Category: Events
The headlong rush by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to force New Mexicans to purchase electric vehicles whether they want them or not will come to a head soon. You need to speak up and speak out against these absurd regulations.
The New Mexico Environment Department and the city of Albuquerque will host an in-person meeting about the Governor’s proposed rules from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Oct. 16 in the Community Meeting Room at the International District Library, 7601 Central Ave NE. Those concerned about unfunded mandates and so-called “Environmental Justice Vehicle Values” should attend or send written comments to: https://nmed.commentinput.com/?id=TuMmsArBj
RGF’s submitted comment can be found below:
New Mexico should respect the freedom of choice of individual New Mexicans in terms of their vehicle purchases and not mandate the sale or purchase of certain vehicles including electric vehicles. EV’s are expensive, charging stations are not readily available especially in rural areas and adding them is costly. Also, drivers of EV’s do not pay gas taxes which maintain our roads. These are just a few of the numerous problems with EV’s. Mandating their sale and use is a “one-size-fits-all” approach to replace individual choice with a choice forced upon New Mexicans from the top down.
The following piece appeared recently in numerous news outlets including Eastern New Mexico News. In addition to the link below you can click on the picture above to register for the conference.
New Mexico should be in crisis mode. Our K-12 education system is certainly facing a crisis. Problems abound: recent reports highlight serious school attendance issues, the NAEP (known as the “Nation’s Report Card”) test places New Mexico 52nd across ALL age groups and subjects studied, the Kids Count report shows New Mexico kids are losing ground, and no one seems to have a solution. Education spending has increased markedly in recent years with nothing to show for it.
With New Mexico already suffering from poor educational outcomes the COVID pandemic and lockdowns instigated by Gov. Lujan Grisham truly put our children into a crisis. Getting our children out of last place and into something resembling a functional, successful system that prepares them for future success should be THE issue that everyone in New Mexico is concerned with.
Sadly, for reasons that include the unions’ hegemony over education policy in New Mexico and the fact that many New Mexicans have resigned themselves to policy failure, our political leadership rarely addresses the need to dramatically reform our education system. Instead, we’ve seen money poured into an education system that has seen a massive reduction in the number of students served.
There are many ways to measure this, but perhaps the most direct is a recent analysis from Wallethub, which found that New Mexico spends 20th-most among states on K-12 education for results that rank 51st. Being in the “High spending, weak system” category is obviously the worst place to be in education, but here we are. More money is not the answer.
So, what IS the answer? That may not even be the right question. Rather, we at the Rio Grande Foundation are advocating for an “all of the above” approach to education in New Mexico. For example, Mississippi has done some amazing things in education to the point where The Associated Press labeled their success “the Mississippi Miracle.”
By reforming the existing education system Mississippi has achieved major gains in student outcomes. New Mexico policymakers should take note and enact similar reforms.
New Mexico has long had charter schools. They are the major form of “school choice” in our state and they include a disproportionate share of the state’s best performing schools. But more is needed to make our charter schools the best they can be for New Mexico kids. This can mean everything from making it easier to start a new charter school to making it easier to close failing or under-performing charters.
Finally, we’ll talk about private options. Arizona and several other states have boldly embarked on a path where money for schools follows the student, but there are other options including school choice tax credits and “microschools” that are worthy of discussion and analysis. What do these options mean in practice and can we get them in “blue state” New Mexico?
At the Rio Grande Foundation (and our education project “Opportunities for All Kids New Mexico”) we believe New Mexico’s education challenges are an existential threat to both our children and our economic prospects. So, we are hosting a free, day-long education conference in which experts from across the nation and state discuss these and other potential solutions.
The conference, set for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 22, will be held at St. Pius X High School on Albuquerque’s West Side. The event is free but sign up is required at: http://www.oaknm.org. Let’s all work to solve New Mexico’s existential education crisis.
Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation, which promotes limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility. Contact him at: pgessing@riograndefoundation.org
“…In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
— Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, 1789
We’ve all heard the quote before, but how have tax burdens directed economic growth in the United States over the last century? Our upcoming speaker Brian Domitrovic has co-authored the book Taxes Have Consequences: An Income Tax History of the United States, with Arthur B. Laffer, to answer this and other questions.
Domitrovic will join the Rio Grande Foundation to discuss American history, especially the past 100 years since creation of the federal income tax at a luncheon hosted by the Rio Grande Foundation.
August 8, 2023
Taxes Have Consequences
11:45AM – 1:00PM
Indian Pueblo Cultural Center
2401 12th St NW, Albuquerque, NM 87104
About Brian Domitrovic:
Brian Domitrovic is an intellectual historian interested in the history and development of supply-side economics. He is the author of six books, beginning with the now standard history of supply-side economics Econoclasts (2009) and extending to the history of the income tax Taxes Have Consequences (2022 and co-authored with Arthur B. Laffer and Jeanne Sinquefield). He has been a professor at institutions in Texas and Colorado and is the Richard S. Strong Scholar at the Laffer Center in Nashville. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University.
Tickets:
Tickets are limited. Price before July 28, 2023: $50
Price on and after July 29, 2023: $55
Price at the door if available: $60
Cancellation policy:
The Rio Grande Foundation will honor cancellation requests until July 31, 2023 at 12:00PM MT, 2023, minus a 15% transaction fee.
Event Information
Last day to buy tickets
03/31/2023, Midnight, (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
About the event:
Join the Rio Grande Foundation for a luncheon featuring speaker Todd Myers, Environmental Director at the Washington Policy Center, a market-oriented think tank in Seattle, and author of Time to Think Small: How Nimble Environmental Technologies Can Solve the Planet’s Biggest Problems.
April 5, 2023
11:45AM – 1:00PM
Albuquerque Marriott Pyramid North
5151 San Francisco Rd NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109
About Todd Myers:
With nearly two decades in environmental policy, Todd Myers’ experience includes work on a range of environmental issues, including climate policy, spotted owl habitat, old-growth forests, and salmon recovery. Currently, he serves as a member of the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Council and was a member of the executive team at the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.
Myers’ writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, National Review, Seattle Times, USA Today, and he has appeared on numerous news networks including CNBC, Fox News, and CNN. Recognized as a national leader on free-market environmental policy, Myers serves on the board of two national center-right environmental organizations, the American Conservation Coalition, an environmental advocacy organization that works to engage youth on conservation and environmental stewardship, and ConservAmerica, a group dedicated to habitat and wildlife conservation.
Cancellation policy:
The Rio Grande Foundation will honor cancellation requests until Friday, March 31, 2023, minus a $5 transaction fee.
Categories
Speaker Series: Daniel Suhr
Daniel Suhr: May 5th, 2022
We are pleased to announce our next in-person event, which will be co-sponsored by The Federalist Society. We will be hosting one of the nation’s top legal experts on limited government and emergency power.
Daniel Suhr serves as Managing Attorney at the Liberty Justice Center, where he spends every day on the front lines of the fight to preserve our rights and liberties. Daniel holds a B.A. and J.D. from Marquette University, and master’s degrees from Georgetown University Law Center and the University of Missouri-Columbia. When he’s not pursuing major constitutional cases in court, he can be found writing about them on op-ed pages like the Wall Street Journal, discussing them on Fox News, speaking about them at places like Yale Law School, or arguing about them with equally nerdy friends over beers.
Event details:
- Topic: Limiting Government in an Emergency: Vaccine Mandates, Lockdowns, and the Next ‘Crisis’
- Speaker: Daniel Suhr
- Date and Time: Thursday, May 5th, 2022, 11:30am-1:30pm
- Location: Albuquerque Marriott Pyramid North, 5151 San Francisco Rd NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109-4641