Eclipse’s Failure: One of Many State Investment Failures

Now that Eclipse Aviation has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, New Mexico taxpayers have officially lost their $20 million investment in the company. As Rio Grande Foundation investigative journalist Jim Scarantino points out in his newest piece, New Mexico taxpayers face mounting losses and well-below-market returns through the State Investment Council.

Posted on December 2, 2008 at 9:30 am by Paul Gessing · Permalink · One Comment
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Take Ads off Taxpayer Dime

If you left your house, watched tv, listened to the radio, or read the newspaper in the months prior to the last election, you probably saw a political ad that you paid for. No, I’m not just referring to donors to the Obama or McCain campaigns, but involuntary campaign “donations” that were taken in the [...]

Posted on November 22, 2008 at 9:09 am by Paul Gessing · Permalink · One Comment
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Rocky Long and the Albuquerque Arena

Lobo football fans awoke this morning to find that their head football coach of the past 11 seasons, Rocky Long, had resigned. While the losing 2008 season was definitely tough on the coach, he made a point of stating that New Mexico football will never flourish until the fans decide to turn out in [...]

Posted on November 18, 2008 at 5:07 pm by Paul Gessing · Permalink · Leave a comment
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$4.5 million for Moriarty Racino Infrastructure?

According to KOAT TV:
The Albuquerque Downs are moving to Moriarty, and the city’s major hopes extra funding will come with it.
Mayor Adan Encinias is asking the state for $4.5 million to help cover infrastructure costs for the new racino. Plans for the track are complete, and this is the only issue standing in the way [...]

Posted on November 15, 2008 at 2:05 pm by Paul Gessing · Permalink · Leave a comment
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Shocker: Those Who Would Benefit from Albuquerque Arena Think it is Viable

In what has to be considered the least surprising news story of the day, one of the myriad studies from consultants hired to sell er…study the downtown arena has been released. The study, done by a firm called Conventions, Sports, and Leisure, found that the market characteristics for the proposed $400 million arena are “very [...]

Posted on October 29, 2008 at 2:36 pm by Paul Gessing · Permalink · Leave a comment
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Legislative Tracking Site in the news

I have written previously in this space about our new legislative tracking website, NewMexicoVotes.org. Recently, we released our “missed votes study” which simply tallies up which legislators are showing up to vote when they are supposed to.
Certainly, there are often legitimate excuses (illness being one example) for legislators to miss votes, but nonetheless, we feel [...]

Posted on October 7, 2008 at 10:01 am by Paul Gessing · Permalink · Leave a comment
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What’s on the Ballot in New Mexico?

There’s no doubt that New Mexico government is sorely lacking in transparency. That is one reason that improving transparency has become a central focus of our work. See our legislative tracking site: www.newmexicovotes.org. Of course, nothing is more basic to transparency than knowing what is on the ballot. Thus, it is all the more disappointing [...]

Posted on September 25, 2008 at 10:08 pm by Paul Gessing · Permalink · Leave a comment
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Jonah Goldberg Discusses New Mexico

While there have been several postings on this site about Jonah Goldberg, I thought the readers might enjoy reading Jonah’s comments about his visit to New Mexico. I think I made the mistake of saying something nice about Bill Richardson in front of him though…

Posted on September 22, 2008 at 1:53 pm by Paul Gessing · Permalink · Leave a comment
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New Mexico Pension System Faces Multi-billion $$$ Shortfall

New Mexico is just one of dozens of states nationwide with massively funded state pension systems. According to this article, “by 2020, coverage will no longer be considered solvent.” Also, “the authority has an unfunded liability of about $4.1 billion but that has dropped from about $5 billion.” This improvement is the result of rate [...]

Posted on September 16, 2008 at 12:29 pm by Paul Gessing · Permalink · Leave a comment
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Who Needs a Treasurer Anyway?

As the Albuquerque Journal reported on Wednesday, New Mexico Treasurer James Lewis travels as a part of his job — a lot. The Journal followed up with an editorial questioning who is paying for Lewis’s flights around the globe and to what extent those who pay for Lewis’s flights might be doing so to curry [...]

Posted on August 28, 2008 at 5:00 pm by Paul Gessing · Permalink · Leave a comment
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