NMSU Volleyball Sweeps La. Tech To Open WAC Play

bleedCrimson.net Report
The Aggie volleyball team ended their six match losing streak defeating Louisiana Tech 3-0 on Thursday night. The Aggies have won 12 straight matches against the Lady Techsters and start off WAC play with a victory for the fifth consecutive season.
Kayleigh Giddens finished with a match-high 24 kills on 42 attacks with just four hitting errors hitting .476 for the match. Junior middle blocker Kelsey Brennan returned to action after missing the last match with an ankle injury and finished with eight kills.
The Aggies and Lady Techsters battled closely in the first set with the Aggies leading 14-11 midway through. Louisiana Tech took a three point lead at 20-17 but the Aggies would rally to take the set 25-23.
Set two saw the Aggies fall behind 17-12 before going on an 8-1 run to take a 20-18 lead. Louisiana Tech would briefly tie the set at 20 points apiece, however, the Aggies would win the final five points to take the set 25-20.
The Aggies would dominate the third set pulling away from a 5-5 tie to win the set easily 25-11. The Aggies recorded 17 kills and just three hitting errors in the set posting a .483 hitting percentage while holding Louisiana Tech to just four kills and seven attack errors and a -.115 hitting percentage.
The Aggies hit .324 for the match committing just 16 attack errors in the match. Kayleigh Giddens added 12 digs to go along with her 24 kills while Jennah DeVries had 36 assists and 10 digs.
Louisiana Tech was led by Taylor Fritz who finished with 10 kills on 36 swings with two attack errors posting a .222 hitting percentage. No other Lady Techsters finished in double-figures as Kara Jones had five kills and Kassie Pinto and Jennifer Goodwin finished with just two.
The Aggies improve to 1-0 in WAC play and will face Louisiana Tech again on Saturday in Las Cruces.

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Baum - The Meaning of House Cleaning

Caroline Baum
With the departure of Larry Summers, President Barack Obama has lost three-quarters of his economic team and much of its heft. White House budget director Peter Orszag resigned in June. Christina Romer, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, left earlier this month to return to her teaching post at the University of California at Berkeley -- one job that wasn’t created or saved by her econometric modeling.
Now comes Summers, who will return to Harvard University for the spring 2011 semester in order to maintain his tenured professorship. That leaves Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Is he next? It doesn’t matter. Cleaning house starts at the top, with the resident of the White House. Everything else is secondary. Read more here:


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Pelosi: Americans Should Pay More for Imports

Nancy Pelosi
House Democratic leaders began a final pre-election push for legislation that would authorize trade sanctions against China if the nation’s currency remains undervalued. “It is time for Congress to pass legislation that will give the administration leverage in its bilateral and multilateral negotiations with the Chinese government -- so that U.S. businesses and workers have a more level playing field in world trade,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday in a statement, as the Ways and Means Committee set a session for tomorrow to draft the legislation. The committee will take up a measure that would let companies petition for duties on imports to compensate for what lawmakers say is a weak yuan, according to an e-mailed statement yesterday. The currency gives Chinese companies an unfair subsidy over their U.S. competitors, say lawmakers such as Representative Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat. “China’s mercantilist exchange-rate policy places a drag on U.S. economic growth and job creation,” Chairman Sander Levin of Michigan said in the committee statement.
“It is a major distortion in the international marketplace.” House Democratic leaders began a final pre-election push for legislation that would authorize trade sanctions against China if the nation’s currency remains undervalued. “It is time for Congress to pass legislation that will give the administration leverage in its bilateral and multilateral negotiations with the Chinese government -- so that U.S. businesses and workers have a more level playing field in world trade,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday in a statement, as the Ways and Means Committee set a session for tomorrow to draft the legislation. The committee will take up a measure that would let companies petition for duties on imports to compensate for what lawmakers say is a weak yuan, according to an e-mailed statement yesterday.  Read more here:

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Clinton Offers His Views on "Pledge to America"

