{"id":433940,"date":"2017-09-29T08:23:12","date_gmt":"2017-09-29T14:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=433940"},"modified":"2017-09-29T08:23:12","modified_gmt":"2017-09-29T14:23:12","slug":"progressive-policies-are-to-blame-for-las-cruces-unemployment-rate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/09\/progressive-policies-are-to-blame-for-las-cruces-unemployment-rate\/","title":{"rendered":"Progressive policies are to blame for Las Cruces’ unemployment rate"},"content":{"rendered":"

COMMENTARY:<\/strong>\u00a0Recently, the Las Cruces Sun News wrote an article<\/a> covering the economic turmoil here in Do\u00f1a Ana County. That should be of no surprise to our community because in the last decade Las Cruces has not seen much improvement.<\/p>\n

\"Michael

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Michael A. Aguilar<\/p><\/div>\n

In January of this year, Las Cruces had an unemployment rate of 7.6 percent, just 0.1 percent lower than the current rate. Since 2008, it really has not been much better.<\/p>\n

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, since January of 2009, Las Cruces\u2019 unemployment rate has hovered around 7 percent, hitting as high as 8.4 percent in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013. In 2015 and 2016, the Las Cruces unemployment rate hit 8.2 percent, continuing the seemingly never-ending cycle of poverty in our community.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, just 25 minutes south, El Paso\u2019s unemployment rate sits at 4.6 percent, lower than both our state and local averages. So what\u2019s the difference?<\/p>\n

Like many people in Las Cruces, I frequently visit El Paso. I like to visit El Paso\u2019s downtown, catch a Chihuahuas’ game, and explore many of the new businesses that are opening their doors in the city. It seems as if every time I\u2019m there, I see a brand-new business setting up shop. A short trip down to our state line shows a boom of businesses with one thing in common: All those booming businesses are all located on the Texas side of the border.<\/p>\n

Texas\u2019 and El Paso\u2019s elected leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, have embraced business and have welcomed private industry into their communities. That doesn\u2019t happen in Las Cruces, or really anywhere in New Mexico. Instead of supporting private industry, our local leaders rely on increased activity at White Sands Missile Range, or a hiring bump from NMSU or Las Cruces Public Schools, to reduce our local unemployment rate to maybe 7 percent.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve settled for this for far too long. To make it simple, our city leaders have failed us.<\/p>\n

Since the 2008 recession, Las Cruces and Do\u00f1a Ana County have seen an infestation of elected \u201cprogressive\u201d politicians who have repeatedly taken an anti-business approach to governing. They campaigned under seemingly Democrat values that could work with businesses, then turned their backs on those that elected them. It seems pushing their progressive agenda is more important than the wellbeing of their constituents.<\/p>\n

Exhibit A: Councilor Gil Sorg, a city councilor since 2008 who is currently up for re-election, has repeatedly stated that he\u2019s against increased development in his district. Not-so-coincidentally, since 2008, our unemployment numbers have skyrocketed, and we don\u2019t seem to be recovering anytime soon.<\/p>\n

Exhibit B: Mayor Ken Miyagishima, who has been mayor for 10 years, was recently on KRWG for a radio show<\/a>\u00a0to talk about the \u201cstate of the city.\u201d When asked about the effects of the minimum wage increase on local businesses, he said, \u201cWhen you have to pay higher wages, one of two things are going to happen: You\u2019re going to reduce hours, or you may eliminate positions.\u201d So, why did Mayor Miyagishima support the wage increase if he knew it would have a negative effect on the hardworking people of Las Cruces?<\/p>\n

Over the last decade, many of these \u201cprogressive\u201d local officials have enacted their \u201cprogressive\u201d policies, including the dramatic hike of our city\u2019s minimum wage from $7.50 to what will be $10.10 an hour in the span of a few years. What is even more disturbing is that these \u201cprogressive\u201d officials try to pull the wool over their constituents\u2019 eyes by convincing them this will be good\u00a0for them.<\/p>\n

Instead of pandering a talking point, let\u2019s look at the facts.<\/p>\n

The progressive agenda in Las Cruces and Do\u00f1a Ana County has\u00a0worked to hike not only the minimum wage in our community, but also the gross receipts tax, or GRT. In Las Cruces, our GRT of 8.3125 percent is higher than that of Albuquerque and Rio Rancho. It’s equal to Santa Fe, another progressive bastion with an unemployment rate higher than the national average. No surprise that El Paso\u2019s sales tax is also lower than our GRT.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s time we elected new leaders to City Council. In this year\u2019s election, we are seeing some great candidates putting their names on the ballot. Any candidate who pledges to work with local business owners to bring more jobs to our community should be embraced.<\/p>\n

Our city and county do not have to accept the status quo anymore. We do not have to accept what a progressive politician tells us is a success \u2013 when merely 25\u00a0miles away you see parties from both sides of the aisle working for the betterment of their community. Las Cruces and Do\u00f1a Ana County deserve better.<\/p>\n

The City of Las Cruces has a motto, \u201cPeople Helping People.\u201d I believe we have a lot of people in our community who\u00a0live by that motto. In fact, many of those people are putting their names on the ballot in this next election to help lead our community forward.<\/p>\n

However, there are those that claim to want to \u201chelp\u201d people but instead choose to help an agenda that drives our community into the ground. I think we can all agree that those people could start serving our community by making an effort to attract businesses to our community instead of driving them away.<\/p>\n

Michael A. Aguilar is the executive director of the Southern New Mexico Business Alliance<\/a>, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging economic growth and opportunity in our community.\u00a0Agree with his opinion? Disagree? We welcome your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve settled for this for far too long. To make it simple, our city leaders have failed us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":433945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,16],"tags":[118,145,146],"class_list":["post-433940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-columns","tag-economy","tag-las-cruces","tag-poverty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}