Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Liberal Columnist Michael Kinsley Rips Richardson, Film Subsidies
Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson had an article in the New York Times recently defending New Mexico’s economically-silly film subsidies. Liberal columnist Michael Kinsley, having more than enough of Richardson’s absurd ideas, lit into him in the Los Angeles Times.
Kinsley’s cites one of the many studies that have shown film subsidies to [...]
Putting New Mexico’s Government Pension Problem into Context
New Mexico’s maximum estimated pension liabilities are 59.8 percent of GDP. That may not mean much, but how about the fact that they are third greatest in the nation? How about the fact that only Wisconsin and Ohio have greater pension burdens as a percentage of GDP?
Bill Gates gets it on Education
Bill Gates has an outstanding article in today’s Albuquerque Journal on education. Gates hits on many of the Rio Grande Foundation’s points on education reform, specifically the out of control spending of the last few decades with little in the way of results.
Gates then points out that the correlation between small class sizes and learning [...]
Debate Footage Posted: Should New Mexico Raise Taxes?
Along with RGF Board member Doug Turner, Rep. Conrad James, and Rep. Alonzo Baldonado, RGF President Paul Gessing debated the liberals on whether New Mexico should raise taxes or cut services. As Turner points out in his opening remarks, this is a false dichotomy, but the debate was fun and I look forward to participating [...]
New Mexico Education Reforms Doomed to Failure?
In today’s Albuquerque Journal, readers received a lesson in the “butterfly theory” and its application to K-12 education. I’m not sure if the author is simply an education bureaucrat and part of the establishment who views any and all reforms as harmful to his own power or if he has an alternative (unstated set of [...]
WIPP Expansion a Win, Win for New Mexico?
There was an excellent article on the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in the Albuquerque Journal today. The author mostly defends the safety of the project which is located between Hobbs and Carlsbad, but he also explains that “hot” nuclear waste is already stored at the facility.
The big question that is being asked now is [...]
In: Uncategorized
Why Government Unions are different
The meme on the left is that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and anyone supporting him is out to destroy labor unions. As Jonah Goldberg explains, nothing could be further from the truth. Private sector unions have a proud history of standing up to abusive business practices. Although even private sector unions are susceptible to their [...]
Who “Owns” New Mexico Government?
Immediately prior to our debate on Wednesday night in Santa Fe, a man accosted me and told me that the Rio Grande Foundation was “bought and paid for” by the Koch brothers. I wish.
But it got me to thinking…”who is the biggest, most-powerful lobbying group in New Mexico?” Surprise, surprise, it is not the Koch’s [...]
Debate Post-Mortem
The Santa Fe New Mexican wrote up a post-mortem on our debate on government spending and taxes last night. Considering that the event was organized by the leftist Progressive Action Network and took place in Santa Fe, I’m pretty pleased with the vote. I was more pleased with the way two of our freshman legislators, [...]
In: Uncategorized
How did government unions obtain their power?
With all that is happening in Wisconsin (and now Ohio and other states) with regard to government workers, some observers are wondering how we arrived to this point.
Well, Hal Stratton, New Mexico’s former attorney general (and co-founder of the Rio Grande Foundation), has written an excellent history of government union collective bargaining. Now, more [...]
In: Uncategorized
