the shipmates he had, “they would be more than delighted” to provide information to the public about the submarine force, “and would not need tax $$$ to do it.” Albuquerque’s base can be found here, while the White Sands unit is here. (Our reader also suggested the Naval Submarine League as another resource.)

As for the retirement of the Albuquerque, Naval Today recently reported that the boat, launched in 1982, was “decommissioned during a ceremony held at Keyport Undersea Museum.” At the event, Rear Adm. John Tammen noted that the Albuquerque “deployed 21 times to every corner of the globe, accumulating approximately 1.1 million nautical miles steamed, the equivalent of 52 global circumnavigations.”

Just because something is a good idea doesn’t mean that taxpayers should be subsidizing it. The fascinating tales of the submariners who served aboard the New Mexico, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque deserve to be told, but individuals and non-government organizations are more than capable of doing the job.

The Foundation is tracking announcements of expansions, relocations, and greenfield investments published on Area Development‘s website. Founded in 1965, the publication “is considered the leading executive magazine covering corporate site selection and relocation. … Area Development is published quarterly and has 60,000 mailed copies.” In an explanation to the Foundation, its editor wrote that items for Area Development‘s announcements listing are “culled from RSS feeds and press releases that are emailed to us from various sources, including economic development organizations, PR agencies, businesses, etc. We usually highlight ones that represent large numbers of new jobs and/or investment in industrial projects.”

In February, of 20,775 projected jobs, 13,441 — 64.7 percent — were slated for right-to-work (RTW) states:

The results for non-RTW states were better than usual last month, but employment was boosted by two investments planned to create 2,000 jobs each: Amazon in California and Blue Apron in New Jersey.

As for the sub-metrics the Foundation scrutinizes:

* Ten domestic companies based in non-RTW states announced investments in RTW states. Five announcements went the other way.

* RTW prevailed in foreign direct investment, too. Eight projects are headed to RTW states, with three to occur in a non-RTW state.

Marquee RTW investments included:

* Intel announced its intention to complete its Arizona-based “Fab 42, which is expected to be the most advanced high-volume semiconductor factory in the world” (3,000 jobs)

* Nestlé’s American headquarters fled California for Virginia, choosing to spend $39.8 million on the relocation (748 jobs)

* Connecticut-based Pratt & Whitney picked an existing facility in Georgia to “increase the production of parts and maintenance services and reduce costs for new and existing engine programs” (500 jobs)

Methodological specifics:

* All job estimates — “up to,” “as many as,” “about” — were taken at face value, for RTW and non-RTW states alike.

* If an announcement did not make an employment projection, efforts were made to obtain an estimate from newspaper articles and/or press releases from additional sources.

* If no job figure could be found anywhere, the project was not counted, whether it was a RTW or non-RTW state.

* Non-border-crossing relocations were not counted, border-crossing relocations were.

This article has been updated (as of 3/3/17) based on conversations w/ the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce

Government-mandated price floors are bad public policy. Minimum wages fall into the same category even though they are often popular with those who think wage mandates come with no cost.

But why in the world would the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce actively support a $9.00/hour minimum wage?

Notably, Albuquerque already has an $8.80 minimum wage, but most areas outside the Rio Grande Corridor are at the currently-mandated $7.50 an hour. This legislation will hurt businesses and low-skilled workers in those areas of the state while barely impacting Albuquerque. It would be better if the Albuquerque Chamber just stayed out as this really doesn’t affect them.

No matter what the motive, too many Republicans who should know better are falling for the deception. SB 386 just passed out of the Senate on a 24-6 vote. That means bipartisan support. Hopefully House Republicans better appreciate the perils of government-wage mandates. They may lose, but at least fight the good fight. As for the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, it may be time for members to give their leadership an Economics 101 lesson.

New Mexico is in a recession (at least). The Bureau of Economic Analysis has the latest GDP “growth” (3rd quarter of 2016) data for each state. Per the usual these days, the data are not good for New Mexico (see below). New Mexico was one of two states (Alaska being the other) to see a decline in GDP. Neighboring states like Colorado, Utah, and even oil-producing Texas raced ahead with growth rates exceeding 4 percent.