Bill Clinton
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton called the governing agenda Republicans unveiled today an “ideological document” and warned that it would be implemented at the expense of America’s middle class. “They don’t know that the model for success in the 21st century is a vigorous private sector, an effective government, a partnership, not these hysterical tirades against government,” Clinton said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York. With less than two months before congressional midterm elections, House Republicans announced a governing agenda today that would cut federal spending, extend expiring tax cuts and repeal the Democrats’ health-care law. Read more here:
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Cradle to Grave Socialism Hitting Snags Everywhere

The French government and labor unions held their ground over President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to raise the retirement age after the second national protest against the proposal this month. Labor Minister Eric Woerth said there were fewer strikers today than in a Sept. 7 demonstration, a sign of declining opposition. Unions claimed more protesters and said the movement will continue. “There is a deceleration of the protests,” Woerth said on France 2 television. “There were fewer demonstrations, fewer strikers. These measures will be voted in parliament, and they will be enacted.” The National Assembly last week passed Sarkozy’s pension bill, which raises the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60 and the age for a full pension to 67 from 65. The bill is headed to the Senate. Unions want the retirement age to remain at 60.
Nicolas Sarkozy
Sarkozy’s government says it has already made concessions and won’t bow to demands to scrap the increase. Nationwide, police said 997,000 people marched in more than 200 demonstrations, down from 1.1 million two weeks ago. Unions said 3 million people marched, up from 2.7 million. “If the government continues in its intransigence, then we will enter a standoff,” said Bernard Thibault, head of the CGT, France’s largest union. “This government is not listening.” Unions meet tomorrow to decide whether to call further protests. Read more here:




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Workers: Prepare for Larger Tax Withholding Amounts

"Dick" Durbin
The U.S. Senate won’t pass an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts before the Nov. 2 elections, second-ranking Democrat Dick Durbin said today. “The reality is we’re not going to pass” the tax cuts before the election,” said Durbin of Illinois. He blamed politics, saying “we are so tightly wound up in this campaign” that a bipartisan agreement to act won’t be reached. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, said “it’s clear there aren’t 60 votes for any proposal, so no proposal is going to pass at this point.” Sixty votes would be needed for a tax-cut extension to advance in the Senate. Durbin and Conrad made their comments to reporters as they emerged from a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats on the issue. Read more here:
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Kudlow - Killing the Dollar No Solution

Larry Kudlow
Ben Bernanke
Fed head Ben Bernanke and the FOMC dropped a new policy bomb at their meeting this week. Now they say inflation is too low. That’s the real problem. And the solution? Punch up the money supply and punch down the dollar -- or what I used to call King Dollar. No more. In the 24 hours following the Fed announcement, gold rocketed up toward $1,300, a new record high. And the dollar plunged. It’s a big vote against the central bank and its constant tinkering and fine-tuning.
The Fed actually has opened the door even wider for more money-creating, balance-sheet expanding, Treasury-bond-buying actions at its next scheduled meeting, which will come the day after the midterm elections on November 3. That’s when QE2 may sail. “Quantitative easing” is what they call it. I call it dollar whack-a-mole. Read more here:
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Five Basic Ideas in GOP "Pledge to America"

News New Mexico has read the 21 page document released by the GOP today. It can be reduced to five pledges listed below:
1. We pledge to honor the Constitution as constructed by its framers and honor the original intent of those precepts that have been consistently ignored – particularly the Tenth Amendment, which grants that all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
2. We pledge to advance policies that promote greater liberty, wider opportunity, a robust defense, and national economic prosperity. We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage, life, and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values.
3. We pledge to make government more transparent in its actions, careful in its stewardship, and honest in its dealings.
4. We pledge to uphold the purpose and promise of a better America, knowing that to whom much is given, much is expected and that the blessings of our liberty buoy the hopes of mankind.
5. We make this pledge bearing true faith and allegiance to the people we represent, and we invite fellow citizens and patriots to join us in forming a new governing agenda for America.

