Carter Bundy

The Rio Grande Foundation can try to cobble together all the complex statistical formulae in the world, but the reality is their vision of a workforce with no rights and no power almost always leads to lower wages and higher unemployment.

The Rio Grande Foundation’s “study” about the impact of so-called “right-to-work” laws is purely speculative and not based on real economics or real world experience. We can all try to manipulate numbers to prove what is or isn’t likely to happen with legislative changes, but one of the many beautiful things about the United States is that we have 50 real-world laboratories to prove what actually does happen when laws like right-to-work (RTW) are implemented.

The truth is that workers in RTW states make far less than workers in workplace fairness states. As of 2010, RTW state workers make an average of $5,538 a year less than workplace fairness states’ workers. Well, maybe it’s a fluke, right? Or maybe workplace fairness states had an historical advantage that is trending in favor of RTW states?

Nope. In 2001, the workplace fairness states’ workers made $5,333 more than RTW states’ workers. In other words, the gap in wages has actually increased in favor of workplace fairness states in the last decade.

As far as employment, according to recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 8 of the 12 highest unemployment states are RTW states. The Rio Grande Foundation can try to cobble together all the complex statistical formulae in the world, but the reality is their vision of a workforce with no rights and no power almost always leads to lower wages and higher unemployment. You have to really twist data around and look for obscure statistical anomalies to try to pretend giving all the power in a workplace to CEOs makes economic sense for workers and their families.

A poorer, sicker population

Workplace safety suffers even more under RTW laws. The rate of workplace deaths is 52.9 percent higher in RTW states. When it comes to health care, only 50.3 percent of employers in RTW states offer health insurance, compared to 56.7 percent in those with union rights. People in RTW states are 23.7 percent more likely to be uninsured, and their kids are 38.7 percent less likely to be insured.

And these aren’t just union workers we’re talking about. Non-unionized workers in workplace fairness states benefit enormously from a labor market that generally tends to pay more and offer benefits. Non-union employers in workplace fairness states end up treating workers better in terms of money, benefits and safety in workplace fairness states because they know they’ll lose good workers to other employers (including unionized employers) if they don’t.

There are all kinds of secondary issues that arise from having a poorer, sicker, less secure population in RTW states. Largely because they have poorer workforces, RTW states spend far less per pupil — $2,671 — than states with basic workplace fairness. It’s probably also not a surprise that poorer, sicker, less-educated RTW states have much higher infant mortality rates (16 percent higher) while suffering from higher poverty rates from adults and kids alike.

Nice if you’re in that 1 or 2 percent

Does RTW offer any advantages? Well, 28.3 percent of jobs in RTW states are classified as “low-wage occupations,” while only 19.5 percent are classified as low-wage in workplace fairness states. It’s easier to create third-world level pay and benefits, which some multi-national employers absolutely love. But it’s a disaster for workers, their kids, and for America’s middle class.

Here are two links to Economic Policy Institute papers dismantling RTW “data” used in Indiana and New Hampshire. While EPI hasn’t yet examined this Rio Grande Foundation paper, even the most basic statistical analysis above shows the folly of claiming RTW laws reduce wages and employment.

• Indiana
• New Hampshire

As a final note, federal labor law has protected the rights of individuals to not join a union or have money go towards efforts that are in conflict with their political or religious beliefs. The right to work movement has absolutely nothing to do with making the lives of American workers better, or protecting them in any way. To the contrary, all the real-world evidence for decades has shown that right to work is simply a way to transfer money out of the pockets of hard-working Americans and into the bank accounts of multi-millionaire and billionaire owners, which is precisely why a study like this comes from an organization funded by the very richest corporate interests in the country.

RTW is a law that reflects a vision of a society where the very rich continue to get richer and the middle class disappears into poverty and near-poverty. Nice if you’re in that 1 or 2 percent, but terrible for the rest of America.

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.

Carter Bundy

House Speaker Ben Luján has not only led, but he has done so with a serenity, grace and skill that is unmatched in New Mexico politics, and I daresay in political circles anywhere in America. It’s hard to put into words how much Speaker Luján has meant to working people throughout the state.

This year’s legislative session starts on a particularly sad and tragic note, but one that gives us time to reflect on the courage and strength of one of our greatest leaders: Labor’s true champion and hero in the New Mexico House of Representatives, Speaker Ben Luján, announced Tuesday that he has been quietly fighting lung cancer for the last few years, and that he is now at stage 4 and won’t run again.

It’s hard to put into words how much Speaker Luján has meant to working people throughout the state of New Mexico over the last four decades. He was himself an ironworker, and believes his cancer is a direct result of his years of exposure to asbestos. He put in long, hard, dangerous work for decades, and then turned around and decided to help shape our laws to protect everyone from building trades workers to manufacturing sector workers to educational employees to other public employees.

He not only believes in the missions that union workers — and all workers — carry out every day, but he believes deeply in giving those workers a path to America’s great middle class.

His battles have been our battles

His battles have been our battles, and our battles have been his battles. He was instrumental in guiding public sector collective bargaining through the House in 2003. He sponsored the bill, facing difficult opposition even within his own party at times, to raise our state minimum wage, which still sits above the federal level.

Speaker Luján ensured that corrections officers were treated with the same respect as other law enforcement personnel, played a key role in allowing child-care workers to have a voice in the regulations affecting them and thousands of children, and made health care more affordable for hundreds of thousands of New Mexicans, from state employees to low-income children to seniors.

He has successfully fought for prevailing wages, protected Little Davis-Bacon, killed right-to-work-for-less, and helped every kind of worker under the New Mexico sun year after year. He didn’t do it alone, of course. His tremendous staff, including (among many others) the supremely talented, bright, and calm Regis Pecos, and the friendliest, best-juggling, sharpest, hard-working administrative team led by Lisa Ortiz, played a key role.

That’s to say nothing of legislators and governors in both parties who have given him the support he needed to advance his vision of opportunity for all New Mexicans.

He didn’t just support regular working New Mexicans; he stuck his neck out time and time again and refused to back down on workers’ issues. He hasn’t just been a political leader; he has been a leader in the movement for basic human rights, civil rights, and social and economic justice. Not only has he led, but he has done so with a serenity, grace and skill that is unmatched in New Mexico politics, and I daresay in political circles anywhere in America.

Keep the Luján family in your prayers and thoughts

Please keep the whole Luján family, particularly his beautiful, courageous, charming, and loving wife Carmen, in your prayers and thoughts. If at all possible during this legislative session, come to the Roundhouse to let him know how much New Mexicans of all political stripes respect and admire his unrelenting efforts on behalf of New Mexico’s workers and families.

