We began the week with news that three elected officials sent to Washington by the citizens of New Mexico have decided they will not have town hall meetings with constituents back home for the time being. Those on the dodge are: Martin Heinrich, Tom Udall, and Jeff Bingaman. According to the Udall and Heinrich camps, security for these events is expensive and besides, they are too busy working on job creation ideas to meet face-to-face with New Mexico citizens. There is no explanation on the hiding reasons of Obamacare ramrod Jeff Bingaman. The theory is Bingaman retiring at the end of next year with a full pension and sees no reason to provide explanations for his votes.
On the other hand, Representatives Ben Ray Lujan and Steve Pearce are facing the music. Both are looking constituents in the eye when they demand explanations. Only time will tell if his decision to dodge constituents will damage Martin Heinrich’s chances to win a Senate seat. With Tom Udall’s re-election efforts out to 2014, he has some hope that disappointment over his constituency dodging decisions will fade. Gutlessness has a long history of paying dividends……at least in politics.
Capitol Report New Mexico ran an interesting story documenting the level of taxpayer subsides per passenger at some of the state’s rural airports. Alamogordo topped the list of towns with the largest passenger subsidies. Averaging less than two passengers a day at the Alamogordo airport, taxpayers are funneling more than $3,100 per ticket for passengers there. Can you say “pork?”
Just as reports from the southern hemisphere revealed there are record cold temperatures in New Zealand (following record cold temperatures here last winter), we received news that Evergreen Solar went belly up in Massachusetts. The bankruptcy filing came despite $58 million in “green job investments” in Evergreen by that state. Amazingly, Governor Deval Patrick said he does not regret losing that much of the taxpayer’s money. Another report from Seattle showed that $20 million in federal grants to provide “green jobs” through the retrofitting of 2,000 homes, yielded just fourteen jobs (mostly administrative) while a whopping total of 3 homes were actually retrofitted. There seems to be no end to stories of record cold temperatures around the globe in 2011 while America continues to borrow and blow taxpayer dollars in the name of saving the planet from global warming.
Speaking of government waste, Rio Grande Foundation Executive Director Paul Gessing released a well written expose on the biggest white elephant in the history of New Mexico this week. The financial disaster known as the “Rail Runner” continues to be the New Mexico train wreck that keeps on taking. After we talked about Gessing’s column on the show on Thursday we were reminded by a physician and loyal listener that Governor Richardson’s original transportation nightmare investment in Eclipse Aviation was also a disaster. Our staff did a little homework on Eclipse Aviation and found that it’s CEO (and the company itself) were both contributors to Richardson’s campaign coffers. The New Mexico taxpayer’s loss was $20 million on that deal.
We noticed a little rumbling within the rank and file of AFSCME in the state. AFSCME is public employee union organization. It seems that some local members were upset that AFSCME endorsed town hall averse Martin Heinrich without much consideration of the Hector Balderas candidacy for U.S. Senate. We will have AFSCME’s Carter Bundy on the show Tuesday to explain the advance endorsement of Heinrich by AFSCME and the reaction by some of the locals.
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| Hector Balderas |
And finally, we took note of the fact that after considering the near 50% dropout rate and the non-college bound students exiting high schools in New Mexico, that 83% of those remaining needed some form of remedial education work before entering college. The only thing clearer than the absence of aggregate academic achievement is the anticipation that the entrenched power structures in public education will tell us the solution to this sticky problem is more taxpayer money.
Our guest list for the show next week is terrific. We have state GOP Executive Director Bryan Watkins on the show Monday. Steve Henke of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association and Carter Bundy will join us Tuesday. Dalene Hodnett from the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau is scheduled for Wednesday. Jay Lininger from the Center for Biodiversity will be on Thursday. And Representative David Doyle from Albuquerque will return to the show again to finish out the week with us on Friday.
The Week in Review
From KRQE-TV.com - The Albuquerque man who is being hailed a hero for chasing down a kidnapper and saving a 6-year-old girl said he's an illegal immigrant. Antonio Diaz Chacón, 23, is now at the center of the debate over illegal immigration."We're just trying to take it all in," said Martha Diaz Chacón, who was translating for her husband. Diaz Chacón, who works as a mechanic, became an instant celebrity with hundreds of news stories written about him across the country and people from coast to coast wanting to send the hero their thanks.Diaz Chacón and Martha, who is a U.S. citizen, have been married for two years. The couple has been living in Albuquerque for four years. Diaz Chacón said he's tried to get his citizenship in the past but stopped after the process became too time-consuming and expensive. Still, he believes there is a reason why he was the one to save the girl Monday night. "Now that everywhere people are attacking immigrants, he thinks this happened for a reason, for people to know that immigrants aren't just criminals," said Martha. Immigrant rights groups are using Diaz Chacón's story to counter the calls for deporting all illegal immigrants. Read more
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