Letters

‘Borrow’ good ideas from neighbor states

New Mexico has one of the nation’s worst economies. Income, educational achievements, poverty — it doesn’t matter — we’re the pits. Year after year the dreary statistics are recited in this paper, supporting gloomy articles.

But instead of seeing things through a prism of pessimism, let’s look at the bright side. To the extent that bad economic policies are to blame, we can rise to the middle of the pack by making some obvious changes in the state’s economic policies, changes that have worked in other states.

For example, our neighboring states of Texas, Arizona and Colorado have stronger economies thanks in part to their right-to-work laws. New Mexico has no such law, and it pays a price when industry moves elsewhere in search of a better labor situation. Right to work would make a big difference in New Mexico.

So if we enact the same improvements our neighbors have already done, New Mexico’s standing will rise by a few steps. As one of my professors puts it, “If you need a good idea, steal one!” In keeping with this, Gov. Martinez has proposed a reduction in the corporate tax rate to 4.9 percent from 7.6 percent. This would copy Colorado’s “good idea” of making their state more attractive to business and hence to job creation.

Another crucial area is the state’s health care system. Are we inadvertently doing things that will induce our good doctors to leave New Mexico or retire? Just recently, New Mexico decided to accept several billion dollars from the federal government in exchange for loosening the already wide eligibility rules for Medicaid. The successful states cited above all refused the money. Probably they were considering the overcrowding of the health care system. Or maybe they guessed that Washington would welsh on the deal, leaving states with a huge unfunded liability. As usual, however, New Mexico took the bait like a hungry trout.

Investors consider the quality of the local decision-making process. If a state spends taxpayers’ money on dumb things, like Rail Runner, the lavish movie subsidy, the still-unused spaceport, and misdirected billions thanks to its investment follies, then prudent companies will avoid such a state. “What next?” they think. New Mexico has an image that needs improving .

Despite the benefits available from the changes discussed here, New Mexico prefers to play small ball, going for the sacrifice bunt instead of the three-rim homer. Little grants to innovative new companies are all right, I suppose, provided the state can pick winners and doesn’t spend too much on overhead. But they won’t turn New Mexico into a scale model of Texas.

Kenneth Brown

Albuquerque

Retired senior executive

National Science Foundation

N.M. workers need union protections

I have been reading the comments expressed in the Business Outlook section of the Albuquerque Journal for some time now. I enjoy reading them; however, I have found that some of the time they are one-sided. I understand that New Mexico is the poorest state in the United States, but in the four short years I have resided in the state, I have read, heard and seen many articles pertaining to the vast corruption in this state.

I recently read comments about New Mexico wanting to be a right-to-work state, because we are losing good employees. In my opinion, we are losing qualified workers because they just can’t make enough money to support their families. An example would be the recent raises given to administrators of the Albuquerque school district. The reason given for these raises was that the school district needed to be competitive in order to retain their administrators. Other school personnel have not had a raise in four years, including Rio Rancho. Ironically, school employees have a union to negotiate for them. It is apparent that school boards value their administrators over the rest of the employees.

New Mexico is missing the boat. (As an) at-will state … (employment law tends to favor) the employer, who can pay low wages and experience a revolving door of employees. Unions are needed in this state in order to fight for fair wages and benefits for their employees. It is difficult to stay above the poverty line if you are only making minimum wages and trying to support your entire family.

I have two master degrees, yet the only job I could get is a school-bus driver. I make $11.95 an hour, but this equates to $8.34 an hour because my wages are spread out for the entire year so that I can have an income during the summer months. When I was a school-bus driver in the 1990s my salary was $15 an hour. Of course this was in different state. The state of New Mexico is way behind in providing competitive salaries.

In my opinion, it is not because of unions that New Mexico is losing good and qualified employees. Unions work to protect the rights of the employee and promote fair compensation for work provided by the employee. The governor and legislators need to start placing a higher value on its workforce. That begins with a salary that will allow an employee to provide the basic needs for his or her family.

Employees need to band together to ensure their rights are protected, they are treated with dignity, and they receive fair compensation for their employment.

Phyllis Ariss

Rio Rancho

Impartiality absent in fracking article

Regarding Alex Ritchie’s article, “Fracking surrounded by misinformation,” in The Business Outlook (Jan. 28, 2013, page 3):

One would hope that a professor of law would bring some modicum of impartiality to a topic, which he believes is besieged by “misinformation.”

It is only by going to UNM’s Law School website that we find the following far-from-impartial credentials: “Ritchie focused on mergers and acquisitions and other large transactions involving oil and gas …”; “Ritchie was a senior corporate counsel at one of the largest fully integrated oil and gas companies in North America, managing upstream and downstream oil and gas litigation and transactional matters”; “He has represented clients in transactions aggregating in the billions of dollars …”

Indeed, one wonders how well oil and gas may have paid professor Ritchie to write and submit this apologia for the fracking industry.

Ron Wooten-Green

Las Vegas, N.M.