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.

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Carter Bundy

It’s not too late for a non-Mitt to win the GOP primary, but it’s getting close. The main reason Romney won’t lose? The reasons for each of the big four non-Mitts staying in are too compelling for any one of them to drop in the next few weeks.

There’s nothing to embarrass a writer more that a political prediction piece, so fully anticipating that nothing in here will actually come true, here’s why I think Mitt Romney has the GOP presidential nomination in the bag.

There’s only 25-40 percent of the GOP that actually wants Mitt. There has been, and continues to be, a solid majority of Republicans who want someone, maybe anyone, else to win their nomination. But as long as that 60-75 percent is split three, four, or five ways, Romney can’t lose. Plus, as he continues to win even with under 40 percent, momentum starts to make him look inevitable, and people – voters, financiers, journalists, and political hacks alike – like being with a winner.

It’s not too late for a non-Mitt to win, but it’s getting close. The main reason Mitt won’t lose? The reasons for each of the big four non-Mitts staying in are too compelling for any one of them to drop in the next few weeks.

Newt’s crusade

After Mitt’s superpac singlehandedly dropped Newt Gingrich from comfortable frontrunner to fifth place, Newt despises Mitt. A lot. He feels Mitt was dishonest and he knows Mitt was ruthlessly negative against another Republican. A friend of mine posited that if Newt really hated Mitt, Newt would gladly drop out, unify the non-Mitt field, and cost Mitt the nomination.

My friend further thinks that Newt doesn’t really want the job anyhow, but rather is lining himself up for more and more book/history/talking head type slots.

I disagree. I think Newt very much wants the job, although his desire for it has a little of that self-indulgent Borkian flavor (“intellectual smorgasbord” and all that).

Newt genuinely believes he’s the best suited to be the non-Mitt, because he’s the smartest guy on the stage (other than maybe Huntsman), Perry’s a loon, and Newt thinks, probably correctly, that Santorum will have a hard time with all the D.C., academic, government, and business folks Newt’s spent his life with. Newt has a terrific competitive streak, meaning he really would rather do almost anything other than get out of the race due to Mitt’s attacks in Iowa.

Even though if Newt really wanted to get back at Mitt, he’d do everything he could, including falling on his own sword, to unify the non-Mitt vote, he badly wants to emerge the victor himself. He has just enough financial backers like billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson to keep his superpac (and by extension, campaign) going. Which is a dilemma for the non-Mitt majority of the GOP because…

Santorum stays

Rick Santorum’s not getting out. He’s already the guy with the support of the biggest chunk of the Christian right, which is a big deal for most states’ GOP primary electorate (unfortunately for Santorum, New Hampshire isn’t one of those states).

Santorum’s perspective: There’s no way I’m bailing out when the main alternative is a philanderer who is probably insincere about his faith (to Santorum’s thinking).

Plus, no one does economic populism on the GOP side as well as Santorum, and he well remembers his victories in a Democratic-leaning congressional district, as well as in a Democratic-leaning state. He believes, maybe correctly, that he is the only one that genuinely can wear the mantle of Reagan social conservative and get back blue-collar Reagan Democrats with economic populism. No one else in the GOP field really even tries, except maybe Paul.

Santorum might be the most likely to quit of the four big non-Mitts, because it’s harder to see where his money comes from if he doesn’t break out in South Carolina like he did in Iowa. But for now, as long as he’s in decent double digits and has plenty of evangelically-oriented states ahead of him, he has no reason to be the one to sacrifice himself for non-Mitt unity.

Perry prepares to pounce

The non-Mitt movement is further crippled because Rick Perry legitimately thinks HE’s the non-Mitt. Perry brings the most readily accessible fundraising base outside of Romney himself. He’s got a strong case that he has the best résumé (12-year governor of the 13th largest economy in the world, job growth while the rest of the country imploded, etc.) and best executive experience.

Perry is second only to Santorum in terms of Christian conservative love, is better hooked in to the fiscal conservative crowd than Santorum, and is the only veteran outside of Paul. He’s in with the three big GOP primary groups (fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, and military). No one else can say that.

Knowing that most of Santorum’s and Newt’s support would go to him, Perry is thinking, “Why would I get out now, when if the other two fold I’m even or ahead of Romney?” To the detriment of the non-Mitt movement, Perry doesn’t realize how utterly goofy he is seen as by even to a large swath of the GOP primary electorate after the debates (and, perhaps unfairly, due to comparisons to the last Texas governor in the White House).

Ron’s revolution remains

Ron Paul ain’t getting out. He’d love to win, but even if he can’t, he’s not in this to make friends. He’s in it to preach a gospel of repealing government back to levels not seen since before World War I, and tens of millions of Americans love him for it.

For some, it’s ending the counterproductive-at-best, suicidal-at-worst war on drugs. For others it’s ending 75 years of what Paul perceives as American empire and constant warring. For others it’s ending everything from minimum wage to Social Security to Medicare to the safety net to civil rights protections, letting the market decide everything in a dog-eat-dog world.

There’s some overlap with the other GOP contenders on gutting government, but mostly Paul’s the only voice in either party on some of these issues, so why would he give up his platform? I don’t think he makes a 3rd-party run, but if he thinks he can help frame the debate the way he truly believes is best for the country, dropping out isn’t an option until the convention in Tampa.

‘So you’re saying there’s a chance…’

Each of the four major non-Mitts has sound, sensible, logical personal and political reasons for staying in the race. All of which is admirable, understandable, and I’d even say, in my geekiness, cool.

Further guaranteeing that all four stay in the race until Mitt has it locked up is the fact that the first states distribute delegates on a proportional basis, and are small states. That means no one is falling too far behind, and won’t for at least another month. To quote Jim Carrey, “so you’re saying there’s a chance…”

If, by some series of events that are well beyond my ability to foresee, the four non-Mitts (or at least the three non-Paul, non-Mitts) come together and throw their support fully behind one of the others prior to the winner-take-all phase of the primaries, Mitt could be in big trouble. But for the very sensible reasons each candidate has, it’s pretty darn unlikely.

Apologies to Huntsman

P.S. Apologies to Jon Huntsman, who is absolutely brilliant, has great experience, possesses unsurpassed foreign policy knowledge, is civil and honest, and would be a formidable challenger to President Obama. But he really doesn’t have the path to justify staying in that Newt, Santorum, or Perry does, nor the philosophical reason for continuing that Paul does. His path would essentially be the same as Romney’s, and Mitt’s not dropping out.

