jsmith's Archive

Mapping the Future of Education

New Mexico always seems to stand out on a map. Sunday’s New York Times reports on projected changes in the number of high school graduates and its consequences for future college enrollment across the country. The article features this map based on the Interstate Commission for Higher Education’s projections for 2015:

That bluish hue [...]

Freedom as an Incentive

If you caught Paul’s appearance on The Line last night, the discussion on government incentives to attract businesses to the state was especially useful. When a business is looking to locate in the Southwest, New Mexico is in competition with its neighbors. Two chief strategies come into play in this competition. States [...]

‘Private’ Space Development

While New Mexico’s state government gears up to build a spaceport, Space.com reports on a similar endeavor underway next door in Texas.
Both projects were initiated by brazen billionaires, Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson seeking to launch his Virgin Galactic in Southern NM, and Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin setting up in West Texas. [...]

Adding Insult to Injury

President Bush celebrated the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision with an Executive Order, basically restating the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution. By the President’s order, private property is now protected by:
limiting the taking of private property by the Federal Government to situations in which the taking is for public use, [...]

Living Wage for Shoplifters?

Today’s Albuquerque Journal reports on HB80, Equitable Sentencing Schedule, which among other things doubles the threshold at which shoplifting becomes a felony from $250 to $500. This bill was passed during the 2006 legislative session and is set to go into effect on July 1.
The bill’s sponsor, Hector H. Balderas (D), argues the change is [...]

Feng Shui 1, Private Property 0

The latest Weekly Alibi features the chilling tale of the Crematorium that nearly killed the Cultural Center.
Bryan Arndt, property owner, made the grave mistake of leasing a lot to Charlie Finegan, business owner–New Mexico Mortuary Service and Riverside Funeral Home, to be exact. Finegan sought to expand his business, creating jobs and new tax [...]

Freedom, with or without Caffeine

Some additional context on the previous entry resurrected by Jason Kottke, hat tip to Marginal Revolution.
As the Economist showed back in 1997, consumption of Coke correlates strongly with both health, measured by the UN human development index, and freedom as reported by Freedom House:

Ah, now the American Medical Association’s attempt to reduce soft drink [...]

‘Gimme some corn syrup, baby’

America’s doctors, fresh out of lollipops, are demanding that government do something about sweeteners in our sodas. Specifically, they want a ‘fat tax‘ imposed to reduce demand and fund “health education.”
Delegates at [the American Medical Association's] Chicago conference are gunning in particular for high fructose corn syrup, the sweetener which is added to everything [...]

Risky Business

Today’s Sunday Journal reports on the failure of one of the state government’s many ‘investments.’ TCI Medical, which was to build a nuclear medicine plant in Carlsbad, has ceased business after receiving $7 million from New Mexico’s taxpayers.
The immediate cause of TCI’s closure? Private investors realized the company simply wasn’t competitive with others [...]

Bringing the Death Tax Back from the Dead

As Harry mentioned, a majority of Senators sought today to permanently end the federal death tax, but could muster only 57 of the 60 votes needed to advance the measure.
New Mexico tax law links the state’s death tax to the federal one. By 2005, recent abatement of the federal estate tax effectively eliminated the [...]

Capitol Report New Mexico
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