We began the week learning how easy it is to cut spending. Apparently out of state travel by state legislators fell by more than 50% after rules on reimbursements for most trips were tightened up. If only legislators realized that taxpayers want them to treat our money the same way they treat their own when they feel that getting reimbursed is in jeopardy.
Two weeks after businessman Larry Link was murdered in the boot heel region of the state there were no suspects in custody. While the southwest corner of the state is not as bad as the Tucson sector in terms of border security, (400,000 illegal aliens crossed in the Tucson sector last year) it is an area where frequent drug drops and human smuggling activities overwhelm out manned border agents. This is a fact regardless of who killed Larry Link.
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| President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi |
A couple of years after nearly a trillion dollars in federal stimulus spending was supposed to keep the nation’s unemployment rate at “no higher than 8%,” President Obama snickered during a “jobs conference” this week. The good laugh came as Obama conceded that some of those stimulus projects were not quite as “shovel ready as we expected.” Those who have watched government with an objective eye, particularly as it has tried to do anything in a timely manner, never shared the president’s expectations or his amusement at his own miscalculations.
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| Bill Richardson |
Bill Richardson was back in the news this week on the New Mexico Watchdog website. In doing a study many have been demanding for quite some time, the Watchdog said:
“Members of the Richardson-era judiciary on average paid more than four times as much in political donations during recent years, compared to the recent political donations of long-time judges who remained through the Richardson era.” And in an unrelated story Susana Martinez made two judicial appointments this week.
What our U.S. senators say about the need to cut spending is one thing. How they vote when offered a golden opportunity to cut spending is another. Senators Bingaman and Udall always manage to cast a “yes” vote for any measure that will cripple the oil and gas industry in New Mexico. However, they both voted against eliminating costly ethanol subsidies this week. Accordingly, billions of dollars will continue to be handed out by the federal government to ethanol producers.
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| Susana Martinez |
Speaking of spending cuts, Governor Susana Martinez took a knife to the bloated education bureaucracy in New Mexico only to have her actions labeled as “retaliation” by public union activist Michelle Lewis. Saying she thought her layoff was intentional but had no proof, the comments by Lewis were tame when compared to the comments made in New Jersey this week. A union boss in the Garden State called New Jersey’s Governor “Adolf Christie” and compared the union’s working conditions to those in Nazi Germany.
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We found it somewhat ironic that health care workers in Santa Fe at St. Vincent’s hospital prepared for a possible strike this week. They did so as activist progressives in and around the state capitol continued their fight to make health care a basic right. These two developments seem to set up a collision course. Who will win the battle between those demanding the right to strike and those demanding the “right” to obtain services on demand from striking health care workers? Our guess is the lawyers will win and the taxpayers will lose. Sound familiar?
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| Agent Brian Terry |
The most dumbfounding story of the week had to be the failure of the U.S. government to halt arms sales to drug cartels. The problem was the sales were taking place right under federal government official’s noses. The explanations made by bureaucrats in Washington to questions on this sad incident were befuddling. Expect more blame shifting and denials as investigations into policies that actually led directly to these weapons being used to kill U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry continue. No doubt those responsible for this blunder already have their “shovels ready.”
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| John Arthur Smith |
Senator John Arthur Smith said it all this week after hearing a lame explanation of why outrageous over payments made in error by New Mexico’s ERB were not reported or recovered in a timely fashion. “There’s a time-frame gap there that is hard for me to accept,” Smith said to ERB boss Jan Goodwin. We can only wonder how long it would take for the state to be made whole on a fiasco like this one if the benefit administration process had been outsourced to a private company. And we can only imagine the outrage of those who regularly offer excuses for bureaucratic blunders.
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| Rail Runner |
And finally, we must recognize the Rail Runner as a perfect symbol of the excesses and grandiose central planning schemes of our state government during the Richardson administration. This week bureaucrats in charge of what should have been named the "white elephant" announced plans to eliminate weekend service later this summer. Take heart. The gargantuan investment and huge operating losses sustained by N.M taxpayers via the Rail Runner will remain. It is only any semblance of customer-oriented service that is going to disappear.
The Week in Review
NewsNM - Swickard, we celebrate the pilots who risk their lives along with all fire fighters. Thanks! From KOB-TV.com - The Swallow Fire that burned nine homes in Ruidoso could have been a lot worse, according to fire officials. All the ingredients of another White Fire, which burned more than 10,000 acres, were there. But firefighters got some help from above, and helped turn the tide to save more homes than were lost. Two 1,300 horsepower single-engine air tankers, or SEATS, sit at the Sierra Blanca Airport near Ruidoso waiting for the call. Crews are expected to be airborne within 15 minutes. On Thursday, the call came in around 2:30 for the Swallow Fire when it started about eight miles away. Pilots suited up, ground crews filled up and in less than 10 minutes, the planes were en route. Hundreds of gallons of fire retardant began raining down on the fire line. SEATs can carry as much as 800 gallons of retardant. With cockpit controls, pilots have pinpoint accuracy, and can decide how much is dropped in one pass. The planes can maneuver around personnel and target structures to help protect lives and property. The SEATs have been placed at a number of airports around New Mexico and can provide air support anywhere in the state within minutes. Read more
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