Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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The state of New Mexico is unique in both its demographics and geographical features. Our vast land area, diverse topography, and sparse population have proven to be a significant barrier when it comes to broadband deployment and internet connectivity. This affects New Mexicans from the eastern prairie to the Rio Grande Valley. This challenge is particularly evident across low-income communities and on tribal lands. Billions of federal and state tax dollars have been spent on...
There was a small, but significant victory for free speech during the recent legislative session. A measure that would have made already-hostile privacy laws for nonprofit causes even worse was miraculously killed on the House floor. Senate Bill 42 had already been adopted by the Senate, so this was truly a last-ditch effort. Current laws relating to forcing nonprofits to disclose their donors are already being challenged by the Rio Grande Foundation in court. That original...
With $3.6 billion at its disposal the New Mexico Legislature had the chance of the century (and possibly the last century) to enact sweeping reforms of the state’s tax structure. The idea, seemingly as professed publicly by those from across the political spectrum, is to diversify the state economy to be less reliant on the vagaries of oil and gas prices. Unfortunately, even with a positively mind-blowing 42% single-year budget surplus on top of robust spending growth in r...
Elected officials who use the power of government to “help” people often fail to account for the possible unintended consequences of their actions. Even the noblest of intentions can unintentionally hurt those it’s meant to aid. Such is the case with New Mexico’s new law imposing a price control on the interest rate that lenders are allowed to charge on a short-term loan. Proponents claim it will make a “real difference” for people, but the only difference it’ll make is in th...
In October of last year, results for the Nation’s Report Card placed New Mexico dead last in education among all states, the District of Columbia, and Department of Defense schools. The test covered reading for fourth and eighth graders and math for the same age groups. New Mexico was last across all categories. These results should have been a wakeup call for Gov. Lujan Grisham and the Legislature. Bold solutions are needed and there’s no time like a 60-day session to enact b...
In December the Legislative Finance Committee published a report on New Mexico’s Medicaid program. Whether by design or accident, the report happened to coincide with the 10th anniversary of New Mexico’s Medicaid expansion. Then-Gov. Susana Martinez decided to accept the “ObamaCare” expansion dollars which, at the time, was 100% federally funded. The LFC report is full of great information, but it doesn’t attempt to assess whether Medicaid expansion was worthwhile. Unfortuna...
As the state’s Permian oil production boom continues in New Mexico the budget surpluses available to legislators each session grow as well. The latest announced budget surplus is $3.6 billion, which is a positively mind-blowing 43 percent. This surplus is on top of already dramatic spending growth of 30 percent during the first four years of the Lujan Grisham Administration. More spending growth this year is to be expected, but the capacity for government to continue e...
There are numerous important issues on New Mexicans’ ballots as early voting has begun. Amendment 2 has not received the same attention as Amendment 1, which relates to pre-K and early childhood spending, but voters will be asked to vote on this important issue also. Amendment 2 would, if adopted, further weaken New Mexico’s “anti-donation clause” by allowing the Legislature to “appropriate state funds for infrastructure that provides services primarily for residenti...
With just a few weeks left before early voting kicks off, what issues will motivate how New Mexicans vote? According to one recent poll the top issue this fall is inflation/ the economy (at 59%). Crime was right behind at 58% followed by immigration and health care. Abortion was down the list at just 29%. Surprisingly, the poll (done by KOB-TV) fails to even ask about education. In a state that consistently ranks at the very bottom in the nation on numerous (and bipartisan)...
There is a life-or-death issue facing New Mexicans. It has been widely reported on in the media and is important to New Mexicans from all walks of life. Voters will have a lot to say about it this November. The issue is our shortage of medical professionals. If you live in rural New Mexico you have likely faced severe challenges in finding specialists for years, but according to one recent report, 32 of New Mexico’s 33 counties (excepting Los Alamos) face a shortage of p...
New Mexico is always ranked among the “poor” states in the United States. But, as anyone who lives here or has taken stock of New Mexico’s abundant natural and cultural resources can tell you, we have no business being “poor.” Sadly, much of our poverty is self-inflicted. It is the obvious result of bad public policy. While there are all manner of bad tax and regulatory policies that often wind up being “in the weeds,” one of New Mexico’s fundamental problems is the result of...
As we move beyond a contentious series of primaries in both parties and look to the fall election, one of the big issues on the fall ballot is the plan to “tap” New Mexico’s permanent fund to provide universal preschool. For years this has been an agenda item for the state’s left-leaning interest groups. But it only received legislative support with the retirement of Senate Finance Committee Chairman John Arthur Smith. This November voters will decide whether to: “allocate 1.2...