Had Huntsman made a stronger case that he’s like Mitt but more principled, more experienced, more honest, more consistent, more sincere, and less flawed, he’d have had a chance. Huntsman had the terrible bad luck that his best platform for doing that was a state that doubles as one of Mitt’s vacation homes, where many Republican voters from Massachusetts have moved to, where Mitt campaigned non-stop for five years, and where Mitt spent millions more than even the equally uber-rich Huntsman family would or could spend.

But lots of us in both parties hope Jon Huntsman continues to find a way to serve our country no matter who wins in November. And that will be Romney or Obama.

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.

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Carter Bundy

One activist at a recent Occupy Wall Street protest held a sign saying, ‘Red or blue, they screw you.’ Talk about undiscerning. Changing the country is going to take more than protests. It means knowing who is on the side of 99 percent of us and who is not.

Earlier this month, I happened to drive past an Occupy Wall Street event that had been scheduled for the same time as another event I’d attended. The OWS event, to their great credit, was four hours old and still had upwards of 50 people waving, singing, chanting and holding signs.

I loved most of the signs. Anyone who is remotely familiar with the housing bubble’s root causes knows that the lack of regulations in the home-loan industry, coupled with lack of oversight of Wall Street gambling, were the prime causes of a recession that has ruined literally tens of millions of American lives. (Read “The Big Short” by Michael Lewis if you think that the causes were Fannie, Freddie, or the Community Reinvestment Act. They weren’t).

The pain right now is real. Foreclosures, homelessness, unemployment, underemployment, adult children moving in with parents and vice versa. There’s a real crisis going on in America, and there’s no question about who is responsible for it. Most protesters hit the nail on the head.

I had to object to one sign, though.

One young activist held a sign saying, “Red or blue, they screw you.” Talk about undiscerning. There’s no doubt that the corporations and Wall Street firms who oppose regulation are masters of trying to buy off both parties, and that some Dems take the bait.

But there are real differences, and there’s no one happier than Wall Street and Republicans to see protesters lay blame equally on Democrats and Republicans for our current mess. It allows Republicans to escape accountability for their actions, and punishes Dems for having the courage to fight against Wall Street’s pressure to stay largely unregulated.

Financial-sector regulation, consumer protection and jobs

Democrats passed the strongest financial-sector regulations and consumer protections since the 30s. Guess who is trying to undo that work? Virtually every Republican in Washington, including Congressman Steve Pearce. Yet we’re supposed to treat Pearce the same as Congressmen Ben Ray Luján and Martin Heinrich, and Senators Tom Udall and Jeff Bingaman?

YouTube Elizabeth Warren, Obama’s hand-picked architect of many of our new consumer protections and now a Democratic Senate candidate in Massachusetts, and ask yourself if she sounds like Republican Wall Street deregulation advocate Heather Wilson.

In addition to financial-market regulation and consumer protection, the parties couldn’t be more different when it comes to solving issues like unemployment.

President Obama’s American Jobs Act was a consolidation of three major ideas that have garnered widespread bipartisan support for decades. Republicans used to love tax cuts of any kind, including cutting payroll taxes, until they were offered by President Obama. Suddenly Republicans find themselves in favor of raising taxes (mostly on the middle class and low-income families, of course).

Even stranger is the GOP opposition to infrastructure projects. Roads, bridges, airports, sewer and water systems, schools, prisons, and other essential infrastructure need to be upgraded anyhow, and badly. So why not do it now while money is cheap, people need jobs, and the cycling of money through the economy is precisely what the private sector needs to get back on its feet?

The third major part of the American Jobs Act is rehiring laid off police, firefighters, and teachers. There was a time when the Republican Party supported things like smaller class sizes, crime fighting, and public safety. No longer. Republicans scapegoat even workers who themselves are often Republican (or used to be) for a crisis whose causes had absolutely nothing to do with sewage plant workers, corrections officers, nurses, policemen, firefighters and teachers.

The American Jobs Act is a golden opportunity for a bipartisan solution that is primarily rooted in bolstering private companies and helping employees in the private sector, and Republicans are acting as if Obama had just nominated Karl Marx as the new chair of Apple.

Playing politics and protecting the wealthy

Why? Here’s what the Republican’s senior leader in Washington, Senator Mitch McConnell, said about a third of the way into Obama’s presidency: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

In fairness to the GOP, it’s not just politics. There’s a second goal that’s always in their minds: protecting the fortunes of millionaires and billionaires, no matter the circumstances.

The American Jobs Act is paid for, in large part, by restoring progressivity to our tax code. Senate Democrats propose that the only people who would see a tax increase are those making over $1 million a year (many of whom are on Wall Street). Obama has proposed merely reverting to the same top marginal rate that was paid during the Clinton years, when the rich did just fine.

When many millionaires and billionaires pay a lower percentage of income in taxes than their secretaries, that’s hardly class warfare. It’s fair play. Still, the idea that millionaires and billionaires share in even a penny’s worth of sacrifice while so much of the country suffers is anathema to the Republican Party of 2011.

Changing the country is going to take more than protests, as important as those are. It means knowing who is on the side of 99 percent of us and who is not. And knowing the difference between the two come Election Day.

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.

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Carter Bundy

This is one of a handful of pieces written by NMPolitics.net columnists reflecting on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

9/11 is, for most of us, the worst day in American history in our lifetimes. By any statistical measure it was a disaster, but it was worse than that: It ended nearly two centuries of feeling fairly safe from foreign attack, dating back to the War of 1812.

Sure, Hawaii was a territory on Dec. 7, 1941, and there were patrols for Japanese and German subs, and Soviet nukes were a potential threat, but we’d never been hit directly on American land, this hard, ever.

It is both ironic and partially explanatory that the attack occurred at the height of American power. In 2001, we were the dominant economic, military and cultural force in the world. We still largely are, although China is going to give us a run for the economic title over the next few decades. But we’re the top dog now, as we were a decade ago and for five decades before that, and that means we’ll continue to have some enemies no matter what we do.

We can’t change the fact that there are insane, violent, evil fanatics out there to kill us. We can, however, isolate them from the rest of the good people in the Arab and Islamic worlds (the Arab and Islamic worlds overlap but are by no means synonymous — the world’s largest Muslim country is Indonesia).

We need to strengthen our relationships with the moderate Arab and Islamic worlds, and drive a wedge between them and the merchants of death and hatred on their extreme fringes. There are three major ways we can do this: militarily, diplomatically and economically, but so far we seem to have only focused on the first.

