Recently, RGF president Paul Gessing wrote an article that appeared in several papers around the State including the Santa Fe New Mexican taking Gov. Lujan Grisham to task for keeping New Mexico’s economy shut down for more than 6 months. A letter-writer to the paper responded, asking for the RGF’s plan. Basically, they asked “What’s our plan?”
Funny you should ask; RGF (and our friends at Power the Future) have had a plan since back in April. We STILL think our plan, called Fairly Open New Mexico is relevant. Here’s the core of it:
- Allow small businesses to reopen at the same standards applied to box stores.
- A detailed plan for reopening including health criteria to be used for businesses to reopen. This should be a public document.
- Governor Lujan Grisham and her Administration should immediately share the models upon which they are basing their quarantine/business restriction decisions.
We haven’t seen this.
Instead, New Mexico’s reopening has been painfully slow and haphazard despite the fact that we are now coming up on our 7 months of being locked down (it basically started on March 11). The problem was highlighted in our confusion over the reopening (or lack thereof) of bowling alleys in New Mexico and the Gov.’s pledge (made in her September 10 news conference) to keep bars and movie theaters shut down until we have a vaccine. Remember when movie theaters, bars, and casinos were supposed to reopen in June? (some tribal casinos are open, but only because they are outside the Gov.’s control)
Of course, if business reopening has been haphazard, the same is true for New Mexico’s schools.
NM will reopen when its Dem governor, its Dem controlled state legislature and its Dem controlled appellate courts decide to do so – most likely on Wednesday November 4.
When one looks at state unemployment stats, one sees that among the ten states with the highest unemployment rates, only one (MA) has a Republican governor. Among the ten states with the lowest unemployment rates, only one (MT) has a Dem governor. This is no coincidence. It is intentional conduct by Dem governors to prolong economic agony, disrupt the natural rhythms of life and sow dissatisfaction with the Trump administration. https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm
As to diversifying the NM economy, good luck with that. NM will never be able to diversify its economy as long as it has single party Dem rule which has scared away private industry. Why would a substantial business want to come to NM when each of the 5 states that abut NM are so much more business friendly?