Paul Gessing's Archive
Las Cruces Education Forum Video Posted
The Rio Grande Foundation hosted a forum on K-12 education reform in Las Cruces on Jan. 12. Forum participants included Paul Gessing of the Rio Grande Foundation, Sen. Steve Fischmann (D-Las Cruces), Tracey Bryan of the Bridge of Southern New Mexico, and Robert Carreon of Teach for America.
Watch 1-12-12 Education Forum Las Cruces.wmv in [...]
In: Uncategorized
Is sanity a prerequisite for legislative service?
Apparently not, if we are to take left-wing Democratic Rep. Miguel Garcia at his words and again here. I’m not sure if this is a desperate cry for help or attention or if he really believes half of what he says, but it looks like “the Mexican on the 4th Floor” was just a prelude [...]
Volunteer doctors? Thanks, but no thanks.
We all know that health care is a major issue in America. I met a very interesting man named Stan Brock recently who works to bring medical care to those who cannot access it. There is a great “60 Minutes” story below:
Unfortunately, one detail that “60 Minutes” left out is that Remote Air Medical won’t [...]
Kodak and the Post Office (and the government schools and health care…)
Thomas Sowell has an excellent column discussing the different ways in which time and government policies have impacted the Kodak company (which recently filed for bankruptcy) and the Post Office.
Of course, government never innovates and always responds first and foremost to political rather than economic and market forces. So, all of the problems faced [...]
In: Uncategorized
You know your (government) job is secure…
There are plenty of good government workers out there, but how secure is your job when the firing of three City workers is front-page (above-the-fold) news? Certainly, fraud and all of the abuses of power that were apparently taking place are big issues that give cause to the firings, but does anyone in government ever [...]
Talking tax cuts
Gov. Martinez has discussed ways in which she’d like to reduce New Mexicans’ tax burdens by tackling aspects of the gross receipts tax. This is a good thing.
I discussed some of the preliminary reform ideas with the Santa Fe Reporter which portrayed my views towards the reform in a largely negative light. However, that [...]
How is your child’s public school doing?
New Mexico’s Public Education Department has released its first-ever batch of A-F grades for public schools around New Mexico. The data relies on several measures to better understand and give parents and students the information they need to see if schools in their community are doing the job and whether student performance is improving or [...]
Double-dipping legislators
The Rio Grande Foundation has been a leader in bringing attention to New Mexico’s pension problems. Dan Boyd of the Albuquerque Journal recently wrote an interesting column on legislators and their “double-dipping” in the State’s pension system in which he quotes me. Rob Nikolewski over at Capitol Report New Mexico has an excellent overview of [...]
In: Uncategorized
Farmington pursues greater transparency
The Rio Grande Foundation has been using a new state law to request and post payroll information for city and county governments statewide (we are working on school districts). Despite having posted payroll information for Farmington and several other major cities statewide back in August, the effort has only started to make waves over the [...]
Santa Fe “Living wage” law reduces employment
Santa Fe has made news recently with plans to increase the City’s minimum wage to as much as $10.32. This is certainly not a cause for celebration. Rather, as the Hoover Institute points out in a new brief, “As the wage demanded increases, the jobs offered in the labor market will decline.”
The paper goes [...]
