EDITORIAL: NM is leading all right, on the lists of the bad things

We have to give the governor credit for consistency.

In six State of the State speeches and counting, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has never acknowledged the economic importance of the state’s oil and gas industry, or how property, royalty, sales, income and severance taxes from the industry are making many of her “cradle-to-career” social programs possible.

Lujan Grisham kept her hitless streak alive Tuesday when she gave a post-session legislative update to the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce at the Sandia Golf Club.

Attendees were promised an overview of the governor’s initiatives to combat crime, improve education and grow the state’s economy and workforce. However, once again, the governor didn’t mention the main driver of the state’s economy, oil and gas, nor our 92,000 energy workers.

The governor didn’t mention that oil and gas jobs provide more than $6 billion annually in wages to New Mexicans. She didn’t mention the state’s oil and gas industry generated a record $13.9 billion in revenue for New Mexico in fiscal year 2023, an increase of $3.36 billion – or 32% – compared with the same period in 2022.

The governor didn’t mention total general fund revenue from oil and gas production reached $7.5 billion, or about 50% of all state general fund revenue, or that $6.4 billion from oil and gas production went to non-general funds.

She didn’t mention that the state’s recent record-setting budgets, $10.2 billion in fiscal year 2025, wouldn’t be possible without the revenues from oil and gas. And she certainly didn’t mention that New Mexico is the second-largest oil producing state in the nation.

No, but what did raise eyebrows was the governor’s proclamation: “This is a state that was born to lead.”

That remark has since sparked widespread criticism and ridicule.

“Lead to where?” they’re asking. To the bottom?

“N.M. does indeed lead, in everything bad. Crime, education, poverty, you name it,” said a SpeakUp! writer.

“If you want a failing school system, crime that is out of control, the homeless panhandling on every corner, fentanyl pouring across the border, high childhood poverty, a crumbling infrastructure, just do what we do,” wrote another SpeakUp! writer.

The governor’s back-patting speech Tuesday sounded like it came from an alternate universe — a universe in which New Mexico doesn’t have one of the lowest Employment Population Ratios (EMPR) in the United States, currently 55.1%, better only than Mississippi, Kentucky and West Virginia. The national average is 60.3%. If we were just average in our EMPR, we’d have 88,000 more employed New Mexicans.

Then, there’s the brain drain. New Mexico has some fine universities and community colleges, but our graduates aren’t staying here. Nor are people from other states moving here.

The 2020 census showed New Mexico’s population grew by only 58,000 residents between 2010 and 2020, while our neighboring states flourished. In fact, the Census Bureau says more people are leaving New Mexico than moving here.

New Mexico’s overall population grew by just 2.8% from 2010 to 2020, the smallest rate recorded since statehood. Meanwhile, Texas grew by 15.9%, Colorado by 14.8%, Arizona by 11.9% and the nation by 7.4%. Utah led the country with a phenomenal growth rate of 18.4%.

The Census Bureau says our population of children under 18 shrank by 8.3% between the 2010 and 2020 census. The number of high school graduates is projected to decline by a whopping 22% by 2037.

Albuquerque Public Schools will eventually have to make some tough choices and close many more schools because of the school district’s precipitous enrollment declines. Lujan Grisham says the state is moving toward universal child care, and that will get increasingly easier as we have fewer and fewer children to care for.

Some forecasts project our population growth will slow to a crawl over the next 20 years and perhaps then decline. New Mexicans are voting with their feet.

What are our neighboring states doing right that we’re not?

For starters, we aren’t taking care of our kids.

A national report on child well-being released in June by the Annie E. Casey Foundation ranked New Mexico last in the country, again.

We’ve been at the bottom of the Kids Count reports, in part, because of deteriorating academic outcomes in reading and math. New Mexico has ranked 49th or 50th every year in the Kids Count reports since 2012. One in 4 New Mexico children live in poverty. One in 5 children live in high-poverty areas, and the state’s Children Youth & Families Department is an utter failure.

We’re going to need more than sunshine, chile and generous Medicaid benefits for almost half our population to grow. We’re too reliant on government jobs, we over-regulate private-sector business with unfunded mandates like electric vehicle charging stations, and we have a tax system that does not compete well with neighboring states.

People follow the jobs. Investments by Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Orion, Intel and Maxeon Solar Technologies’ plan to build a $1 billion manufacturing facility in south central Albuquerque are all great developments, but we can and should be doing so much more.

Texas, Arizona, Utah and Colorado have figured it out. Phoenix, Denver and Houston are booming while we stagnate.

Yet, the governor had the gall to spike the ball in the end zone in front of business leaders after another Pick-6.

Listening to the governor, one wouldn’t know we’re going in the wrong direction. To grow, we need jobs, a good education system, lower crime rates and to be tax and entrepreneur friendly.

It’s going to take higher-paying private-sector jobs to persuade more New Mexicans to work, like those in the energy sector that the governor ignores day after day, year after year.

The governor contends New Mexico is leading the nation in many business-related sectors, like job growth, wage growth, manufacturing growth and overall economic growth. Yeah, if you start from No. 50, your climb can be much more rapid, yet still negligible.

The governor accepts gobs and gobs of campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, yet lacks the candor to acknowledge the top driver of the state’s economy, even to business leaders, as undeniable as the economic impact of the state’s oil and gas industry on schools and other vital services is.

We agree with the governor on one thing: we are a leader — on the lists of bad things, like crime, hunger and poverty.

We’re a leader on oil and natural gas production, too. If only someone would remind the governor of that, we could claim to be a leader, without the ridicule.