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Susana Martinez on Job Creation

NewsNM went to the Susana Martinez website to get an idea of her ideas for job creation. See Martinez position page on the economy here. Martinez viewpoints on job creation are brief and to the point. Her position paper is only 225 words. There is ten times as much verbiage on the Denish site on the subject.
Martinez begins by reminding voters that employers have choices and will tend to locate their businesses where they have the best chance to succeed. Trying to connect the competitive dots, she suggests that higher taxes and excessive regulations tend to force jobs out of New Mexico. Martinez states that her primary goal is to make certain businesses in New Mexico continue to operate in the state, while attracting others to set up shop here.
The cornerstone of her philosophy regarding our state competing for businesses is to lower tax rates. Martinez rejects increasing government spending to assist business. Instead, she focuses on the idea of being more business friendly than neighboring states when it comes to taxes, red tape, and excessive business regulation.
Martinez says, "The private citizen – not the government – assumes risk and creates opportunity. Instead, government should serve as the citizen’s partner and strongest supporter."
In the final paragraph of her paper, Martinez links improved education to job creation. She calls a quality workforce a critical component of attracting new jobs in New Mexico. "I will work to create a high-performing education system that prepares our children to confront the real world and succeed in the jobs of tomorrow," says Martinez.
Adam Smith
The contrast between the Denish and Martinez philosophies on job creation are stark. There is a long list of Denish proposals on job creation (see previous post). The Martinez paper can be summarized in two sentences. 1. New Mexico state government can best foster job creation by removing one of its hands from the job creator's pocket and eliminate the idea that businesses must rely on government as a facilitator. 2. New Mexico's education system must be made to function better so a higher quality workforce is available to prospective employers.
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Buffett - "We're Still in a Recession"

Warren Buffett
Legendary investor Warren Buffett appeared on CNBC this morning. The lifelong Democrat and supporter of President Obama in the 2008 presidential election made a couple of startling comments. First, the Oracle of Omaha said, "We are still in a recession, and we are not going to get out of it for awhile." And then later and not to be outdone by his first comment which contradicts assertions made by White House economists in recent days, Buffett said, "It would be nice if you could find somebody that the American people and American business could feel good about."  This seems to be an outright repudiation on the anti-business tone emanating from the White House since President Obama's inauguration in 2009.


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Los Alamos Lab, watchdog group spar over nuclear facility

From the Santa Fe NewMexican.com - Los Alamos National Laboratory is seeking dismissal of an environmental lawsuit, saying it can neutralize legal objections with plans to supplement a 7-year-old environmental analysis of the lab's controversial new nuclear facility. The subject of the complaint is the lab's Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement facility and, more specifically, a $4 billion structure for handling and storing plutonium. After eight years of effort, the building is still in the design phase and now embroiled in litigation. The Los Alamos Study Group, a nuclear watchdog based in Albuquerque, claims the building has outgrown its environmental footprint. Read more
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Draft of "Pledge to America"

America is more than a country. America is an idea – an idea that free people can govern themselves, that government’s powers are derived from the consent of the governed, that each of us is endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. America is the belief that any man or woman can – given economic, political, and religious liberty – advance themselves, their families, and the common good. America is an inspiration to those who yearn to be free and have the ability and the dignity to determine their own destiny. Whenever the agenda of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to institute a new governing agenda and set a different course.
These first principles were proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, enshrined in the Constitution, and have endured through hard sacrifice and commitment by generations of Americans. In a self-governing society, the only bulwark against the power of the state is the consent of the governed, and regarding the policies of the current government, the governed do not consent.
Read the rest of the Republican's Pledge to America here:
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Elder: Beheading a Dutch Politician?