What does this mean? Well, it is a small sample size. Quarterly growth is volatile, but we know that New Mexico is in bad shape economically. Basic economic theory (as expounded upon nicely by President Obama) also tells us that tax hikes in bad economic times aren’t the best idea. So, what is our Legislature doing?

According to the ABQ Journal, the Senate Finance Committee voted to raise taxes. Unlike some votes, this was a bi-partisan vote with Republicans (minus Sen. Carroll Leavell) voting to raise taxes. It places these Republicans and any others voting to raise taxes uncomfortably to the left of President Obama (who at least claimed to oppose raising taxes during a recession) on the issue of taxes.

Let’s all hope for the best for Sigma Labs. The Santa Fe-based firm “has uplisted … to the NASDAQ,” according to Albuquerque Business First. Under CEO Mark Cola, Sigma “develops and engineers advanced, in-process, non-destructive quality inspection systems for commercial firms worldwide seeking productive solutions for metal-based additive manufacturing or 3D printing, and other advanced manufacturing technologies.”

But there’s a dark cloud to every silver lining, and the company’s status shift is a reminder that New Mexico is woefully bereft of investable enterprises. The state does have a smattering of publicly traded corporations, but Sigma joins PNM Resources — a regulated monopoly — to comprise the only state-based companies listed on major stock exchanges.

Several of the Land of Enchantment’s other public corporations have been de-listed, while others (Santa Fe Gold, Net Medical Xpress Solutions) trade on the over-the-counter market. No offense — and as a reminder, Errors of Enchantment is not an investment-advice blog — but shares for the OTC firms are in the penny-stock range, and demand is rather limited.

For a state that prides itself on high-tech “investment” from Washington, it’s really appalling that PNM and Sigma are all we’ve got. New Mexico’s deep-in-denial pols can continue to ignore reality, but all the big-brained men and women working on nuclear-weapons systems at Los Alamos and Sandia aren’t entrepreneurial types. As Greg Mello at the Los Alamos Study Group noted in 2012: “It’s simply a fact that the economic standing of the state has not tracked lab spending. If anything, our standing relative to other states has declined as lab spending has increased.”

New Mexico is not the place for red-hot tech companies, explosive IPOs, and instant millionaires. Maybe D.C. dependency isn’t the best route toward STEM-based economic development?

SB 429, sponsored by Sen. Mary Kay Papen (D-Las Cruces), is titled the “Spaceport Confidential Records Act.” The bill would make “sensitive and proprietary private entity customer information” maintained by New Mexico’s spaceport authority — proprietor of “Spaceport America” — exempt from the Inspection of Public Records Act.

Given how little activity is occurring at New Mexico’s boondoggle-in-the-desert, the legislation seems rather unnecessary. With zero launches in all of 2016, and nothing headed for space so far in 2017, it’s not likely that many launch companies are concerned over prying eyes using New Mexico’s freedom-of-information law to ferret out trade secrets.

Meanwhile, the space industry stubbornly refuses to come to New Mexico to put its payloads in orbit. Recent developments at other facilities include:

* World View Enterprises opened “its new Global Headquarters campus, collocated with Spaceport Tucson,” calling it “the world’s first purpose-built commercial gateway to the Stratosphere.” For years, Spaceport America bureaucrats mentioned the company as a potential tenant. WVE decided otherwise, picking Arizona “after a rigorous nation-wide search and negotiations with multiple state agencies.”

* The FAA continues to evaluate LauncherOne’s proposal to place small satellites in orbit from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port. Virgin Galactic, the company that was supposed to start sending tourists on suborbital flights from Spaceport America years ago, owns LauncherOne.

* Way up in Canada, Maritime Launch Services, “a newly registered company in Nova Scotia with roots in the U.S and the Ukraine,” is looking to send medium-class payloads into orbit from the Maritime province.

