Michael Swickard
New Mexico needs to be an attracting state when it comes to more jobs and wealth. There are several areas ripe for improvement such as manufacturing, health care and retirement. Importantly, we should learn from other states that have improved their business and living climates.
New Mexico’s actual climate is great, with sunshine, blue skies, nice sunsets and moderate temperatures in summer and winter. We draw some people just by climate. However, actual climate alone will not keep enough new money flowing into the state given the profligate spending by the Legislature.
California recently started a push to get some 500 dairies to come back to the state. They had fled because the business climate in California was prohibitive to their industry even though the cow climate in the state was great. The California leaders now promise a better business climate since they are drowning in red ink of their own making.
Incidentally, the cow climate in New Mexico is also great. Our cows are happy. A stressed milk cow does not give as much milk as a happy cow, so we know that cows in New Mexico are the happiest in the nation since they produce the most milk per pound.
State government is not happy
The New Mexico state government is not happy because of struggles with the state budget. Former Governor Johnson’s last budget was $3.5 Billion. In just a few years current Governor Bill Richardson elevated the state budget to $6 Billion. The fight is how to reduce it by $400 million. There is no way to sustain that much growth in government spending, unless the new spending is to make more money for the state.
To improve New Mexico financially, money/people must come from other states and countries. New Mexico competes in five areas: the business climate of taxes and regulations, transportation, health care, education and entertainment/culture.
The most important factor in competing for new jobs in our state is the private sector business climate. It is not by accident that some states garner the majority of certain types of businesses. Boeing recently moved from Seattle to Chicago for business reasons tied to their treatment by the state government. New Mexico needs to be attractive to certain types of businesses.
A new way of looking at taxation and regulation must happen for businesses to be attracted to New Mexico. In the past New Mexico has made it harder to do business, making our state quite uncompetitive at a time when the state really needs more tax money generated from business activity.
Example: We need to compete in the two areas of our nation’s greatest needs. These are domestic clean power and food. Our resources should not go to other countries for power and food. Because of cost factors tied to regulations, both our domestic power and food production are not very competitive.
Solution: New Mexico should build many new-generation nuclear power plants. It takes real leadership to realize that nuclear power plants would allow New Mexico to become a net exporter of clean power. As important, New Mexico would also have plenty of power available at competitive prices to attract new manufacturing.
Finally, since nuclear power plants like to run near 100 percent power production capacity, there would often be excess power generation, which the state could harness to make hydrogen fuel for the next generation of automobiles and power to desalinate our abundance of brackish water. That would energize our agriculture industry by providing cheaper and better water to our growers.
Transportation, health care, education, entertainment
Transportation is critical in a state as large as New Mexico. The long-term plan needs to be that the Rail Runner should go all over the state, not just up and down the Rio Grande corridor. Also, the trains should include automobile platforms so people can travel by train and have their vehicles at their destination. Learn from Europe how to really run trains.
Additionally, our roads must be seen as the lifeblood of the state so (laugh if you will) there need to be very nice and safe rest stops every 30 miles. Make driving in New Mexico easier and better.
Health care and education are sticking points, but what is obvious is that some states make these industries more attractive. Example: New Mexico has a perpetual shortage of doctors because our tax laws are punitive to doctors compared to other states. Making it easier to do medicine in New Mexico is key to attracting new money.
Finally, entertainment and culture are so very important that we should continue attracting the movie industry, beef up our attractions all over the state including the beef industry and think carefully about how to increase the value of the New Mexico brand.
Bigger government
There are many more ways to bring new money to our state but first we must have leaders who can see the potential of our state.
It may seem that I am calling for more state government and more government spending that I normally rail against. The difference is that I completely endorse the state leaders making state government bigger for the purpose of really supporting the private sector. That would be a worthy reason and quite acceptable me.
The wealth of our nation is available to our state if we can do things correctly. We need leaders in the state who can learn from others states and countries how best to attract wealth.
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.
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