Errors of Enchantment » Errors Elsewhere

Another Spaceport?

Paul Gessing — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:26:21 +0000

While New Mexicans have been led to believe that their economic futures are tied to the New Mexico Spaceport now being built near Truth or Consequences, the truth is that spaceports are already under development across the nation.

With an already-crowded spaceport field, I read over the weekend in the Albuquerque Journal that Hawaii is the next state that may be entering the fray. According to the report:

If the plan goes forward, tourists would pay $200,000 for a weeklong package including spaceflight training, resort accommodations and short test flights to simulate weightlessness.

At the vacation’s finale, five voyagers would embark on a horizontal takeoff aboard a special rocket plane, climb to 40,000 feet before rockets fire, accelerate to 3,500 mph, coast for a few minutes of weightlessness 62 miles above the Earth, flip over and then return to ground.

While New Mexico’s spaceport will undoubtedly be an early entrant into , it seems highly unlikely that the space industry will be very lucrative for the Land of Enchantment given the ever-increasing number of competitors. Perhaps Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle will give Hawaii taxpayers a break by not releasing funding for that State’s spaceport. Unfortunately, spaceport fever seems to be spreading among elected officials nationwide.

Federal Waste: Moving an Entire Town

Paul Gessing — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 22:30:56 +0000

To those who know anything about Albuquerque history, the idea of shifting a town may seem logical. After all, Albuquerque got its start at Old Town, but when the railroad came to town, downtown shifted to the current downtown which is known as “New Town.” All of this was done for market reasons, absent government subsidy. But that was the “good old days.”
Nowadays, the federal government — in this instance the Corps of Engineers — is more than happy to come in with hundreds of millions of dollars to move the town of Martin, Kentucky. Read the entire story from the Los Angeles Times here. All this for a town with a population of 633 according to the most recent census data. That is a subsidy of an amazing $138,000 per resident.
I don’t know if anyone has polled these people — wouldn’t be too hard with a population so small — but I’d think the Corps could probably convince them to move for $70,000 per person or less. And Obama wants to put the federal government in charge of health care and all energy-related decisions!
HT: PJ Chavez

Both Parties Like Big Government

Paul Gessing — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:03:43 +0000

While New Mexico Republicans largely are exempt from this critique because they have been out of power for so long, the fact is that there is no party of smaller, more limited government in America today. This article is food for thought, particularly considering the predicament our nation faces today.

Americans are Angry (finally)!

Paul Gessing — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:36:27 +0000

There is an anger building in America. Having been hoodwinked by the supposedly “free market” Bush Administration, the transparent socialism of the Obama Administration is causing average Americans and even the media to take notice. If you haven’t already seen it, check out the following spot-on Rant from Rick Santelli on CNBC:

Lest you think Santelli is just another ranting, talking head on television, check out his insightful interview on National Review Online.
Lastly, a friend of mine, local Albuquerque businessman Wayne Unze, had an excellent letter to the Albuquerque Business Journal. The letter is pasted below:

In case you’re not already painfully aware, since the election stocks have plummeted approximately 2,000 points. This demonstrates a tremendous amount of investor displeasure, or at best, uncertainty, with regards to the newly elected administration. And with so many of the newly appointed Cabinet members either coming under fire and/or resigning for various inappropriate activities or resigning due to an inability to reconcile the new Economic Stimulus Package, investor confidence appears to be non-existent.
It will be interesting (and possibly very frightening) to see what the future holds for those of us who have worked so hard only to see our retirements usurped by a government more focused on earmarks and entitlements than restoring the free enterprise capitalistic system that made America great for so many years. Most Americans seems to have forgotten a very important principle: whenever you accept a “handout” from another individual or entity (especially the government), you relinquish some degree of personal freedom.

How to spend the stimulus?

