Heath Haussamen
COMMENTARY: Last week’s news was disappointingly familiar: New Mexico ranks 49th in child well-being in 2015. Again.
We had the usual discussion about ideas for improvement. The loudest pitch was for spending tens of millions of dollars a year from the state’s $14 billion permanent fund on early-childhood programs.
“The solution is right in front of us,” State Rep. Javier Martínez wrote on Facebook. He called the permanent-fund proposal “the type of transformational policy that can make impactful change.”
I don’t get enthusiastic about such ideas. We’ve been here before.
New Mexico has been one of the worst states for children for so long that many of us leave to raise our kids elsewhere. And too many little ones – like Brianna Lopez and Leland Valdez – don’t even get to grow up because we kill them.
As a native New Mexican who is raising my daughter here, I think the permanent-fund proposal is worth considering. A child’s early years are formative. Societal investment at that stage is critical.
But the idea that any policy change is “the solution” is simpleminded.
I believe Martínez, who is raising two children in our state, and others pitching ideas are trying to help. But real change requires acting with more depth and nuance.
New Mexico hasn’t ranked better than 46th in child wellbeing in the last decade. We’ve never ranked above 40th in the 25 years the Annie E. Casey Foundation has scored states.
A list of changes
Here are some changes we’ve made in recent decades that were called potentially transformative for our citizens:
- Implementing voluntary pre-kindergarten
- Increasing teacher pay
- Cutting taxes for corporations and the highest earners
- Eliminating the gross receipts tax on groceries
- Building a spaceport
- Offering incentives to attract the film industry
- Building an industrial hub in Santa Teresa
- Raising the minimum wage in three cities and two counties
- Expanding Medicaid
- Allowing Indian gaming to help tribes generate income
- Funding college scholarships for more than 97,000 students through lottery ticket sales
- Toughening penalties for child killers
As the rankings demonstrate, all of that hard work hasn’t dramatically improved life for New Mexicans.
No silver bullet
While we debate individual proposals as possible silver bullets, we avoid the reality that there is no such thing – and we ignore the deeper discussion about overcoming our poverty mentality.
I don’t have the answers. But I believe we must start by working together, across ideologies, to think collectively and build community.
That takes listening, relationship-building, and compromise. The bullying we’ve seen from our last two governors is counterproductive. And lawmakers must stop digging in their heels in response to such aggression.
We need to work to reconcile varying ideologies and interests. Government must play a role in change. So must businesses and organizations like churches and nonprofits. We need Democrats, Republicans and everyone else working together.
Our leaders – in government, business, media, and elsewhere – must create conditions for us all to work comprehensively and holistically to address problems.
The thunderbolt of progress
We’re currently saying “Thank goodness for Mississippi” – the only state worse in child well-being – like that’s New Mexico’s motto. I don’t accept that reality.
Neither did our state’s founders. The Latin words “Crescit eundo” – “It grows as it goes” in English – appear on our state seal. They reference a First Century B.C. poem describing a thunderbolt increasing in strength as it crosses the sky.
The thunderbolt represented progress to our leaders. That was their vision for New Mexico. It’s a vision our children need us to embrace today. Their lives depend on it.