Hit back

The first is to wage a smart and strong war on terror, going after the extremists wherever we can. We have to show that there is the ultimate penalty for being at war with America and the democracies of the world, and that means using our military against Al Qaeda and its often loosely-arranged affiliates.

In order to do this well, most of the time we’ll want cooperation with the non-extremist Islamic world, but sometimes, as in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, we’ll have to go it alone. Whenever possible, though, we should make the war on terrorists a war by, and on behalf of, the local people in each country who are subject to the extremists’ abuses and violent ways as much or more so than even America has been. In that sense, Libya has been a great success. It was a war led by Libyans, for Libyans, to overthrow a violent, extreme dictator.

Our role, to this point, has been perfectly played: We helped the tyranny-fighting Libyans without making it an American war. We enlisted the help of the other world democracies, particularly Europeans, who benefit from a free and moderate Libya at least as much as we do. We empowered local people to do the heavy lifting of ending a four-decade machine without alienating anyone but the dictator himself. And importantly, unlike Iraq, it hasn’t costs a trillion dollars and we haven’t lost a single life.

People on both sides of the aisle talk about how freedom is universally desired; we need to encourage and support that desire rather than force-feeding it down the throats of different cultures and countries with occupying forces. We’re moving in that direction.

Securing Israel through diplomacy

Due to our status as the world’s only superpower, it has largely fallen to us to defend the world’s only Jewish state from the awful people who would annihilate them. We can, should, and must defend Israel, but that means inheriting their enemies as well.

Complicating things on the Israeli front have been legitimate concerns for the treatment of Palestinians, starting in 1948 and continuing through today’s settlements. Rather than seek security through engaging moderate Arabs, Israel has played a major role in stoking fires of anti-Israeli sentiment through aggressive settlements and its treatment of Palestinians in places like Gaza.

No one is saying Israel has an easy hand to play, but any objective analysis would have to conclude that Israel has misplayed its hand often and given the hard-line zealots in the Arab world a great set of issues with which to bully moderate Arabs.

We should be doing everything we can to support moderate Israelis and moderate Arabs to finally secure a Palestinian state and resolve outstanding refugee and land issues. The belligerent warriors like Ahmedinijad will still hate Israel and America, but he will be more and more isolated the less the Palestinians have a legitimate beef.

Unlike Libya, this is an area where I have been disappointed with Obama. While he and Secretary of State Clinton have given speeches and hosted meetings on a Palestinian resolution, it appears to those of us outside the White House and Foggy Bottom that very little is going on. I hope I’m wrong and that there’s a massive behind-the-scenes push happening, but it doesn’t seem like it. If America is the moderator who brings peace and stability to Israel and Palestine — and we’re the only ones who can — then we will empower the moderate, non-violent forces on each side of that conflict and further isolate violent, religious extremism.

Stop being an economic vassal state

The third thing we can and must do to isolate extremists and dictators, and to disempower the religious fundamentalists of the Arab and Islamic worlds, is to disentangle ourselves from our economic reliance on many of those same dictators, extremists and fundamentalists.

As long as places like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iran, and Venezuela are major producers of our top energy source, we are going to have to choose between supporting dictators, going to war with them, or reducing our economic output. When we support violent, tyrannical regimes like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it un-does all the speechifying about freedom and democracy that should be at the center of our foreign policy. It feeds into the religious extremists’ claims that we don’t care about freedom or democracy or human rights, but that we’re in it for the oil. On the other hand, what are we going to do, cut off relations with Saudi Arabia and lose access to a quarter of the world’s oil?

Our energy policies put us in a difficult position, and no, we can’t drill our way out of it. T. Boone Pickens’ plan to rely more heavily on natural gas seems to make sense, but in the long run, we have the most obvious, easy, renewable energy sources on the planet right here in New Mexico: wind and solar. Every year they’re getting more competitive, and if you count the costs of our oil-related wars, our investments in protecting shipping lanes, and our foreign aid to oil nations like Saudi Arabia, they’re already cheaper.

Oil isn’t going anywhere for the next 50 years, so the oil companies and workers in that industry don’t have to worry. World demand continues to grow, particularly as China, India, and other countries develop consumer and transportation habits closer to ours. But why on earth wouldn’t we pursue clean, free, infinite, renewable natural energy sources, especially when New Mexico sits at the intersection of America’s great wind belt and our great sun belt, and where land is cheaper than in other places like California and Texas?

Once we’re energy independent, we can be free to pursue honest foreign policy that consistently supports peoples striving to be free. Heck, we can even gain leverage and power by selling oil to the places too short-sighted to invest in clean renewables. Until then, our oil entanglements and dependency just empower the terrorists and extremists, and push the moderates closer to them and further from us.

Nothing — absolutely nothing — we have done as a country justifies the 9/11 attacks. They were the work of violent, psychotic, religious fanatics who contribute nothing positive to the world, and in fact who contribute to the misery of their own people every day.

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t do anything to reduce the power of the violent religious jihadists going forward. Let’s be clear: Nothing relating to our Israeli or energy policies justifies or caused 9/11. But we can empower moderate Arabs and moderate Muslims by taking away the straw men of the Arab and Islamic religious fundamentalists, and in doing so will strengthen our coalition of the sane against the forces of violence and evil.

In 10 years, we’ve had good success in fighting our enemies using one of three avenues: force. Let’s work on improving our diplomatic game and economic independence over the next 10 years and end this war for good.

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.

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Carter Bundy

The Rio Grande Foundation has launched another series of attacks on workers that are deceptive at best and out-and-out false at worst. Fortunately, their studies and data are so badly flawed that they’re easily rebutted, so here is a point-by-point refutation of Paul Gessing’s assertions from his recent column:

A clever turn

RGF allegation No. 1: Public workers make more than their private-sector counterparts, including benefits. It seems that Gessing is conceding that public employees make less than the private sector when you compare apples to apples; he wasn’t able to refute in the slightest the apples-to-apples studies.

RGF alternative allegation No. 1: Workers shouldn’t join a public sector union if they don’t make more than in the private sector. Clever turn, Paul! Public sector workers do make less, including benefits, according to most of the studies in the last few years. So why join? Fair question.

Members join precisely because there are billionaire-funded think tanks like the Rio Grande Foundation who don’t value their work and think that budgets should be balanced exclusively with layoffs and pay cuts. This year, for example, Gessing and his political allies are doing all they can to protect out-of-state corporate loopholes while New Mexican workers and businesses pay their fair share, and public employees face yet another round of pay cuts and the elimination of even more positions.

With unions, there’s at least a chance of a raise in the good times to try to prevent the gap with the private sector from growing, and a voice to ask to minimize damage in the bad times.

