{"id":93,"date":"2013-03-13T15:39:16","date_gmt":"2013-03-13T21:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/?p=93"},"modified":"2013-03-20T12:27:47","modified_gmt":"2013-03-20T18:27:47","slug":"gov-martinez-to-new-mexicans-the-labs-and-bases-are-important-you-arent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/2013\/03\/13\/gov-martinez-to-new-mexicans-the-labs-and-bases-are-important-you-arent\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. Martinez to New Mexicans: the labs and bases are important, you aren’t"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gov. Susana Martinez: \u201cN.M. will fight for labs, bases; unlike gridlock in D.C., state shows bipartisanship<\/a>,\u201d Albuquerque Journal<\/i>, 3\/13\/13 (paywall)<\/p>\n

Comment by Greg Mello, 3\/13\/13<\/p>\n

The first half of the Governor\u2019s guest column is mostly misleading Republican boilerplate about the federal sequester and how it came to be (under the assumptions that austerity is naturally required and it is the “federal government” rather than any particular persons or parties which are causing this particular form of austerity).<\/p>\n

It is the second half that is interesting, albeit sad.\u00a0 After speaking about the current budget sequester in general terms, she suddenly says:<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, these across-the-board defense cuts disproportionately hurt New Mexico.<\/p>\n

Whoa \u2013 \u201cdefense cuts?\u201d\u00a0 What about cuts to discretionary non-defense<\/em> programs, which are cut the same as discretionary defense programs?\u00a0 Suddenly this is just about defense<\/i> cuts?\u00a0 In 2010 defense spending in New Mexico was just one-third<\/i> of non-defense spending in New Mexico, if we generously count Department of Energy environmental cleanup as \u201cdefense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martinez continues:<\/p>\n

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the federal government spent $28 billion in our state in 2010. \u00a0That constitutes one third of New Mexico\u2019s gross domestic product.<\/p>\n

That is correct.<\/p>\n

We are a sparsely populated state with two national laboratories, three Air Force bases and White Sands Missile Range.<\/p>\n

That’s<\/i> what this state has?\u00a0 Two labs and four bases.\u00a0 That\u2019s it<\/i>?\u00a0 What a strange caricature!\u00a0 These six employers hire a small fraction of the state\u2019s employees, certainly less than 10%, and some of these, like the uniformed military, tend to be quite transient.\u00a0 Not just the military but also many students, post-docs, consultants, and other transients at and around the labs can hardly be said to live<\/i> in the state, in the sense of fully participating in its economy and civic institutions.<\/p>\n

The cuts we face could cost New Mexico 20,000 jobs.<\/p>\n

Both the big labs have recently stated, in different ways and degrees, that the personnel cuts they face due to the sequester are minor this year.\u00a0 I think uniformed military personnel are exempt from sequester-driven cuts (check this), so military cuts are being focused on procurements and civilians.\u00a0 In any case, the 20,000 jobs that might be lost if the sequester continues (assuming that this figure, which is nothing more than a guesstimate from the Bureau of Business and Economic Research study, is reasonable) primarily would not<\/em> occur as a result\u00a0of the sequester at New Mexico labs and bases.<\/p>\n

The greater danger is primarily from cuts in non-security<\/i> spending \u2013 and potentially, from a new political deal that would lead to cuts in earned-benefit and safety net programs.<\/b>\u00a0 If the safety net is further cut or frayed in New Mexico, watch out.\u00a0 If you want private-sector economic development, you will not like the many ways in which having more people sink deeper into poverty in this state will affect the willingness of businesses to locate here.<\/p>\n

As New Mexicans, we must put aside partisan differences and fight to protect ourselves from these indiscriminate federal cuts. I met with the National Nuclear Security Administration while in Washington to discuss funding for the critical missions undertaken by our labs, and my staff has met dozens of times with the agency\u2019s leaders since I took office.<\/em>\u00a0 (emphasis added)<\/p>\n

The Governor is doing this because this is what she has been told to care about by the Albuquerque Journal<\/i>, the labs, their subcontractors and supportive hangers-on and think-tanks, and by Republican friends and potentates like Heather Wilson and Pete Domenici.\u00a0 And of course the Governor is currying favor with the labs themselves, as corporations and as voter and donor blocs.<\/p>\n

Because of long-standing bipartisan knee-jerk political fealty to the labs, New Mexico is poised to fall off an economic cliff<\/i> whether or not the labs and bases are modestly cut.\u00a0<\/i>Martinez, and the rest of our political leaders, have failed and are still failing to invest their time and efforts in projects and programs which could make a positive difference in our economic future.\u00a0 They have no plan or vision for the state, or even any reasonable building blocks for such a thing.<\/p>\n

Our congressional delegation and I have met on various issues and we\u2019re committed to working together. It\u2019s good for New Mexico that former Republican Rep. Heather Wilson was appointed to the NNSA committee, just as it is beneficial for our state that Democratic Sen. Tom Udall has been appointed to the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations where he will have increased influence on our nation\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n

None of this will matter because neither of these people understand or, as far as we can objectively see from actions they have taken, are very attentive to the state\u2019s<\/i> economic situation, about its peoples\u2019<\/i> economic situations, as opposed to the welfare of specific corporations like the labs.\u00a0 These two leaders are in the right place to do things, but they are nearly certain to be mostly the wrong things.\u00a0 They will benefit; the state will suffer.<\/p>\n

New Mexico faces serious challenges. Our reliance on federal spending and the likelihood of further federal budget cuts makes recovering from the national recession more difficult.<\/p>\n

We will continue to fight tooth-and-nail to protect our labs and bases.<\/p>\n

No other federal priorities are mentioned.<\/i>\u00a0 There could hardly be a clearer expression of gubernatorial priority inversion.\u00a0 This long-repeated pattern is why our state is looking at an economic abyss.\u00a0 It is, just as Governor Martinez says, fully bipartisan.<\/p>\n

This governor’s party, and she herself, support a program of fiscal austerity for everybody but the “job creating” corporate class and the two richest employee groups in the state, at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, both of which are potent “millionaire generators,” as one government analyst puts it.\u00a0 Welfare she doesn’t like, unless it’s nuclear or military welfare.\u00a0 She supports lower taxes for corporations.\u00a0 Skipping to the bottom line her policies, if enacted, would set the state on a steep path of decline in the hopes of luring “jobs” here that will pay too little to live on, and they will speed destruction of what is left of our environment.<\/p>\n

As then-LANL Director Sig Hecker once said, circa 1992, “Don’t look to LANL for economic growth.”\u00a0 At the time his common-sense observation was more or less widely accepted.\u00a0 So: are we dumber today, or just more desperate, callous, and misguided?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Susana Martinez: \u201cN.M. will fight for labs, bases; unlike gridlock in D.C., state shows bipartisanship,\u201d Albuquerque Journal, 3\/13\/13 (paywall) Comment by Greg Mello, 3\/13\/13 The first half of the Governor\u2019s guest column is mostly misleading Republican boilerplate about the federal sequester and how it came to be (under the assumptions that austerity is naturally… Read More »Gov. Martinez to New Mexicans: the labs and bases are important, you aren’t<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ZtEt-1v","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130,"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions\/130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}