Carter Bundy with the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), recently attacked the Rio Grande Foundation on NMPolitics.net. The gist of his argument was that we at the Rio Grande Foundation are not seriously engaged in solving New Mexico’s public policy issues and that we are just “out to get” government workers [...]

I just love how advocates for massively-subsidized transit will obfuscate reality and throw up smokescreens in order to defend their favorite boondoggles. A case in point is the article in today’s Albuquerque Journal by Ike Benton and Chris Blewett. The article is downright silly in so many of its statements in response to Mark Mathis’s [...]

This week’s question at the New Mexico Independent Forum centered around Blue Cross Blue Shield New Mexico and its recent efforts to raise rates on individual policies relatively dramatically (in excess of 20% this year). As a policyholder with Blue Cross, I am impacted directly by this, but unlike government from which we all should [...]

Over the weekend the Kerry/Graham/Lieberman Climate Change Legislation—commonly known as Cap and Trade—was postponed. It was scheduled to be introduced, but it has been delayed (at least briefly). Supporters were expecting it pass by June or July. Reports now predict that it may not get on the legislative calendar this year. An article out of [...]

A new study called “Taxifornia,” by the free-market Pacific Research Institute studies state tax burdens and mechanisms for tax collection nationwide. As you might be able to assume from the study’s title, California does not perform especially well. In fact, according to the study, California’s state and local spending as a share of gross state [...]

If you haven’t been following the debate over Albuquerque’s budget, government employee unions are winning. The debate is over whether to cut the employee pay by about 3% as Mayor Berry has proposed or whether to raise taxes or embark on some other hare-brained schemes (like looking for precious metals in local landfills…why don’t they [...]

In case you missed it, our investigative journalist over at New Mexico Watchdog, Jim Scarantino, has done it again. This time he exposed the inappropriate use of state vehicles at the New Mexico Department of Corrections. Channel 7 picked up the story and ran with it.

University of New Mexico’s president David Schmidly responded to my comment in the Albuquerque Journal, in which I pointed out that while Central New Mexico Community College has found cost-savings per student, University of New Mexico has increased costs per student. While the response is appreciated, UNM’s president has not responded to the substance of [...]

Good to see that we at the Rio Grande Foundation are not the only ones concerned with the costs associated with the Rail Runner. Mark Mathis penned an enlightening and humorous op-ed in the Albuquerque Journal demanding that our political leaders put a stop to the boondoggle. Find out more about national views on the [...]