Public employee unions are also critical to prevent cronyism and abuse. To be fair, before public sector unionization and ensuing civil service rules, historically Democrats were even worse that Republicans in loading up city and state governments in the East and industrial Midwest (and all over) with the nieces and nephews of donors and friends.

For decades, politicians in both parties used to turn over many of the classified jobs in the public sector every four or eight years, costing the taxpayer billions of dollars in experienced, competent workers and replacing them with neophytes with little to no basis for getting that job except for connections. Unions continue to provide that safeguard, as well as giving workers a basic voice in health, safety, and working conditions, arrived at by mutual agreement with executives and legislators from both parties.

So yes, unions provide incredibly important value to our members, but we’re glad Gessing finally is tacitly starting to acknowledge that government workers are, as a rule, underpaid.

A pretty big error

RGF allegation No. 2: AFSCME outspent oil and gas. Gessing is referring to New Mexico’s lobbyist reports, which AFSCME fully complies with. It’s true that for all New Mexico state races, including GOTV programs, AFSCME spent almost $600,000.

Here’s the flaw with lobbyist reports, though: Only expenditures made directly by lobbyists or their direct employer are reported. The 2010 reports show that all other lobbyists and lobbyist employers only reported about $1 million. In other words, those reports would lead you to believe that AFSCME spent a third of all the money spent to elect our governor, Legislature, and all other offices.

Hogwash. The total amount spent on our state elections, not including federal races, was around $15 million. Heck, each of the gubernatorial candidates were well over $6 million. AFSCME is responsible for about 4 percent of all the political spending for state races, not 33 percent. 4 percent is also close to the percentage of AFSCME voting age members and family members compared to the total number of voters in 2010.

Did oil and gas really only spend $183,000 as Gessing claims? Of course not – that’s merely what got reported by lobbyists and their “lobbyist employers.” Of course, if you have an association to lobby for you, like the N.M. Oil and Gas Association, then the “employer” money doesn’t get reported. As far as I know, those reports are accurate for what they are supposed to report, but it’s factually totally incorrect to cite that as the amount that oil and gas spent in 2010 on state races.

The real data? Oil and gas outspent AFSCME by many multiples in this year’s elections. Take a look at this link.

Whoops. Turns out oil and gas spent $2,663,604 in New Mexico races. That’s not 30 percent of what AFSCME spent; it’s 449 percent. Pretty big error.

While we often have philosophical disputes with Paul and his team, this is just a factual error by the RGF. I’m hopeful Paul will offer a correction/retraction on this point, as I did in an earlier debate with him.

A meaningless ratio

RGF allegation No. 3: New Mexico has too high a ratio of public to private sector workers. Unlike their campaign data, this one isn’t wrong – it’s just completely meaningless. The ratio of public to private sector workers is a reflection of dozens of factors, including how well the private sector does, poverty, military facilities, national labs, and yes, population patterns.

Density is important, but so is the concentration of that density. For example, Nevada and Arizona have at least 90 percent of their population within 20 miles of two population centers. They can and do provide the vast majority of services in those two areas.

In New Mexico, by contrast, only a third of the population is in Albuquerque, with the rest very evenly distributed. Does the RGF really want to shut down MVDs and schools in Carlsbad, Hobbs, Artesia, Roswell, Farmington, Grants, Gallup, Las Vegas, Taos, Silver City, Las Cruces, Clovis, Portales, and other significant population centers outside of Albuquerque and Santa Fe? That’s incredibly different from a state that only needs offices in Las Vegas and Reno.

Further proof of the worthlessness of this stat: Illinois, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are four of the top six states in having low and “efficient” public-to-private sector ratios, while Alaska, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma, and other Republican states dominate the 15 states with the highest public-to-private ratio. In fact, of the 15 “most bloated” states, only New Mexico and Washington state voted Democratic in the last presidential election.

According to the RGF, then, Republican, rural, states (primarily in the South and plains/mountain west) are bloated, big government states, and Democratic, unionized states are the most efficient. Thanks for the endorsement of liberal policies and public sector collective bargaining, Paul!

Giving Gov. Martinez credit

RGF allegation No. 4: New Mexico government is too big and needs mass layoffs. In our recent debate, Paul was joined by the very smart Doug Turner, a key player in the libertarian Johnson administration. As I’ve detailed previously here, New Mexico government is the same size in raw numbers of FTEs as it was under Johnson, with more than 10.3 percent additional people to serve. In other words, we’re now 10 percent smaller per capita.

If someone as bright as Turner, and a governor as committed to small government as Johnson, supported government bigger than today’s, how can Gessing claim that government’s too big? Was Turner incompetent? I certainly don’t think so. Was Johnson secretly a big-government aficionado? Doubtful.

Anyone who has been in the House Appropriations or Senate Finance committees over the last few weeks has heard Governor Martinez’s new cabinet leaders beg that the Legislature not cut more positions.

Is Governor Martinez suddenly a big-government acolyte? Not likely. She is, however, realistic about needing the staff to carry out the core missions of government, and she now sees first hand how thinly staffed the front lines are. For that she and her staff deserve credit.

Twisting a bunch of irrelevant numbers

RGF allegation No. 5: PERA and ERB are “in a uniquely poor condition.” Here’s another area where the RGF is trolling out statistics that have no relevance to a policy debate. They recently released a study showing that New Mexico has the third largest “liability” of any pension fund.

The problem is, liability doesn’t matter, unfunded liability does. The RGF’s focus on liability alone exposes their lack of familiarity with how defined benefit plans work. It’s like saying “McDonald’s is in the worst financial shape of all restaurants because it has a lot of accounts payable.” The statement is true, but McDonald’s also has many more stores than any other restaurant, so alone, it’s irrelevant.

New Mexico has long-standing, mature pension plans which even after the worst financial crisis in 70 years are only slightly underfunded according to industry standards (PERA is only 1.5 percent underfunded when measured against GASB standards). It’s in better shape than most funds – the exact opposite picture of what the RGF wants people to think. Further, new state workers were just required to work 20 percent longer to retire, and there are more changes planned to strengthen already strong plans.

The RGF had to really twist around a bunch of irrelevant numbers to make it look like New Mexico, Wisconsin and Ohio have something in common, but that’s just because they enjoy having workers at war with states, and they’re a little miffed that it hasn’t happened here yet. The truth is that by normal measures, Wisconsin is also in pretty good shape, and their numbers couldn’t be more irrelevant. RGF’s outlandish number-fixing is already flipping votes in the Senate, so it’s not as if their falsehoods don’t have an impact.

Why the sloppy, irrelevant data?

