Member Analysis

By: Tom Wright Oil prices are up over 60% since President Biden took office. Locally, the gasoline average is up 35% and propane up 30-cents per gallon. Why? Because the president shut down production and pipeline transportation of crude. It is not because OPEC and Russia have refused to increase their production or because the oil companies are gouging, as President Biden has indicated. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average price of gasoline in 2020 was $2.17. According to the AAA, as of November 21, 2021 the average in New Mexico was $3.347. In 2020, the average natural gas spot price at Louisiana’s Henry Hub was $2.05 per million British thermal units, the lowest annual in decades.  The November 20, 2020 price was $2.40, due to cold weather and the increase in demand. The November 2021 spot price is $5.06. That increase is more than double in one year and a sure enough negative for the Biden Administration whose Secretary of Energy, Jennifer … [Read more...]

By Tom Wright May 14, 2021 Updated May 14, 2021 The latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau was revealing to New Mexico. We only grew 2.8 percent in the past 10 years. At NMjobkiller.com and Adelante Now Foundation, we documented the stories of why more people are leaving the Land of Enchantment and its high taxes than are moving here. The primary reasons were to find work and, recently, to be able to send their kids to school in a live classroom. Traditionally, New Mexico ends up at or near the bottom of most of the bad lists, like child poverty, food insecurity, crime, literacy, family income, adverse regulatory business climate, medically underserved communities, a pyramiding gross receipts tax system and lack of jobs. Collectively, all of these reasons and more are the cause of our slow growth, declining enrollment in public and university level schools, and general economic stagnation. Politicians take note: This is your fault. The latest report from CNBC’s annual best … [Read more...]

Adelante Now Foundation Press Release 02.09.2021 Teachers, business owners, and families talk about why they are leaving New Mexico.   … [Read more...]

(Previously published, 2017) Adelante Now is an education foundation. For over a decade we concentrated our educational efforts on funding tutoring in a few Rio Grande valley public schools. The tutoring was directed at elementary school children who were not reading at grade level or who were not grasping the elements of math. The tutoring program was rewarding to most of the tutored children -- and to us. Yet, each year we were reminded that there are many more fundamental problems with New Mexico’s education system than our tutoring program was capable of attacking. One cannot long contemplate education problems in the state without realizing that many of those problems are connected to family problems. Struggling or broken families often do not provide the cover and guidance which allow children to take real advantage of educational opportunities. Digging deeper, it is difficult for a mom and a dad to keep their family together, or not to struggle, if good jobs are … [Read more...]

(Previously published, 2017) The graph on this page is the same as the one shown in our earlier Member Analysis titled “Let’s turn this State around”, except that the employment growth created by the oil and gas industry has been removed from New Mexico’s figures on this Member Analysis graph. Thus, one is able to see the state’s combined employment growth which took place in other industries. There was no combined, net growth in job-creation among other industries.[i] The 5% job-growth which New Mexico experienced from 2008 through 2014 occurred because the oil and gas industry experienced a 35% growth in job-creation.[ii] What happened in New Mexico’s other industries? One reason New Mexico has a low rate of job creation is that businesses here often live in an adverse regulatory climate. The experience of the oil industry is instructive. When the present administration came into office there were drilling applications piled-up which had not been processed by the Oil … [Read more...]

by Harvey E. Yates, Jr. A version of this was printed in the Espanola Rio Grande Sun, the Las Cruces Sun News, the Santa Fe New Mexican and was published on the Searchlite website. The number of people living in extreme poverty in the world has been markedly reduced in the last couple of decades. This wonderful result has arisen, in large part, from unleashing the entrepreneurial drive and the work ethic of millions of individuals by beefing-up their property rights, by lessening regulatory restraints, and by diminishing the legal insecurity which arises from political and regulatory capriciousness. As poverty declined in much of the world,  the well-being of millions of children improved. Though New Mexico has not known the depths of poverty suffered in much of the world, still, recently, when on the average poverty diminished and child well-being improved worldwide, the same did not happen in New Mexico.  Here poverty increased and child well-being seems to have declined. … [Read more...]

by Tom Wright, Adelante Now board member. Despite finishing near the bottom in nearly every economic category, New Mexico’s politicians never seem to pay the price at the polls. Whether it is economic well-being, food security or education outcomes, you will consistently find the Land of Enchantment at the bottom of the national list. While there are many factors to consider, one must start with those who make the policy and spend the money. With a two-year exception of House control, New Mexico Democrats have controlled the entire Legislature for six decades, and progressives are attempting to control the Democrats’ agenda. Misguided progressive solutions are the reason we never find solutions to our ills. A 2013 Cato Institute study showed a New Mexico family can qualify for $30,435 in state and federal anti-poverty programs. It ranked New Mexico 18th in the nation in total dollar value of available welfare benefits. These large benefits can and do remove the incentive to … [Read more...]

NEW MEMBER ANALYSIS COMING SOON The national unemployment rate is 4.6%. Yet New Mexico’s unemployment rate is 6.6%. The question is whether over the next few years, as President Trump attempts to create more jobs in the nation, New Mexico will fall further behind the nation or whether it will catch up. Since the publication of our two ads on January 15th, we have been contacted by multiple readers.   Some have recounted stories related to the difficulty in starting businesses in the state -- and, consequently, the difficulty of creating jobs here.  One such response came from Bruce J. Fischer, a former job creator in Texas who moved to New Mexico.  This is his report: “Many thanks for publishing your article Sunday in the Albuquerque Journal discussing New Mexico's problems.  I am a perfect example of your statement that ‘businesses here often live in an adverse regulatory environment.’ Briefly, here is my story. I owned and operated a small design-build construction … [Read more...]

Former President Clinton and current President Trump sound much alike in regard to illegal immigration. The ads appeared a few days before the Presidential Inauguration.  President Trump’s inauguration speech, and several subsequent actions by him, though creating much fervor in some quarters, seemed, in large part, to have been directed toward enhancing job creation in the nation. He also continued to talk about illegal immigration. To put President Trump’s speech and actions in prospective we suggest that you listen to this linked speech by former President Bill Clinton given before Congress while he was President.  It was recorded by C-Span: President Clinton’s speech also dealt with illegal immigration.  You will note the similarity in the messages from the two presidents, though perhaps not in their style of presentation. While it would appear that President Trump’s message about illegal immigration might have been seconded by former President Clinton, there is strong … [Read more...]