Reviving New Mexico’s DOA GOP
Are nine decades of irrelevancy enough? It’s a question the Land of Enchantment’s Republican politicos should ask themselves as 2020 approaches. In 11 months, all 112 seats in New Mexico’s legislature...
View ArticleAn Antidote to 2020’s Budget Balderdash
It’s the holiday season — do we have to talk about government finances? Yes, we do, because on January 21st, the solons are coming back to Santa Fe. And they’re eager to transfer bushels of taxpayer...
View ArticlePost-Christian America — Neither Hell Nor Heaven
Merry Christmas! In the spirit of the season, let’s discuss … the coming of post-Christian America. Revere or despise the development, there’s no doubting the fading fortunes of the religion that’s...
View ArticleSen. Udall’s Penance — a War on the War in Afghanistan
New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall is no friend of limited government. The Democrat is for runaway “entitlements” and against tax cuts. He supports corporate welfare, and enthusiastically votes to confirm...
View Article2019 — the Year in (Interesting) Polling
The results of Gallup’s presidential job-approval poll hovered between 37 percent and 46 percent throughout the year, with disapproval trending between 59 percent and 51 percent. And despite the rise...
View ArticleEducation Spending: For NM Bureaucrats, It Will Never Be Enough
Christmas came quite early for New Mexico’s educrats in 2019. But unsatisfied with the massive increase in government-school spending approved during the last legislative session, the “education” lobby...
View ArticleHow One Hedge Fund Is Banking on a Big Comeback for PG&E
Twenty-eight months ago, Pacific Gas and Electric shareholders had reason to smile. The company, which powered 5.3 million buildings and delivered natural gas to 4.4 million customers, was healthy, and...
View ArticleFreedom and Opportunity Beat Bureaucracy and Paternalism
How lousy does public policy have to be for a state to lose population six years in a row? Illinois is finding out. Connecticut, too. More deaths, fewer births, fleets of fleeing moving vans,...
View ArticleDon’t Feed New Mexico’s ‘Cannibals’!
The solons haven’t even arrived in Santa Fe, but the competition for Worst Bill of the 2020 Legislative Session is already fierce. A $15 minimum wage. Government-mandated paid leave. An expansion of...
View ArticleThe ‘Green Future’ Meets the NIMBY Present
According to the polls, Americans like politically correct electricity. But when theory becomes reality, they like wildlife, scenic vistas, and property values more. Wind and solar are unreliable and...
View ArticleDon’t Fight City Hall — Abolish It
Disincorporation. Unincorporation. Dissolution. Whatever you call it, the phenomenon notched two more manifestations late last year, when the Clermont County, Ohio villages of Newtonsville and Amelia...
View ArticleCorporate Welfare: Bipartisanship at Its Worst
It’s a really good time to be a state politician. With unemployment low and the stock market surging, capitol domes are overflowing with revenue. Surveying all 50 laboratories of democracy, the...
View ArticleWhy are NASA’s Astro-Crats Still Waiting for a Taxi?
America, you’ve spent more than $100 billion to design, build and operate the International Space Station. And come autumn, the orbital outpost might not have a single American on board. That’s the...
View ArticleLand of the Free, Home of the Lonelyhearts
The National Retail Federation predicts “another record for Valentine’s Day spending.” Purchases will total “$27.4 billion, up 32 percent from last year’s record $20.7 billion,” the trade association...
View ArticleRight Immigration Message, Wrong Immigration Messenger
MAGA World, be warned: “Illegal: How America’s Lawless Immigration Regime Threatens Us All” is not for you. The slim volume, written by Syracuse University’s Elizabeth F. Cohen, does not explore how...
View ArticleDark Star: A Hedge Fund Transitions From Subprime Villain to Patent Troll
Magnetars, NASA explains, are neutron stars “known to erupt without warning, some for hours and others for months, before dimming and disappearing again.” Critics of Chicago-based Magnetar Capital...
View ArticleAmerica 2060 — an Insolvent Nursing Home?
Has America hit peak despair? The latest estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts life expectancy in 2018 at “78.7 years, an increase of 0.1 year from 2017.” It’s a welcome...
View ArticleShould ‘Flyover Country’ Go Back to Work First?
For those most at risk for COVID-19, Wyoming’s the place to be. According to The COVID Tracking Project — created by the venture-capital firm Related Sciences and journalists with The Atlantic — as of...
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America, New Hampshire and the Coronavirus
With COVID-19, as New Hampshire goes, so goes the nation. According to the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, 82.7 percent of those testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 live in...
View ArticleState and Local Governments: ‘Cut to the Bone,’ or Ripe for Pruning?
Kansas faces “a devastating hit to tax revenues,” with the damage estimated to be “$1.2 billion… over the current and next fiscal years.” Clark County, Nevada, home of the Las Vegas Strip, must “cover...
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