I’ll give Paul credit for this: he genuinely believes that government is, for the most part, evil, and needs to be eliminated. Same for unions. He argues against everything from public schools to health care for the poor to prisons. He believes.

But why use such deceptive or meaningless data?

First, in the case of misreporting spending, it can be as simple as the fact that our reporting systems are complex, overlapping, and incomplete. Paul has personal integrity, and I doubt that he would have used the numbers he did if he’d known that the lobbyist reports were too narrow to capture the real campaign spending.

Second, giving RGF the benefit of the doubt on their pension gaffe, if you want to get rid of something altogether for ideological reasons, there’s not much incentive to be bothered with knowing the details of how it functions.

John DiIulio, President Bush’s first Faith-Based Initiative leader and rock-solid conservative, was profiled in Esquire in 2003 after leaving the administration. DiIulio, by background an academic and policy person interested in expanding private-sector charity with tax dollars, lamented, in his words, the…

“…lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking: discussions by fairly senior people who meant Medicaid but were talking Medicare.”

But that was well-explained by “a senior White House adviser and admirer of DiIulio’s” in the same article:

“The view of many people (in the White House) is that the best government can do is simply do no harm, that it never is an agent for positive change. If that’s your position, why bother to understand what programs actually do?”

Fair point. That the RGF doesn’t know the meaningful metrics on pension plans isn’t surprising given their wholesale objection to their very existence.

Third, the more one scapegoats government, the more one can misdirect away from the RGF’s funders, who don’t want any government regulation of their industries (think Wall Street and the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster).

Driving a wedge

Last week, I got an email with an insightful joke in it, and a slightly different version appeared on Joe Monahan’s site as well. “A CEO, tea partier, and union worker are at a table, with a dozen cookies on a plate in between them. The CEO takes 11 of the cookies, and then tells the tea partier ‘watch out for that union guy, he wants a bite of your cookie.’”

The RGF isn’t looking out for non-union workers or anyone in the middle class, or even the fairly rich. It’s using sloppy researched and poorly applied data to drive a wedge between the tea party and regular working union folks, both of whom just want things like a decent job and health care.

The far-right think tanks love angry battles, as do some on the far left. But so far, AFSCME isn’t taking the bait, and to her credit, neither is Governor Martinez. We disagree with her on issues like raising revenue by closing loopholes for out-of-state corporate tax-dodgers, but it’s OK to have policy disagreements. That’s what legislative sessions are for.

What’s not OK is to use faulty, deceptive data to drive the argument. Even if unintentionally, that’s exactly what the RGF’s latest broadside does.

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.

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Carter Bundy

The Rio Grande Foundation, in its much-ballyhooed private vs. public compensation paper, notes that New Mexico public employees are paid, on average, 11.5 percent more than private sector counterparts — including all benefits. What they don’t mention is that there are very few part-time fry cooks in state government. There are very few minimum wage jobs in the public sector.

Public-sector workers tend to make a career out of their jobs, because unlike the very fluid private sector, things like providing clean water, being a firefighter, or being a probation and parole officer don’t change. The demand is always there, and these are things that the private sector has not been able to provide effectively — market forces and the nature of the work preclude private companies from being in these fields.

One debunking study

As a result, workers in the public sector are older. They have more education and experience. Using data from workers in New Mexico aged 18-64, from 2003-2009, only 24.1 percent of private-sector workers have a college degree or more. 46.5 percent of public sector workers do. The median age of that same set of workers was 40 years old in the private sector, 43 years old in the public sector.

When you compare apples to apples, public sector workers actually make 4 percent less than private sector workers.

Compare this highly detailed, statistically relevant, well-explained paper to the ideologically charged, conclusions-first approach of the RGF.

Further, even if you include benefits, which are indeed often better in the public sector, workers in the public and private sectors’ total compensation is almost identical. And that doesn’t include the fact that about 30 percent of all public-sector workers in America don’t get Social Security (in fairness, most in N.M. do, but since these are national studies, it’s worth mentioning).

Just read the two papers and it’s clear that one group has done their homework and explains how it compares apples to apples, while the other merely parrots ideological talking points.

OK, maybe that one study dismantling the RGF’s positions was a fluke. Maybe for all of its detailed statistical regression analyses, they missed a big point. I’d love it if some economists, particularly conservative economists, could point out where they’ve gone wrong specifically like I’ve done with RGF data. (I’m not a professional economist, but took a lot in college and law school and certainly have the basic math and common sense to take apart their flawed “conclusions.”)

Two might be a coincidence

Let’s bring in yet another study that bothers to compare apples to apples. This one, from the Center for State and Local Government Excellence, relying on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, concluded that state and local government employees make 11 percent less and 12 percent less, respectively, than their private sector equivalents in wages and salaries. Even including the generally-better benefits packages for public sector workers, state employees are still 6.8 percent behind private counterparts in total compensation, and local government employees lag 7.4 percent behind comparable private sector employees.

Three’s a pattern

The Economic Policy Institute recently published a third study, this one also including wages and all benefits, showing that the public sector lags behind the private sector when comparing apples to apples. The average compensation (including benefits) penalty in the public sector is 3.7 percent, averaging 1.8 percent for local government and 7.6 percent for state government.

Of course, there is much political demagoguery over the fact that public employees have health care and retirement. Here’s a great quote from Jon Cohn at the New Republic about what all the public employee benefit hand-wringing means:

“Also, as Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research points out, many public employees don’t get Social Security. Overall, he says, “most public sector pensions do not provide retirees with an especially high standard of living.” Exceptions to this rule frequently include firefighters and police, particularly in New York. Then again, they risk their lives to protect the rest of us from lethal threats, which is more than you can say for CEOs like the former telecom executive who in 2007 retired with a $159 million benefit package.”

When you consider that apples-to-apples studies show that public employees earn less than their counterparts in the private sector, even including benefits, it’s clear that the current scapegoating is nothing more than that: trying to blame a minority group for a national downfall that, if anything, public employees worked to prevent and have helped to mitigate.

As the new administration and Legislature work to solve our budget crisis, hopefully they will take the words of the new governor seriously and apply concepts of “shared sacrifice” in closing budget gaps.

In other words, look to not only average working Joes, but also to the millionaires who continue to get a 42 percent tax break but who haven’t been asked to sacrifice in the slightest as politicians try to balance revenues and vital programs. Ask out-of-state and foreign companies to actually pay their real taxes, instead of allowing them to exploit loopholes to hide their New Mexico profits in Delaware and the Caymans. But don’t keep sticking the average working man and woman with the task of cleaning up a mess they had no part in making.

