Category Archives: Articles

Don’t compromise PERA for police retention

PERA’s fund is doing well. That’s very good news for you if you are one of the thousands of former state or local government employees who rely on PERA (Public Employees Retirement Association) for all or part of your retirement … Continue reading

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How to entice business to New Mexico

The best thing we can do for small business, said Steve Maestas, is to increase their revenue. The best way to do that is to attract big businesses – the businesses that bring new dollars into the state’s economy, making … Continue reading

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Checking out the constitutional amendments

New Mexicans have been arguing for a couple of years about whether to amend the state constitution to distribute money from the Land Grant Permanent Fund to pay for early childhood education programs. As a public service to help prevent … Continue reading

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Tax policy bites

Filet mignon is more expensive than Hamburger Helper. If government imposes a tax based on a measure of dollars, wealthier people pay more. That’s called progressive taxation, and most of us agree it’s the right way to tax. Except when … Continue reading

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Ballot questions cheapen the election process

NOTE:  After this article was released to newspapers, the Secretary of State ruled that the Chaves County ballot questions would not be included because of a missed filing deadline. Sometimes New Mexico just embarrasses itself. The latest election ballot nonsense … Continue reading

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Teachers have to fight to do their job

The special education teacher told me the kind of story you’d want to hear from a special education teacher. A girl in fifth grade couldn’t read and could barely speak. Nothing was working for her. The teacher found a reading … Continue reading

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Campaign questionnaires — the backroom communication

During the political season, while you’re listening to what candidates want to tell you, there’s another form of communication that most of us don’t see. It happens every election season. Maybe it should be more public. Organizations of every political … Continue reading

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We’re not quite ready for legal pot

Good thing the legislature didn’t pass that marijuana proposal. The proposal, introduced in the 2014 session, was a constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana, which would have been submitted to the voters in the upcoming election. The reasons to legalize marijuana … Continue reading

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The digital divide and rural New Mexico

The digital divide in America – those who do and those who do not have access to the Internet – runs especially deep in rural New Mexico. Is it digital injustice or just the painfully slow development of the necessary … Continue reading

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Health care is rationed, one way or another

Health care policy is an endless debate in the USA, and in New Mexico the debate has its own special complications. Thoughts about how theories and ethics bump up against pragmatic realities come to mind in the wake of two … Continue reading

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