by Andrew Price
Daily Lobo columnist
Good news.
New Mexico is ranked No. 48 on the smartest states list for 2005 - in 2004 we were dead last - according to the Morgan Quinto Press, which specializes in state and city ranking publications.
The New Mexico State Treasurer has just been indicted for extortion.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
During the last regular legislative session, the New Mexico State Legislature voted to increase spending by almost $300 million. Estimates say that heating and utility bills are expected to increase by 50 percent this year over last.
And finally, depending on what you believe, with the increased revenues from energy related taxes, New Mexico is sitting on a surplus of anywhere between $300 million and $1 billion.
What does Gov. Bill Richardson choose to do with all this on his plate? He finds the time to write an autobiography, he goes to Korea for a photo opportunity, he buys a new jet and he goes to New Hampshire - the first step toward the presidency.
According to the Federal Reserve's 2003 statistics, New Mexico ranks No. 46 for per-capita income. This statistic is skewed because there is a wide gap between the haves and the have-nots in New Mexico. All one has to do in order to see this is to drive from the Far Northeast Heights of Albuquerque to the Southwest valley. The contrast is even more drastic if you look around other parts of the state.
We, as a state, are stupid, poor, swindled by public officials and grossly overtaxed. We need a governor who will do something real about helping the people of this state, not shamelessly stepping on our backs while pursuing his personal fame and power.
What the governor should do is to use this surplus to fix our problems. Overhauling our education system from the bottom up would be a good first step.
The five smartest states are Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Maine. The top five for per-capita income in 2003 were Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland and New York. The top five states in expenditures per student are New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Vermont - New Mexico ranks 30th, at $7,347 per student.
Do you see the trend here?
Connecticut is the state with the highest average teacher salary at $58,688 per year and just so happens to be in the top five on every list. New Mexico falls far behind at $39,328 per year. Even if we can't prove causation, we can certainly draw a correlation between educational spending, teacher's salaries, per-capita income and smartness.
New Mexico ranks 45th in teacher salaries, yet as a state our government ranks in the top five when it comes to self-generated income such as natural resources and gambling.
Simply said, we don't spend nearly enough of our money on our children's educations. Our state government is not as poor as it would have us believe - we the people of New Mexico believe we are a poor state because most of us are poor.
We need our elected officials at work to correct our problems in New Mexico, not racing through town whenever anyone turns on a camera, and certainly not gallivanting all over the globe in search of fame and photo ops.
We need to abandon this idea of giving every taxpayer a $100 check to defray the higher costs of energy. First, a hundred bucks isn't going to defray much, and secondly, even though we are the 48th stupidest state, we know political grandstanding when we see it.
Instead of adding police to our streets, we should add teachers to our classrooms. Instead of new jets for pompous elected officials, we should raise our teacher's average salaries more than $50,000 and our expenditure per student more than $10,000. We should have full disclosure of all public assets and all funds. We should fully investigate the state treasurer - and all other public officials for that matter - and go after all the corrupt ones both past and present. We should get our public money back from them.
We have a surplus now. We should spend it on our future and not waste it like we've done in the past.
