America’s natural gas boom has helped lead to a dramatic decline in carbon emissions in the United States. Rather than pursuing “green” energy technologies that are simply not ready for prime-time, the US government should just allow US suppliers to assist China with the transition to cleaner, more-efficient energy sources? After all, the free market [...]

Lots of information relating to the debate on federal debts and deficits. Footage of the debate is posted below: 4-18-13 Debate from Paul Gessing on Vimeo. The powerpoint slides are available online as well with Nick Estes’ here and Paul Gessing’s here. Also, Rob Nikolewski of Capitol Report New Mexico interviewed Estes and Gessing prior [...]

The following letter appeared in the April 17-23 edition of the Santa Fe Reporter. The letter was in response to the article “WIPP it Good” which appeared in the previous edition of the paper. I read with interest Laura Paskus’ article on WIPP. In particular, I noted her statement that the “oil and gas industry [...]

(Albuquerque) Varying levels of economic freedom, both from country to country and state to state, have been widely studied by think tanks and government agencies alike. The strong trend is for economic freedom to be correlated with prosperity. Nonetheless, few if any reports have directly compared the burden of government across often-arbitrary Western borders. The [...]

As we gear up for tonight’s big debate, I thought this was a very interesting article about how Medicare should be more like Social Security. Sure, Social Security’s finances are problematic and the system must be reformed, but they are not as bad as Medicare’s long-term. One solution, as Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute points out, [...]

With Bernalillo County poised to raise its government-mandated minimum wage, I thought this story about Hobby Lobby  raising its starting wage for full-time workers to $14/hour and for part-time workers to $9.50/hour was very interesting. Why would an avowedly “conservative” company that has sued the Obama Administration over its “ObamaCare” health care law voluntarily raise [...]

There was a spate of coverage here and elsewhere last week over the steep tuition hikes enacted at the University of New Mexico. See full coverage here, here, and here. I found the following chart which illustrates the tuition hikes experienced by state four-year colleges and universities in the 50 states over the last few [...]

I have to admit that I almost did not believe my eyes when I saw Sunday’s op-ed in the Albuquerque Journal by Donald Moya, CFO of the Albuquerque Public Schools (APS). It is great to see New Mexico’s largest school district (and several other districts) embracing digital learning, calling it “the way of the future.” As [...]

I recently discussed the potential for natural gas exports (LNG) from New Mexico to energy-poor nations like Japan. Notably, since that column was published, Senators Udall and Bingaman (along with Rep. Pearce) have endorsed LNG exports. Unfortunately, there is no legislation on the topic. The decision is ultimately up to our Dear Leader, Obama who [...]

Recently, Mike and Genie Ryan penned a column for the West Side Rio edition of the Albuquerque Journal. They made several comparisons between Michigan and New Mexico in terms of weather and several economic points. While I am happy to be a New Mexican, the comparison between poverty and economic issues faced by the two [...]