Larry Elder
What happens when an Australian Muslim cleric calls for the beheading of a Dutch politician? Not much. What happens when an American pastor no one ever heard of threatens to burn a Koran? It ignites an international outcry. Terry Jones, pastor of a 50-member church in Gainsville, Fla., threatened to burn the Koran as a protest against the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center. Democrats and Republicans denounced Jones. Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, warned that Jones' action would put American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan at risk, and he personally telephoned the pastor to dissuade him. Those who would desecrate the Koran or who would draw a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad or who would otherwise "disrespect" Islam run the risk of being murdered. This is quite a response from followers of what President George W. Bush called a "religion of peace," the "hijacking" of which motivated the 9/11 hijackers. Bush repeatedly distinguished between a war against Islamofascism and a war on Islam. But the distinction apparently collapses if one pastor doesn't get the memo. Read more here:
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Denish Talks Job Creation - We Analyze

Diane Denish
If you take the time to wade through the noise of the attack ads being traded by Diane Denish and Susana Martinez both candidates actually offer position papers for voter evaluation. We visited the Denish website and found that in detail she discusses her views on the subject of how to create jobs. See her position paper here: NewsNM has read the Denish position paper several times. What follows is our analysis of both the practicality and the underlying philosophy behind the job creation policy statements she makes. There is definitely a preoccupation with the term "small business" in her job creation ideas. The first proposal in the Denish paper attempts to “energize New Mexico’s entrepreneurial spirit” and involves the use of “small amounts of public resources” to encourage private-bank financing. Denish suggests the state government should provide incentives for banks all over the state to offer businesses loans by creating a pooled reserve account which would minimize risk to each bank and spur new investments in our local businesses. She claims $2.5 million in state funds could support up to 500 small business loans.
NewsNM’s reaction to this proposal would be to suggest that usually, when a business is well capitalized with EQUITY investment backing, many banks are quite willing to make loans without any government incentives. The Denish proposal for greater access to capital is essentially greater access to DEBT financing.  Going into debt should never be confused with having equity capital. Debt financing is a much more imposing source of capital and more risky for companies than using equity. And any state backed process that purports to “minimize” lending risk to a participating bank, is merely a transfer of the inherent risk on the debt to the state, and ultimately to the taxpayers. An alternative approach that would automatically put more equity capital in the hands of entrepreneurs is the simple idea of allowing them to keep more of their income and use their income reserves to augment their equity capital. Better capitalized businesses enable banks to loan on more high quality proposals because adequate equity is involved. We see getting the state involved in subsidized borrowing and lending as a dubious proposition.
Denish says she wants to expand the micro-lending program through the Small Business Investment Corporation. The essence of this idea is that the state should be subsidizing the lending business. The next item in the Denish plan involves using taxpayer dollars to invest in an online clearinghouse for New Mexico businesses and lenders to connect to. According to this proposal, this website would allow businesses to locate loan programs and apply for capital with participating lenders. It would also serve as a tax-credit information clearinghouse. Here again, this practice seems to be based on the idea of creating additional government steering functions to help businesses borrow money instead of making it easier for business equity capital to be formed.
Next, Denish proposes that the government help New Mexico's small business owners create new jobs immediately by offering a state tax credit of approximately $2,500 for each job created in New Mexico during the 2011 calendar year. This tax credit would be limited to small business owners who have fewer than 100 employees or gross less than $1 million per year. In order to qualify for the tax credit, the new position must come with a salary that matches the average for the county and include health care benefits for the employee. While this idea might seem helpful to reducing unemployment on the surface, there is nothing less valuable to the state revenue coffers or the workers when a job is created by a company increasing from 101 to 102 employees. Why should companies with 99, 75, 50, or even 25 employees be subsidized by others? In many areas companies with 250 employees are considered “small.” The devil is in the details of this sort of idea. And once again it is an idea involving the government using taxpayer resources to administer a new program. Enforcing provisions like employee counts, gross sales, average salary calculations for each county, and defining what the term health care benefits actually means will lead to the expansion of government first. Perhaps downstream, businesses meeting all these hard to define and expensive to monitor criteria will derive some benefit, but justifying the additional costs of administering requires a great leap of faith in bureaucrats.
Denish calls for a “review” of all existing state tax credits to determine which are leading directly to job creation and which are not. Her new proposal of a small business tax credit would be linked directly to the creation of new jobs. The obvious reaction to this proposal is to wonder why previous state credit proposals, that were thought to lead to jobs, didn’t. And perhaps the best way to create jobs (outside of jobs for bureaucrats in Santa Fe) might be to leave more of the earnings in the hands of the entrepreneurs. Not having to go to the banks and borrow more money with the hopes of getting a tax credit from the government……later would be preferred by most entrepreneurs.
