New Mexico faces rapidly-changing economic and political realities. The situation provides both peril and opportunities for New Mexicans, but there will be a transitional period and it may not be easy.

The political changes are two-fold and both of them will reduce the flow of federal money that has long propped up New Mexico’s economy. The simplest and most obvious change involves our massive loss of Congressional seniority. As recently as 2009, the state’s US Senators held the top two slots on the Energy Committee. Come January 2013, New Mexico won’t have either seat.

Jonathan Williams of the American Legislative Exchange Council discusses the findings of Rich States, Poor States at a presentation in Albuquerque.

9-14-11 Jonathan Williams presentation by gessing Jonathan's powerpoint presentation is available here. He wrote an opinion piece that appeared in the Albuquerque Journal as well. Lastly, our capitol reporter, Rob Nikolewski, interviewed Jonathan and did a write-up of the event here.

The conventional wisdom is that U.S. manufacturing is dead. And, while advocates for this point of view offer few solutions to the supposed "problem" aside from the admonition to "Buy American," a hard look at the data shows that, to paraphrase Mark Twain, "reports of the death of U.S. manufacturing are greatly exaggerated."

There has been a lot of discussion in New Mexico of ways to jump-start our struggling economy. This is good news.

For too long, we have relied on the federal government to add or save jobs at the air bases or labs as the basis of the economy in our beautiful state. But, out-of-control deficit spending has finally caught up to the political class in Washington, D.C., and money flowing back to the states is drying up fast.

While some worry about this, it is good to see Washington finally starting to wake up to the reality of a fixed budget.

As an advocate for free market entrepreneurship, it is even better to see state policymakers looking for new ways to bring business to New Mexico.

We should want all businesses to aspire to succeed in a free market where the private capital and risk-taking of entrepreneurs creates jobs out of thin air through innovation and without government assistance. An incentives-based approach is rooted in the mechanism of government and politics, and it has proven repeatedly to be wrong headed.

(Albuquerque) Expensive studies are in the works and much discussion is taking place on the best ways to develop New Mexico’s economy. This is great news to advocates of the free market. For too long, economic development in New Mexico meant waiting for the federal government or the Labs to bring more jobs and money to the area.

Of course, some politicians and economic development “experts” are hoping to promote their own visions of targeted economic incentives, tax giveaways, training programs, and other methods of bringing jobs to New Mexico. At best, these methods are unproven in terms of generating net, long-term growth. Rather, the new plant or business may be “seen,” but the businesses and investments that would have happened absent those taxes is the unseen and untold story.

In an effort to steer the debate towards proven, pro-free-market policies, the Rio Grande Foundation has released its own study, “A Roadmap for a More Economically-Competitive New Mexico” that bases its findings on “tried and true” principles of taxation, spending, and regulation as a path forward for New Mexico’s economy. The study is available at the Foundation’s website.

Without actually debating the issue head on, the concept of federalism is back as a central focus of American political debates. Federalism, at least as conceived by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, meant that the central government in Washington had a few, strictly-limited powers, but that an overwhelming majority of what was to be done was to be left to the states and people.

The belief that Washington’s powers were few and limited was so important to the Founders that two separate amendments essentially re-stated this. The 10^th amendment clarifies the issue, simply stating “The 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.”

Recently, Rio Grande Foundation president Paul Gessing appeared on Channel 13 to discuss a new plan from the Obama Administration to sell off unused and vacant federal buildings.

345 excessive federal buildings in NM: krqe.com

The full federal report can be found online here. At the end, the reporter mentions my push for federal lands to have a similar process done. No, I'm not talking about selling Yellowstone. There are millions of acres of unused and unnecessary land holdings currently owned by the federal government. These too should be considered for auction or sale.

The intersection between government policy and food has been a hot topic these days. At the same time, President Obama and Republicans in Washington are engaged in a struggle over how to resolve trillion-dollar annual deficits. The two are connected.