* Way down in New Zealand, Rocket Lab is conducting “pre-flight tests and checkouts” for the inaugural launch of its Electron rocket. In January, The Wall Street Journal reported that the startup firm’s facility, located on the Mahia Peninsula, has locals sensing “an opportunity for jobs and rocket tourism in their new but still alien industry, with plans to build holiday units and offer bus rides to starry-eyed space tourists.”

Maybe instead of drafting legislation that doubles down on New Mexico’s dismal “investment” in Spaceport America, Sen. Papen should work with Sen. George Munoz (D-Gallup) to offer the white elephant to the highest bidder.

I sat down with KOB TV to discuss the gap between taxes owed in New Mexico and taxes actually collected. This is based on a report from the Legislative Finance Committee which claimed that New Mexico is missing out on nearly $600 million in tax collections.

See the story which aired on the 10pm news on February 27 below:

An excellent KOB TV story recently highlighted problem of rural health care in New Mexico including Harding County which doesn’t have a single dentist practicing within its borders. The good news is that we have the solution. HB 264, the “Access to Dental Care Act” would create a new level of mid-level dental providers (dental therapists) that would put a serious dent in this problem. By creating a new subset of providers who don’t have to take on dentist-level-debt, but could provide basic procedures, we could see great benefits in our rural communities.

It is to be heard in the House State Government, Veterans, and Indian Affairs Committee on Tuesday, February 28.

Milan Simonich recently lamented that despite the state’s fiscal woes, “many legislators still introduce unnecessary bills that waste time and staff resources.”

No kidding. Simonich cited SB 99, which “would make it a crime for a prison inmate to possess a cellphone,” despite the pesky fact that the “Corrections Department already prohibits prisoners from having cellphones.” Another bill would “make the green chile cheeseburger the official hamburger of New Mexico,” while HB 204, which “should be called the Sore Loser Initiative,” mandates that “candidates for president … provide copies of their last five federal income tax returns to qualify for the ballot in New Mexico.”

Errors of Enchantment has a few “silly billies” of our own. Near the top of the list is HB 252, which seeks a $125,000 appropriation “to educate the people of New Mexico about the missions of the nuclear-powered submarines USS New Mexico, SSN-779, and USS Santa Fe, SSN-763, and the effort to retire the USS Albuquerque, SSN-706.” The money’s also to be spent on recognizing “the state’s naval junior reserve officers training corps” and lobbying to “name a navy warship after Los Alamos county.” We’ve got nothing against the fine men and women of the U.S. Navy, but perhaps $125,000 would be better devoted to addressing the state’s dire fiscal condition.

Are New Mexico educators engaged in an orgy of shaming students who have deficits in their school-lunch accounts? Errors of Enchantment can’t find any evidence of such abuse, but that didn’t stop the drafting of SB 374, the “Hunger-Free Students’ Bill of Rights Act.” It directs schools not to “publicly identify or stigmatize a student who cannot pay for a meal or who owes a meal debt by, for example, requiring that a student wear a wristband or hand stamp.”

No, that’s not a joke.

The good news is that the deadline for submitting bills, memorials, joint memorials, resolutions, and joint resolutions has passed. So there’s no way for the list of time-wasters to grow any longer.

There is no clear definition of what causes an economy to go into a “death spiral,” but declining revenues leading to tax hikes which lead to businesses and productive citizens leaving which in turn leads to declining revenues is the one I would put forth. To be sure, Forbes named New Mexico the #1 “death spiral” state in the nation (by a long-shot).

We’ve known about the declining revenues and young people leaving for a few years now, but it looks like the tax hike phase of New Mexico’s death spiral may be here. Democrats in the Legislature just passed a budget that includes tax hikes (although they will likely be vetoed by the Gov.) Even more troubling is that the largest County (by population) in our State is looking to pass major tax hikes.

As the Foundation has pointed out in the past, the GRT in Albuquerque has risen more than 20% since 2000 and Bernalillo County just increased the tax in 2015. Adding another tax hike (or hikes) on top of those already-rising rates may not seem like a big deal, but it may also be the thing that pushes more businesses and people out.