Paul Gessing — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:55:15 +0000

We at the Rio Grande Foundation certainly did not and do not support the so-called stimulus bill. Of course, with the fear factory in Washington working at a feverish pace and President Obama still in his honeymoon period, Congress caved in and gave him the nearly $800 billion in spending he wanted.
Of course, this did not stop the legislation from passing. But that doesn’t mean that all is lost. Money is going to be spent, so New Mexicans might as well benefit somewhat from this debacle. To that end, check out the New Mexico projects at this site called Stimulus Watch. You can then click on your area and individual projects and vote for the ones you think are either critical or not critical. As you can tell by going to the site, the voters seem to have a better grasp on what is important than their elected leaders. For example, the Paseo and I-25 interchange has been labeled a high priority by voters while the Albuquerque arena and streetcar have justifiably been categorized as low priorities.
I don’t know that the politicians in charge of spending this borrowed money will go to the Stimulus Watch website and peruse the results, but they would be smart to do so. Anyway, given the lack of control average citizens will have over how this stimulus money is used, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to try to influence them in this way.

Another Problem with the Stimulus

Paul Gessing — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:06:45 +0000

As if there were not enough reasons to be concerned about the so- called “stimulus package” (you can read it here) now being consideration in Congress, the legislation contains “Buy American” provisions that could start a trade war. Check out this article on the reaction from Korea.
Stifling free trade — and potentially igniting a trade war — would be a great way to extend the current malaise. As one economist pointed out in the aforementioned article, “If we only buy American, we’ll probably pay more for inferior goods.” That may create some jobs for Americans in the short-term, but it will hurt our standard of living even more than the current downturn has.
The Great Depression was ignited in large part by Smoot-Hawley tariffs which imposed the highest tariff increase in US history. I hope our political leaders are smart enough not to repeat that mistake in this spending package.

The Best of Intentions

Paul Gessing — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:28:19 +0000

We are often told that government acts with the best of intentions. Personally, I believe it, but also realize that the road to hell is indeed paved with the those very same good intentions. This scenario is about to play itself out when it comes to toys. In the wake of the scandal over the toys from China that contained lead and other harmful substances, Congress passed a law called the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act which was supposed to rectify the problem through a whole host of regulations. Unfortunately, the government solution may be as bad as the problem of unsafe toys itself.
As abundant materials on the Handmade Toy Alliance point out, these laws, by adding a $300 – $4,000 fee per toy in the form of testing and licensing costs, this law will actually make it tougher for domestic, small-scale toy producers to stay in business. There were a few excellent letters to the editor in the Wall Street Journal on the topic as well.
The fact is that the large toy companies that import toys from China can easily fold testing and licensing costs into the cost of their mass-produced toys, small, domestic producers will go out of business. Congress is now considering amending the legislation which is set to take effect in a few weeks, but this really is an excellent example of what well-intentioned government policies can do when they are actually implemented.

Rove is Right

Paul Gessing — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:12:00 +0000

I am no fan of President Bush and by extension i have not been a fan of his closest adviser, Karl Rove. After all, despite his “conservative” rhetoric, Bush has been a big-spending liberal who has stolen plays from LBJ’s playbook throughout his presidency.
That said, Rove makes some excellent points in his article in today’s Wall Street Journal on the current economic crisis. As Rove points out:

The housing meltdown is largely a story of greed and irresponsibility made possible by government privilege. If Democrats had granted the Bush administration the regulatory powers it sought, the housing crisis wouldn’t be nearly as severe and the economy as a whole would be better off.

The whole article is worth a read. While I’ll certainly complain about No Child Left Behind, a massive Medicare expansion, lost privacy, and massive government spending growth, Bush is largely not to blame for the housing crisis which precipitated the current economic crisis.

Election Reaction

Paul Gessing — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:16:52 +0000

Are you feeling down? Honestly, after last night, my feelings are mixed. At the national level, the Republicans got what was coming to them. They increased the size of government (No Child Left Behind, Medicare Prescription Drug Bill, out of control defense spending, to name just a few examples) and governed with more hubris than I’ve seen in a long time….and that’s saying something for politicians. So, I fully expected Obama’s victory and tough sledding for Republicans running for Congress, regardless of their personal merits.
It is unfortunate that Republicans in the Legislature and in local offices were also swept away in the tsunami because “change” in New Mexico would require a shift to the right, not the left. Instead, New Mexico’s big-government majority has been strengthened and emboldened with primary victories over moderate Democrats and an Election Day shift to the left as well. We’ll see what happens with Governor Richardson more than likely leaving for an appointment to the Obama Administration.
Regardless of yesterday’s results, we know that free markets and limited government work and have worked around the globe and throughout history. If you are discouraged about the direction we are heading as a nation, read the following from Larry Reed, formerly of the Michigan-based Mackinac Center, now of the Foundation for Economic Education.