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.

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The Roundhouse in Santa Fe (Photo by Peter St. Cyr)

We should all root for the new administration to make good on its central campaign themes of openness, transparency and ending even the appearance of corruption

Governor-elect Martinez’s transition is off to a sound start. Her victory speech on election night focused on eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in government, without scapegoating employees. If she sticks to that in January, she’ll be greeted with support from state employees and their unions.

There are numerous other good-government issues where there is opportunity to preserve and expand on recent advances, and to break new ground. Regardless of party or ideology, we should all root for the new administration to make good on its central campaign themes of openness, transparency and ending even the appearance of corruption.

Tax expenditure reports

One frustration over the last few years was the inability to enact a tax expenditure report into law. Tea Partiers to long-time liberal activists support knowing exactly who is being taxed and who gets special treatment.

Some of the special treatment may be productive; incenting high wage, mobile industries may well make sense, while allowing some out-of-state companies to avoid taxes through accounting gimmicks probably doesn’t.

Carter Bundy

Transparency and open government

The next administration can build on the Sunshine Portal and go even further. We have the technology to broadcast (and record) every single committee hearing, interim committee hearing, and agency meeting that is open to the public.

Doing so would not only be an obvious way to open up government even beyond where trailblazers like Lt. Governor Denish, Sen. Rue and Rep. Arnold-Jones have taken us. It could also be a way for each agency to save thousands of dollars in travel every month.

Double dipping

One of the most important victories for fiscally responsible government in the last few years was the Legislature’s near-unanimous, bipartisan repeal of double dipping last year.

Any retreat from the double dipping ban will add to both the budget deficit (to the tune of millions of dollars a year) and PERA solvency concerns (to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in the next few years). We can’t afford double dipping, period.

If special incentives truly are needed to fill jobs in certain geographic or job areas (somewhat doubtful in this national recession), then let’s pay for them up front instead of creating future taxpayer liabilities by raiding the PERA fund to sweeten their deals.

The new governor will have the public, press, legislators and even the vast majority of public employees on her side if she resists a return to double dipping.

Reducing political appointees

Both gubernatorial candidates pledged to reduce political appointee numbers to a level below that of Gov. Johnson. Political appointees are needed, and any new administration is entitled to appoint people with whom it has a personal and political relationship, and who share its vision.

There are many excellent political appointees in the current administration whose departure will be a loss to the citizens of New Mexico, yet not every position needs to be refilled.

Span of control guidelines

The Government Restructuring Task Force just reviewed a survey of state workers. While many are trying to do the work of two or three people due to the hiring freeze, there are still pockets of inappropriate supervisor to front-line worker ratios, a measurement known as “span of control.”

Iowa, among other states, has passed legislation giving each agency span of control parameters, and it seems to have helped streamline government and add accountability without cutting back services or causing overtime costs.

In this crisis, New Mexico should borrow best practices from other states, and that includes looking at span of control guidelines.

Ethics

If there was one overriding theme to the Martinez campaign, it was to end even the appearance of pay to play. So far, the transition team is paying attention. I recently had lunch with a transition team member. While I had assumed that we would go Dutch, it was refreshing when he said, unsolicited, “I’m paying my own way.”

I’ve written before here about California’s law on food and drink: Legislators are limited to $25 a year in food and drink from any source. Why can’t we do that here?

Granted, California pays its legislators handsomely, and we have an unpaid citizen Legislature, so maybe a similar ban here would have to be coupled with an increased per diem. But wouldn’t you rather have legislators buying their own meals out of an enhanced per diem than out of lobbyist expense accounts?

Bucking ideology with pragmatism

One good bipartisan moment in the campaign was Susana’s defense of state-subsidized child care against proposed cuts.

The cuts were due to the unusually heavy demands on TANF funds from families hit by the national recession, so it’s hard to blame CYFD or the current governor. Still, the cuts were notable, and Susana opposed them.

Some right-leaning think tanks and candidates would have criticized the very existence of child care programs. But Susana was pragmatic, understanding that we’re all made richer by enabling others to maximize their potential with a hand up. Martinez showed her pragmatic child care position might not be a fluke when she tabbed two pragmatists to lead her transition.

Partnership opportunity

My overriding criticism of the Republicans’ campaigns in 2010 was their reliance on claiming government was bloated by 50 percent even after three years of dramatic cuts and eight years of population growth and inflation.

Well, that was campaigning, and now the campaign victors are about to govern the state, and I’m sure they already realize that, except for a relatively thin layer of political appointees, there’s simply not a lot more fat to cut.

In it together

Dems are bound to disagree with the incoming administration on some issues, but the early transition from campaign to governance is showing promise for partnership as well.

During this crisis, no one in New Mexico can afford to wish the new administration anything but the best of luck and to offer anything but the most genuine cooperation to ensure that the recession leaves as few scars as possible.

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.

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Carter Bundy

Last column I posted a very detailed and transparent account of the size of New Mexico state government in dollar terms, with the data showing conclusively that the state’s current FY ’11 budget is virtually identical to the FY ’03 budget, which was Gary Johnson’s last one.

There was no serious attempt to dispute the numbers in the column, from readers here, the state Republican Party, Susana’s campaign or anyone else.

That’s only the money side of the story. If you listen to the GOP and their leader, Susana Martinez, you’d think that not only is the budget bigger than under Gary, but that we have 5,000 more state employees than we had before the current administration.

Nope. In fact, the opposite is true. Larry Barker does a fine job finding handfuls of jobs that might not pull their weight, but that’s true in any administration. The big picture is that state government is leaner than it has been in decades in terms of staffing.

According to the State Personnel Office, at the end of Gary Johnson’s last budget, there were 22,612.38 FTEs working for the state. That doesn’t include K-12 or higher ed. Using the census data for the end of FY ’03, that’s 1.21 state employees per hundred New Mexicans.

The July 1, 2010 FTE count is 23,890. Conservative estimates are that with the (near total) hiring freeze, the state loses between 100 and 200 employees per month. Let’s be conservative and say 100 per month. By the end of FY ’11, that means 22,690 FTEs — and that’s a high estimate (again, if someone can defend different numbers, I’ll listen, but ask anyone in state government, and the shrinkage is real).

Using the above population estimates based off of the Census Bureau, that’s 1.10 employees per hundred New Mexicans — a 9.1 percent decrease in employees per capita from the Johnson administration. That’s using a pretty friendly assumption toward Johnson, Susana, and the Republican Party that we’re only losing a net 100 employees per month.