Denish gets into a little bit of fuzzy government math when it is suggested that “IF” the tax credit idea helps create 7,300 jobs, it will cost the state an estimated $18 million but will generate approximately $27.5 million in new revenue. This implies a net gain of $9.5 million in additional revenue. NewsNM’s reaction on this idea is to wonder why this net gain estimate does not include any accounting for the costs of the bureaucracy that would have to be created to administer the tax credit program.
Denish spends a great deal of time discussing the Creation of a One-Stop-Shop or an "Easy Button" for small businesses and start-ups. She says, “Right now, a New Mexican who wants to start a small business has to make five separate stops to get the paperwork, licenses and permits, and insurance they need.”
It is in this proposal that Denish explains why government is inefficient and in doing so, she makes a strong case for why her previous new program suggestions will only add to, instead of subtracting from the need for business to answer to state government.
    Denish also calls for a litany of procedural changes. These proposals include:
1. A universal application, which will determine upfront which permits and licenses a business will need rather than leaving the detective work to the business. Item #1 is an idea that requires inter-agency cooperation and the yielding of responsibilities by a government official. Since power and influence is lost when the head of a government agency yields…..few do, willingly.
2. A directory of state services and information on contracting with the state.
3. Financial literacy information and private loan information.
4. Information about federal grants and other private assistance outside of state government.
5. Networking tools that allow similar small businesses to communicate and share experiences. This effort would include outreach to local and county entities to establish uniform filing requirements and paperwork for businesses around New Mexico.
6. Preferred contracting status for New Mexico small businesses: As the state's largest consumer, the state of New Mexico should be supporting our small businesses with preferred contractor status. This means that within the procurement process for state contracts, a small-business based in New Mexico would get additional procurement points - to give it a small advantage over its out-of-state competitors.
7. A thorough review of Worker's Compensation laws and rates, rooting out the inequities that harm New Mexico's employers. For example, Worker's Comp rates for office work should not be similar to rates for more dangerous jobs such as oilfield work. Too many small businesses are being taken advantage of by unfair Worker's Comp rate structures.
8. Governor's Small Business Ombudsman: Too often, the big corporations have a voice in Santa Fe and the small businesses have nowhere to turn for help. That must change. As Governor, Diane Denish wants to ensure that small business owners have a direct line of communication with her office, and to do that, she would create the position of a Small Business Ombudsman. If a small business has an idea for how to improve state government services, wants information on how to get a license, find out about loan and financing assistance or other resources for small businesses, a representative in the Governor's Office will personally assist them every step of the way. The Ombudsman's primary responsibilities will include:
a. Continually advocate for breaking down government barriers to entrepreneurship and job creation wherever they may exist.
b. Organize local networks of successful entrepreneurs to serve as mentors to New Mexicans looking to start their own businesses.
c. Create a road-map of services for businesses that would go hand-in-hand with the Small-Business One-Stop Shop.
    Item # 8 (a,b,c) is a proposal that recognizes the redundancies and inefficiencies of state government and then offers a solution of additional state government employees to help businesses deal with poorly performing existing state government employees and agencies. This proposal is clearly a circular loop that grows the power and influence of government.
    Denish offers the suggestion that the Federal Innovation Research Matching Grant Program can reward our state's small high-tech firms in the SBIR and STTR programs. She seems to propose a matching program that would assist small or start up companies that take advantage of federal partnerships to accelerate their growth. The idea is this program would provide matching grants to entrepreneurs and small businesses that successfully develop applications for the Federal Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR). She suggests that a number of other states including North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida offer this assistance to develop new technology companies.
    This proposal would use state money to subsidize businesses already using federal government subsidy programs. It is an extension of the basic philosophy that threads its way through many of the Denish job creation proposals.
    Denish speaks in more general terms of encouraging New Mexicans to return to their hometowns to start businesses or work in high-demand jobs; and creating an office focused on supporting rural economic development. She speaks of assisting local agriculture and ranching - and the businesses they support by encouraging procurement of New Mexico grown food.
    There are few details of how these efforts might be implemented efficiently and Denish seems to infer that what is being done by public purchasing managers now is not supportive of New Mexico businesses. This idea involves more government to help…government.