For all of us who believe in liberty, yesterday’s ballot offerings all over the country were hardly inspiring. Predictably, the results this morning may be more than a little dispiriting. Just in case you might be feeling somewhat “down” at the moment, let me offer what I hope will be some cheerful thoughts.
Eternal optimist though I am, I admit that when I looked at the morning papers the pessimist temptation briefly had me in its grip. Then I asked myself, “What good purpose could a defeatist attitude possibly provide? Will it make me work harder for the causes I know are right? Is there anything about liberty that yesterday’s election disproves? If I exude a pessimistic demeanor, will it help attract newcomers to the ideas I believe in? Is this the first time in history that believers in liberty have lost some battles? If we simply throw in the towel, will that enhance the prospects for future victories? Is our cause so menial as to justify deserting it because of some bad news or some new challenges? Do we turn back just because the hill we have to climb got a little steeper?
I think you know the answers to those questions.
This is NOT the time to abandon principles. I can’t speak for you but some day I want to go to my reward and be able to look back and say, “I never gave up. I never became part of the problem I tried to solve. I never gave the other side the luxury of winning anything without a fight. I never missed an opportunity to do my best for what I believed in, and it never mattered what the odds or the obstacles were.”
Let’s remember that we stand on the shoulders of many people who came before us and who persevered through far darker times. I think of the brave men and women behind the Iron Curtain who resisted the greatest tyranny of the modern age, and won. I think of those like Hayek and Mises who kept the flame of liberty flickering in the 1930s and ‘40s when the whole world must have seemed mad for statism in one form or another. I think of the heroes like Wilberforce and Clarkson who fought to end slavery and literally changed the conscience and character of a nation in the face of the most daunting of disadvantages. I think of the patriots who shed their blood for American liberty and suffered through unspeakable hardships as they took on the world’s most powerful nation in 1776. I think of martyrs of the Reformation. And I think of the Scots who, 456 years before the Declaration of Independence, put their lives on the line to repel English invaders with these stirring words: “It is not for honor or glory or wealth that we fight, but for freedom alone, which no good man gives up except with his life.”
As I thought about what some of those great men and women faced, the obstacles before us today seemed rather puny. I’m ashamed that for a moment I let a little election get me down.
If you want my advice, we should not squander a second feeling bad for ourselves. This is a moment when our true character, the stuff we’re really made of, will show itself. If we retreat, that would tell me we were never really worthy of the battle in the first place. But if we resolve to let these tough times build character, teach us to be better and smarter at what we do, and rally our dispirited friends to new levels of dedication, we will look back on this occasion some day with pride at how we handled it. It’s already past 9 am. Have you made any calls to cheer anybody up yet?
Believe me, the folks who for the moment are basking in victory and salivating for the opportunities they may soon have to deploy more force and coercion in our lives are not divinely-inspired geniuses. They are not going to be the first bunch in the history of the planet to figure out how to make big government work. They are far more likely, in fact, to give those who believe in liberty some unique opportunities to drive home our arguments with more eloquence and effect than ever before. When they flop, will the right ideas be lying around, ready to go, to make change for the better? That depends on us. Will we rise to the occasion?
Use this time to think about how you can do more for liberty and do it better, reaching larger audiences in ways that turn lights on people’s minds. Support others who are working full-time on liberty’s behalf. INspire, don’t EXpire!
So in the course of a few hours, I’m happy to say I’ve traversed from a moment of despair to a smile and a sunny optimism, to an eagerness to accept the challenge and get down to work. To all those out there who are hoping people like you and me will go quietly into the night, just keep thinking that. You’re in for some unexpected surprises.

Face-off over converted garage could land woman, 83, in jail

Paul Gessing — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:21:31 +0000

The story of an 83 year old California woman Ageda Camargo is unbelievable and truly scary for anyone who cares about property rights. She is from La Quinta, CA and has owned her house for years, before La Quinta was even a city. When she bought her house, it had a third bedroom that was originally a garage. Now they are threatening to put her in jail if she doesn’t change the room back to a garage.
Of course, the city is not offering to refund Camargo the additional taxes she’s paid all these years for the additional living space. Thankfully, I haven’t heard any stories like this from New Mexico, but one never knows what government bureaucrats will do next.