President Obama has increased spending to unprecedented levels. This has rightfully caused a great deal of consternation among broad swaths of American society. Hopefully it will result in the deaths of legislation that would restrict our health care and energy choices while killing economic growth. But which president bears the greatest responsibility for our current [...]

The United States Postal Service is a truly socialist enterprise. Anyone who has to deal with the Post Office on a regular basis, especially if you have to go to the actual offices themselves, is aware of this. Of course, as has been well-publicized in recent months, the Post Office now faces massive financial problems. [...]

I hope you had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. We’re back to work here at the Rio Grande Foundation and I happened to check the Washington Post website to find this story by Sebastian Mallaby. He writes about the ramped-up efforts on the part of the Chinese to find a way to stop relying on [...]

The Wall Street Journal had an excellent article about the negative impact of high marginal tax rates yesterday. The article discussed misguided efforts by politicians in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York and Oregon to increase income tax rates on the highest earners within their respective borders. While politicians facing massive, spending-induced [...]

Recently, we at the Rio Grande Foundation released a study analyzing each of New Mexico’s various film studies and their real economic impact. A letter to the editor on this report has published in this morning’s Albuquerque Journal. Also, Jim Scarantino was interviewed by columnist Robert Nott for the Santa Fe New Mexican’s “Pasatiempo” section. [...]

Ever wondered whether New Mexico’s film subsidies have a positive or negative impact on the state economy? We’ve certainly had a hunch for a long time that such targeted and generous economic incentives are unwise and not economically beneficial. Well, now we know…and we were right. First, there was the Arrowhead Center Study which found [...]

Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez is accused of having retaliated against Bode Aero Services Inc., an operator at Double Eagle II airport on the city’s west side for the operator’s unwillingness to provide the Mayor with free and discounted service. Of course, what the Mayor is accused of doing is wrong. Being the Mayor should not [...]

The Rio Grande Foundation released our latest story on the poor record of New Mexico’s State Investment Council this week. The release can be found here and the full story is available here. The story was also covered on Joe Monahan’s blog. The gist of the story is as follows: In 2004, at the urging [...]

There is no doubt that AIG seems to be deliberately acting in ways to spur the moral outrage of politicians and taxpayers. If you are not completely familiar with the story as it stands now, click here. New Mexico’s own Sen. Tom Udall couldn’t resist piling on, but he went a step further by explicitly [...]

Economist Scott Moody recently analyzed state and local government employment for The Rio Grande Foundation. An opinion he wrote on his findings is available here.