Election 2020: Fear vs. Hate
Well, I’m so glad I’m livin’ in the U.S.A. Yes, I’m so glad I’m livin’ in the U.S.A. Anything you want, we got it right here in the U.S.A. — Chuck Berry, “Back in the U.S.A.” Can Silicon Valley’s...
View ArticleA Chance to Chip Away at a Hidden Hollywood Subsidy
Sick of the cronyism and corruption that suffuses local and state government in the Land of Enchantment? If you live in Doña Ana County, there’s something you can do about it, come November: Vote no....
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A Developed-Nation Lifestyle? Yes, Please…
Kabuki public-policy theater is more fun than studying statistics. So it’s unlikely that a certain Scandinavian enviro-brat will read a single page of the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s...
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Let’s Do the (Anti-Mining) Time Warp Again
The vast ocean of mineral wealth lying beneath New Mexicans’ feet holds the promise of lucrative jobs and abundant tax revenue. But all that copper, gold, zinc, lead, uranium, and molybdenum is not to...
View ArticleThe Lunacy of NASA’s Pretend Moon Program
Jim Bridenstine is lucky staffers at the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice don’t pursue bureaucrats for violating U.S. truth-in-advertising laws. If they did, NASA’s administrator...
View ArticleLeaving the Light on for Cronyism
The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, fall foliage in the forested north, Día de Muertos, the holidays, ski season — it’s a good time to be in the lodging business in New Mexico. Well, perhaps...
View ArticleThe Deep State Transitions to the Debt State
Like “fake news,” the “Deep State” has come to mean whatever one wants it to mean. If you belong to the dwindling cohort of Americans involved/engaged in public discourse who still care about facts,...
View ArticleHey, Social Engineers — Don’t Mess With Ruidoso
Not Ruidoso. Please, please, please — not Ruidoso. In 2006, The New York Times called it the “New Mexico many imagine” — an “outdoors lovers’ destination, with skiing at Ski Apache, golfing year-round,...
View ArticleChristopher Columbus and the Government We Deserve
No member of the U.S. House of Representatives is more “progressive” than Rosa DeLauro, D-Connecticut. Born in 1943, to a political family — her mother served on New Haven’s Board of Alders for an...
View ArticleTax Reform Will Be Bottom-Up, Not Top-Down
We’ve been here before. And in another decade or two, we’ll probably be here again. That’s why it’s difficult to get excited about Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s newly appointed “Tax Policy Advisory...
View ArticleDematerializing the Economy — and Greens’ Myths
Add Andrew McAfee’s name to the list of cornucopians-come-lately hawking data-stuffed books supporting a verity some of us have known for decades: Economic freedom is good for the environment. In “More...
View ArticleFlying New Mexico’s Taxpayer-Unfriendly Skies
The Washington Post once called it a subsidy that “has long since outlived its ostensible purpose and now serves only to illustrate the federal government’s utter inability to establish sensible...
View ArticleForeign Direct Investment vs. Trump’s Trade Tantrum
Polls have shown — again and again and again — that few Americans are enlisting in Donald Trump’s trade war. Public-opinion surveys fail to offer evidence of a substantial shift in favor of...
View ArticleTransit Is Dying — Let’s Give It More Money!
On Election Day, voters in the city with the second-worst transit system in the nation decided to hand the second-worst transit system in the nation more money. Enacted in 1999, the bulk of the revenue...
View ArticleWarm, Fuzzy Feelings About Natural Gas
A national debt that just crested $23 trillion, the highest suicide rate in at least half a century, a self-inflicted trade war, the cowardice of Cancel Culture — there’s plenty to be unthankful for in...
View ArticleCan Howie the Hack Be New Mexico’s Last Lieutenant Governor?
If there were a poster politician for everything that’s wrong with government in New Mexico, that “public servant” would be Howie Morales. Currently the Land of Enchantment’s lieutenant governor, the...
View ArticleTransparency? Accountability? No Thanks, We’re New Mexico
Personnel lawsuits shoddily — and politically — reached. A panel “organized in an advisory capacity” that meets secretly. A gubernatorial appointment calendar that was not updated for seven weeks....
View ArticleChecking in on America’s Third Coast
Despise the culture and public policies of the nation’s coasts? You’re overlooking something: the Gulf of Mexico. In 2012, Joel Kotkin observed that the U.S. “economy, long dominated by the East and...
View ArticleThe Opportunity Cost of ‘Early Childhood Education and Care’
The head of the state’s newly created Early Childhood Education and Care Department boasts that she will be taking things to a higher level. That process, Elizabeth Groginsky told the Santa Fe New...
View ArticleSurvey Says: Don’t Confuse Americans with Environmental Facts
Churchill never said it. And even if he had, it’s inaccurate. The best argument against democracy isn’t a five-minute conversation with the average voter — it’s a poll of Americans’ views on the...
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