A link here to Paul Ryan’s opinion piece earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal, and his three minute video visualizing the House Republican Budget:
08
Apr 2011
27
May 2010
Well, I had to turn off my phone, but initial reaction is that there were no big surprises. Susana Martinez did well, Allen Weh was angry and running for party chair, and the other three were non factors. More to come.
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27
May 2010
On Stage
By
The candidates have taken the stage. We’re about to go live. There has been a lot of jockying for seat positions amongst the campaigns but it’s been pretty cordial so far.
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27
May 2010
The final walkthrough is going on now.
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27
May 2010
It’s still pretty early here at Popejoy, but the crowd is building already. It’s a pretty excited group and this promises to be a debate. Stay tuned for coming updates.
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26
May 2010
So tomorrow night KOB-TV will be hosting a live, televised debate of the five Republican gubernatorial candidates running for the party’s nomination this primary election. I will be there in the audience live blogging as much of the debate as possible, trying to capture the in-person reactions you can’t necessarily catch on TV at home.
What makes this debate even more interesting is the fact that it falls on the heels of new polling conducted by two different independent entities that show Susana Martinez has opened up a substantial lead over her closest competitor Allen Weh.
Joe Monahan, a local Albuquerque blogger, conducted his own polling with a sample size of 771 likely voters. His polling, conducted through auto dial technology, found that Martinez has opened up a 41% – 30% lead over Weh.
Not to be outdone, KOB-TV conducted their own polling through a company called Survey USA. This poll finds that Martinez has opened up a 10 point lead over Weh – 43% – 33%. Even more promising in this poll for Martinez is that she is surpassing Denish by 6% points in a general election match-up – 49% – 43%. The KOB-TV story is below.
With this news, expect Weh, and probably the other Republicans on the panel tomorrow night, to come out swinging against Susana Martinez. She’s set herself up just right to this point, so it would take a major knock out punch or bombshell to really rock her at this point.
Stay tuned for as many live blog updates from the floor of the debate tomorrow as possible.
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18
May 2010
In mid-April, the NM House Republican Caucus sent a letter with all 25 caucus members signing on to urge Attorney General Gary King to join the lawsuit against Obamacare (the letter can be seen here). Enter the New Mexico TEA Party.
So last Wednesday the New Mexico TEA Party folks, along with Heather Wilson, held a press conference (KOB covers the story) on the steps of the Capitol in Santa Fe. The purpose was to deliver roughly 5,000 petition signatures to the Attorney General informing him that New Mexicans don’t support Obamacare and urging him to join the 21 states and attorneys general in the lawsuit pushing to stop the takeover of roughly 20% of the American economy.
Unfortunately, AG King misses the point entirely. From the KOB.com story:
“Is it worth spending New Mexico tax payer dollars just to get my name on the case?” King asked, adding “…my understanding is, that’s one of the tenants of the Tea Party: ‘Let’s not spend money we don’t have to spend.’ “
This just demonstrates how out of touch Gary King really is with the reality of the situation surrounding Obamacare. Recent projections put out by the NM Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) are predicting that the State of New Mexico will need to come up with at least an additional $600 million over 6 years to finance the massive expansion in state Medicaid that will occur once federal funding levels drop down to 90% starting in 2014.
Not only that, but when the federal Medicaid stimulus funding – American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) dollars – drops out at the end of State Fiscal Year 2011, we’re beginning the backslide to major troubles. Just to maintain the current base level of funding, New Mexico will have to find an addtional $320 million or so per year. If the state decides they want to expand further they’ll have to come up with another big chunk of change.
So where does that leave us? Between ARRA funds dropping out and the expansion of Medicaid in New Mexico with Obamacare, we’ll be close to $1 billion in the hole coming up, or roughly 20% of our entire state budget. The taxpayers of this state are constantly being lied to about how far in debt the state really is, and the hole could very well be much deeper once Richardson/Denish leaves office and a new governor starts to de-construct the books and find where the dead bodies are buried.
On one point I do agree with Gary King: lawsuits are very expensive and we shouldn’t be wasting taxpayer dollars. The agreement ends there. It would be much more advantageous for the state to spend a few million dollars to stop Obamacare instead of going into debt to the tune of nearly a billion dollars to expand and perpetuate the welfare state in New Mexico.
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06
Apr 2010
Listen to Congressman Hank Johnson (D – GA-4) asking Navy Admiral Robert Williard, Commander of the US Pacific Fleet, questions about transferring Navy personnel and Marines, along with their families, to the island of Guam.
From a recent LA Times blog post relating to the asinine questioning:
He’s from Georgia’s Fourth District. A Washington, D.C. native, he’s the fellow who took office in 2007 after knocking off former five-term Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney.
A former county judge, the 55-year-old is an attorney, a standard liberal Democrat, receiving 100 ratings from the ADA and ACLU.
Ah! Well, that about sums it up.
Is it possible for Guam to tip over? Well, according to the geography and basic science I learned in grade school, it doesn’t appear so. Maybe Congressman Johnson knows some deep dark secrets about the Earth’s crust most of us don’t know! And this guy makes over $170,000 a year, paid for by our tax dollars. These are some of the folks representing you in Congress, America!
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24
Mar 2010
Word has it from the Roundhouse that Richardson has vetoed the food tax out of the Senate Finance Committee Substitute for SB 10/12/13. He’s also used his line item authority on HB 2 – the budget – and on HB 3 – the cigarette tax bill. Analysis is on the way from our folks in the know at the Roundhouse and will be posted here as soon as possible.
A note on the food tax veto: the Gov has said that he will use $20 million of his discretionary stimulus funding to help plug the bigger hole this creates. That still leaves a $40 million – $45 million additional budget deficit to plug. Where does the governor find the extra funds, or better yet, where does he cut to plug this budget gap? Also, does he really have the authority to line item veto a bill that increases revenue rather than appropriates funds?