State Rep. Rob Burpo, R-Albuquerque, says New Mexico lawmakers will have to rewrite the tax code, clear up water rights disputes with Texas and fix its schools if the state is ever to improve its economy.
Burpo, a four-year state legislator and gubernatorial candidate, outlined the tenets of his campaign Thursday night during a speech sponsored by the College Republicans and Delta Sigma Pi, a UNM business fraternity.
He called the state's economy its biggest problem, and vowed to work to improve it if elected.
"We're training everybody to leave the state," he said. "We should have jobs so you will stay."
He said the state's much-discussed gross receipts tax would have to be eliminated before large businesses such as Intel would consider relocating here and that its income tax structure would need to be reconfigured.
Arizona, which has considerably lower income and gross receipts taxes, has seen economic growth of 45 percent in the last 10 years, while New Mexico has stood still, he said.
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"Businesses vote with their feet - if they don't like what you're doing, they'll leave," he said.
He said 1930s-era compacts requiring a certain amount of water be given to Texas, as well as poor management of existing sources also hobbled New Mexico's development.
"New Mexico has had, in the last decade, ostrich syndrome," he said. "We think that if we just put our heads in the sand, the water problem will go away."
Burpo said the Texas compacts, for which New Mexico has actually had to purchase water from other states to fulfill, will only get more complicated in the future as Mexico sues El Paso, which will, in turn, sue New Mexico.
He admitted that he had no easy solution for the state's education problems, but said that he would leave more of the decisions regarding improvement up to individual school administrations. He said each school would have to adjust its curriculum to meet the needs of its neighborhood.
For example, "La Cueva has the lowest number of computers per student in New Mexico, while Rio Grande has the most - yet La Cueva still does handsprings over Rio Grande," he said. "That's because 95 percent of students at La Cueva have computers at home, while less than 10 percent of Rio Grande students do. We need different curriculums for each of these schools."
He said another problem was that the state-prescribed curriculum is not up to par with the rest of the country.
"Phonics isn't required, and up until last year, algebra one wasn't even required," he said. "What's below algebra one - moronsville math?"
Education reform, he said, would have to involve everything from public schools to colleges. He added that the state's six universities were too numerous for its 1.8 million residents, citing Indiana's two universities and seven million residents. He said colleges and universities could not defend their numbers by claiming that they provide jobs, calling them instead "state welfare."
He said eliminating lottery funding for students taking remedial classes - something he attempted to do in the Legislature two years ago - could solve problems with the Lottery Scholarship.
"The community colleges came after me like I was the devil incarnate," he said. "The lottery is keeping them afloat."
He said each problem with the state's schools would have to be approached differently.
"Throwing money at the problem isn't the solution," he said.