    Denish talks of investing in developing local and state markets for New Mexico agricultural products. This would include support for farmers markets and other sources that provide access to local fresh food in every community across the state. This investment would pay for itself: a 15% increase in purchases from local farmers is estimated to generate $670 million per year in new community wealth for New Mexico.
    This idea seems to involve the idea of government getting into the practice of subsidizing the food distribution business. Government involvement in food distribution is quite unlikely to produce competitive advantages or efficiencies for companies or taxpayers.
    Denish talks about providing leadership by bringing together both producers and consumers of food to understand the demand for food and existing supply. Such a group could also plan for more efficient transportation of foods within the state.
    This idea suggests that government can make an efficient effort in facilitating better decision-making processes by producers and consumers.
    Denish suggests the state should be seeking out high-value niche markets for small farmers. The state could gather information about emerging markets and specific demand for organic and medicinal foods and share the information with existing farmers. She suggests this effort should also extend to educating young people about new markets and opportunities in farming.
    This idea suggests the government can function well as business advisers and consultants.
    She speaks of the New Mexico Broadband Initiative wanting to provide priority to capital projects that seek to develop New Mexico's rural broadband infrastructure.
    Existing broadband infrastructure exists in all areas through home satellite technology. State incentives to increase towers and cell coverage in rural areas, is essentially a suggestion that all New Mexico taxpayers should subsidize rural areas for state-supplied broadband and cell phone service infrastructure.
    Denish talks about the Center for Rural Development, which would combine all the functions of rural support that exist in state government under one roof to share resources, leads, and be more responsive to the needs of rural businesses and economic development initiatives.
    This idea will require another government organization and inter-agency cooperation. Often these ideas do not lead to the yielding of responsibilities by a senior government official. Since power and influence is lost when a government agency yields…..few do, willingly. Often these ideas create redundancies. The proposal itself is an admission that redundancies already exist.
    Denish wants to partner with the New Mexico SBDC network to offer rural-focused workshops on starting and maintaining a rural small business. Work with the SBA to locate and maximize resources for rural businesses. Catalog the core needs of every New Mexico community with a population below 30,000.
These ideas suggest the state government can function well as a business advisor and consultant.
Denish talks of two additional government programs near the end of her paper. The “Come Home to Main Street” program seeks to maximize incentives for people looking to work in or start a business in communities with populations of 10,000 and below. She talks of increasing tax incentives for starting a business in a small community and a stepped-up ladder of tax incentives bench marked to the number of employees hired. Denish also talks of educational incentives such as student-loan repayment assistance for New Mexico college graduates who return to work in their hometowns for a minimum of four years in a high-demand profession such as teaching, nursing or law enforcement.
    Finally, Denish supports state agencies adoption of some provisions of the Model State Administrative Procedures Act (APA). Adhering to APA standards will give New Mexico employers clear and consistent guidelines from the state as they seek to grow and create jobs. She points out that New Mexico is one of a few states in the nation that does not adhere to the MSAPA guidelines. She says this can make it difficult for business owners, particularly small business owners, to understand the state's laws and regulations and how they will be enforced. Denish's position on the APA has been supported by leading business organizations in the state, such as the Association for Commerce and Industry.
Denish seems to contradict herself throughout the paper. First, she asserts that government doesn't create jobs - the private sector does. In the body of the piece Denish offers a litany of new government programs to be administered, mostly through the use of subsidies, credits, and outright grants. Most of her ideas will require more government bureaucracies not less. And her proposals that actually call for less bureaucracy will depend on the unlikely prospect of inter-government cooperation to accomplish the goal. Many of the programs rely on government intervention into aspects of day-to-day business management in such ways that government has already proven it cannot do effectively.
Overall in the Denish paper on job creation there is a tremendous and overriding faith in government. The paper tends to ignore the great reality that subsidies create imbalances. In the Denish paper rural job creation ideas morph into nothing more than calls for small town subsidies to be paid for by all non-rural taxpayers. Nowhere in her case for subsidizing small communities does she supply proper justification as to why the remaining New Mexico citizens, in larger communities, should be compelled to take on the increased burden of her programs.
    There seems to be a curious reluctance to concede that high demand professions already tend to provide higher wages without the need for government intervention. Low skilled citizens are the states burden rather than the high-skilled workers.
    Finally, curiously absent in this lengthy paper is the idea of using the simple solution of lower tax rates to increase the incentives for all forms of work and job-creating capital formation.
    No doubt the funding of all previous programs and subsidies is swallowing up huge percentages of the state budget and is rendering the idea of tax rate cuts particularly inconsistent with such an overriding faith in government.