New Mexico is in a unique economic situation. Despite having the highest unemployment rate in the nation for all of 2022, our incredibly strong oil and gas industry, buoyed by high prices and rapid production growth, have given politicians in Santa Fe “more money than they know what to do with.” So, in the recent 30-day session we saw spending grow by more than $1 billion and some significant tax cuts. Then, in a special session, rebates to be paid out to taxpayers and non...
There are many things that make New Mexico unique, but one of the most noteworthy political nuances is the state’s deep and unusual relationship with energy. New Mexico’s Democratic politicians love the money and jobs generated by the traditional energy industry, but also wish to be seen as pushing back against it to placate their environmentalist base. Nonetheless, New Mexico, a state blessed with all sorts of energy resources (both traditional as well as wind and solar) has...
The 2022 30-day legislative session could have been much worse. It is no secret that we at the Rio Grande Foundation have disagreed with most of Michelle Lujan Grisham’s major efforts as governor. She surprised many of us in her State of the State speech when she proposed elimination of the Social Security tax in New Mexico. After three years of ruling as a hard left “progressive,” the governor’s change of tune heading into the 2022 session was notable. Is her move solely due...
While every school year is different, this year is certainly more different than most. For starters, students are returning to “semi-normal” classrooms after 1.5 years of remote learning and relative chaos. Unfortunately, as of this writing schools in Rio Rancho, Carlsbad, Los Lunas, and Roswell have “temporarily” had to again go “virtual.” Lost classroom time has had a big impact on academic outcomes for New Mexico students. According to the Legislative Finance Committee,...
After nearly 16 months of COVID-19 and related policies, New Mexico is finally reopening on Thursday. Recently, New Mexico Education Secretary Ryan Stewart who spent most of the pandemic in Philadelphia “leading” his department remotely, wrote what I can only describe as a delusional defense of New Mexico schools’ response to COVID 19. The article discusses at length his Department’s efforts to get staff vaccinated and keep staff and students “safe” during the pandemic, b...
The US Census Bureau recently released what can only be described as some disturbing data regarding the future of New Mexico. Notably, while the state’s population grew by just 2.8 percent over the past decade, each of our neighbors saw double-digit population growth with the exception of Oklahoma, which still bested New Mexico with 5.5 percent growth. That should be a wake-up call for New Mexico’s Legislature and Gov. Lujan Grisham. A report put out by New Mexico’s Legis...
If there were an overall theme for New Mexico’s political situation it would be the ongoing attempts by Democrats to placate their environmentalist base, which opposes traditional energy sources while at the same time keeping energy dollars flowing into the state’s coffers. The Biden Administration’s moratorium on oil and gas permitting is the most notable example of this conflict. Gov. Lujan Grisham has publicly spoken out about it, but Attorney General Balderas has refus...
New Mexico is in one of the most unusual economic times in its history. Profound forces have impacted our state over the last year in unforeseen ways. • The governor and COVID shut down much of our state for much of the past year. COVID is declining, but New Mexico remains among the most locked-down states in the nation; • Oil and gas prices plummeted last April due to the pandemic and an international price war, but have come roaring back and produced $300 million in “new” mo...
In New Mexico and the United States as a whole, recent months have seen unprecedented attacks on the traditional energy sector from policymakers in Santa Fe and Washington. The potential harm of President Biden's ban on oil and gas production on federal lands has been well-documented. Our state, New Mexico, will be disproportionately impacted by such a ban, particularly if it lasts for many months or years. We are the third-largest oil producing state in the nation and about...
New Mexico remains among the most locked down states in the nation when it comes to the Coronavirus. In October the state’s unemployment rate was among the highest in the nation at 8.1%. This difficult economic news combined with the election of a more “progressive” Legislature in November mean that tax increases (and even spending cuts) are likely in store for the upcoming 2021 legislative session. With New Mexico relying heavily on oil and gas revenues, the state’s economi...
Recently, Santa Fe, Rio Rancho and Clovis school districts joined Albuquerque and Las Cruces schools in abandoning any in-person learning. Instead, for the foreseeable future all learning in some of New Mexico’s larger school districts will be done online. The odds seem very good that this situation will continue into 2021 and possibly through the end of the school year. Oddly, while Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham constantly tells us that her anti-COVID efforts are based “on the...
Recently, California Gov. Gavin Newsom made headlines with his announcement that by 2035 his state will ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles. That is an ambitious goal, but given the timeline, it is hard to say what compliance will look like. But for another, arguably even more ambitious car mileage proposal, one need look no further than New Mexico. Last September New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that by just model year 2022 New Mexico would be increasing its...
New Mexico leaders, especially those working in and around K-12 education, are scrambling for solutions to the state's broadband issues. An estimated 25 percent of families in our state do not have access to broadband. That is troubling in normal times given the importance of being able to access useful information at one's fingertips, but when so many of our students have been forced to learn at home (whether that is virtual or home school), it becomes a much more serious iss...