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GOP Offers "Pledge to America"

CBS News has obtained a final draft of House Republicans' legislative agenda for the next Congress, a 21-page "Pledge to America" that they will formally unveil Thursday morning at a Virginia hardware store. "The need for urgent action to repair our economy and reclaim our government for the people cannot be overstated," the introduction says. It continues: "With this document, we pledge to dedicate ourselves to the task of reconnecting our highest aspirations to the permanent truths of our founding by keeping faith with the values our nation was founded on, the principles we stand for, and the priorities of our people. This is our Pledge to America." Read more here:
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Ray Powell - Restoring Trust

Ray Powell
From NMPolitics.net - The land commissioner is probably one of the most important and powerful positions in state government today. The land commissioner can sell, lease or trade the land without anyone else’s approval. The land commissioner looks after 13 million acres of your state trust land and billions of dollars of raw natural resources, and the land commissioner helps oversee a $14 billion permanent fund. Our working public lands generate $500 million a year. This money supports our public schools, universities and hospitals. This is money that you and I don’t have to pay in additional taxes. From 1993 to 2002, I had the honor to serve as your New Mexico state land commissioner. I built a team of honest, knowledgeable and hard working individuals and we were recognized as one of the best land management agencies in the country. Read more here:
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Matt Rush: It is Time for a New Generation

Matt Rush
From NMPolitics.net - Matt Rush says it’s time for a younger generation to take the reins of state government. The Republican nominee for state commissioner of public lands is 36, and he says it’s time for his generation to “stand up” as New Mexico approaches its 100th anniversary in 2012. “I don’t think there is anyone out there who would stand up and say New Mexico has reached its full potential,” Rush said during a recent interview in Las Cruces. “… People who have served in the past, thank you, but it’s time for new leaders.” In talking about those who have served in the past, Rush is referring at least in part to his Democratic opponent, Ray Powell, who was land commissioner from 1993 to 2002 and wants the job again. Rush is sounding what has become a familiar theme in the 2010 election cycle, saying voters need to elect people who aren’t “career politicians.” Rush is a fourth-generation farmer and rancher in Roosevelt County, and he also does leadership training, consulting and motivational speaking for agriculture and corporate clients in a number of states. He’s an unabashed defender of the oil and gas and agriculture industries. Rush said the land office can be more than an office that collects royalties from leasing state trust land: It can promote those industries. Read more here:
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Rothschild - Good Riddance, Larry Summers!

Matthew Rothschild

Good riddance, Larry Summers. Obama’s top economic adviser is going back to Harvard by the end of the year, and Harvard can have him. Summers has a resume of disaster. As chief economist at the World Bank, he proposed dumping the West’s toxic waste on the Third World. As Clinton’s Treasury undersecretary, he forced privatization on the Russian people, who experienced enormous poverty as a result. (See Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine.”) And when he was Clinton’s Treasury secretary, he helped deregulate Wall Street, which led to the current crisis. When he was President of Harvard, his sexism did him in. Under Obama, Summers and Timothy Geithner were largely responsible for understimulating the economy. Read more here:

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