More conservative assumptions

Even if the state started going on a hiring spree and replaced every person retiring, dying, quitting, resigning, being fired, or moving, and we end up with the same number of FTEs on July 1, 2011 as we have now (never gonna happen), that would mean 1.16 employees per hundred New Mexicans — still a 4.1 percent decrease in employees per capita. And that’s using an absurdly favorable assumption toward Johnson that New Mexico will go on a massive hiring binge in the remaining eight months of FY ’11.

Playing with numbers

One of the GOP’s favorite arguments is that New Mexico has a relatively high number of public employees per private employees compared to other states. It’s true, but also irrelevant to whether government is “bloated” or “too big.” Using that one statistic as a proxy for government waste or for political philosophy doesn’t hold water.

In what is becoming an annual ritual, I have to point out the incredibly obvious statistical and analytical errors in the Rio Grande Foundation’s analysis.

The big drivers of the public employee to private employee ratio are concentration of population, private sector employment, and poverty. The Rio Grande Foundation has claimed that New Mexico is disproportionately heavy with public employees, using that one statistic of public to private workers.

New Mexico has the 2nd highest ratio. Does that mean anything? Well, it’s not hard to break out the list of states by political leanings of liberal and conservative. I used the 2008 presidential election as a proxy, because it is one of the few times when there were roughly the same number of states voting for each party, and where there was a clear ideological choice. Generally it’s fair to say that the more liberal states went for Obama and the more conservative states went for McCain.

I also chose a presidential election because it’s recent and is a better measure of liberal/conservative than using the party affiliation of some state races (for example, in recent years, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, California and Hawaii all had GOP governors, while Kansas, Wyoming, Montana, Oklahoma and North Carolina all had Dem governors).

Measuring how conservative and liberal each state’s combined legislature, governor, city councils, county commissions, school boards and university presidents/regents are is a lot less reliable an indicator of the conservative or liberal nature of a state than a clear ideological difference like we had in the ’08 presidential race. For example, Massachusetts wouldn’t and shouldn’t be considered a conservative state just because Mitt Romney – who signed a statewide version of health care reform almost identical to Obama’s – was governor recently.

It’s easy to look up, using RGF’s own table, the ranking of the states in terms of public to private employee ratio. Remember, the RGF is for all intents and purposes the Republican Party’s research and message think tank in New Mexico, so they have no reason to skew data against Republican states.

Of the 15 “worst” states with the highest public/private employee ratio, two voted Democratic (NM and WA) and 13 GOP. Of the 15 “best” states with the lowest public/private employee ratio, three voted Republican (FL, TN, and MO) and 12 voted Dem – including such liberal Democratic bastions in the top six like Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Illinois.

Further, the 15 “worst” are overwhelmingly rural, and contain an oversize share of conservative, inter-mountain, plains, and southern states. In order, they are: Alaska, New Mexico, Wyoming, Mississippi, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Kansas, North Dakota, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Arkansas.

Reading with a critical eye

So is the RGF’s thesis now that Republicans, southerners, rural people, and mountain west folks are for big government, while New Englanders, Democrats, and city folks favor small government? Is the Rio Grande Foundation really saying that Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Illinois are great small government states, and that Wyoming, Alaska and North Dakota are bloated big government states?

Of course not. What this does tell you is that the RGF is using a statistic that it knows full well is meaningless as a way to try to scapegoat public employees and this administration for a national recession. Guess what party controlled Congress and the White House for the strong majority of years leading up to our crash?

In addition to being meaningless on its face, the statistic is riddled with underlying problems. One is the assumption that if the private sector isn’t strong, that’s the fault of government employees. While government policy can indeed help with private sector numbers, there is nothing showing that there is any correlation between good private sector jobs and a government employee statistic.

Private companies locate to states for a variety of reasons: well-off consumers, well-educated and trained workforces, quality of life, existing businesses, government tax breaks, good schools for their kids, safe neighborhoods, transportation and other infrastucture, ease of access to national and world markets, etc. I don’t think many businesses relocate to a place (or start in a place) because there are a certain number of, say, firefighters in the state (if anything, good public safety and good teacher to student ratios are a plus).

The upshot is that the public/private ratio has nothing to do with whether government is bloated. If one looks at the states with “good” and “bad” public/private ratios, you conclude that there is nothing substantive that can be derived from that statistic. In fact, if there’s any correlative conclusion, it’s that states which invest in the public sector have an even more thriving private sector. It never hurts to read the data from ideological and nakedly partisan organizations like the Rio Grande Foundation with a critical eye. When you do, it’s easy to dispel the myth of bloated government.

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.

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Susana Martinez (Photo by Heath Haussamen)

Susana Martinez continues to consistently claim that state government has grown by 50 percent (sometimes she says 54 percent) during the last 7.5 years. Her allegation about state government is simply not true, and it’s not even close.

Oh, it could be twisted into being kinda true, if you ignore things like inflation and population growth, and you cherry pick the years you want to use. Of course, if you ignore inflation and population, Susana grew her own piece of government by 70 percent in the same time frame — 16 percent more than she alleges the state grew. Is that what she means?

She flat out says, over and over, that New Mexico government has grown by 50 percent or 54 percent, using the present tense. She said it twice in the education debate, and has said it for months. The lie is making its way around GOP letters to the editor, indicating that both Susana and the party are trying very hard to repeat it enough that they hope no one will challenge it. The Republican Party has even included it in press releases.

Since Susana has a tendency to deny that she ever made a claim when she’s challenged on it, here’s video evidence:  Go to 0:28 of this YouTube video of Susana praising Sarah Palin when Palin endorsed Susana in the Republican primary, here. The exact quote from Susana is that “Sarah Palin understands how New Mexico has grown government by over 50 percent and that is unacceptable.” She uses present tense, doesn’t qualify it, and is trying to trick New Mexicans into thinking that government is bigger than it was in the last Republican administration.

Just. Not. True. Here are the real statistics about state budgets, population growth and inflation. With sources and methodology.

Population

The U.S. Census Bureau has made population estimates from 2003-2009, using July 1 each year – in sync with our fiscal years in New Mexico. During that time New Mexico grew from 1,867,909 to 2,009,671, a 7.589 percent population growth over six years (1.265 percent annually). U.S. Census data for 2009 is here. Census numbers for 2000-2008 (including, obviously, July 1, 2003), can be found here.

Carter Bundy

We’ll have 2010 census data hopefully by the end of the year, but to measure population growth during the eight fiscal years of the current administration, we’ll have to extrapolate through the end of this fiscal year. No one thinks we’re shrinking, so in the absence of hard data, assume the same annual growth rate of 1.265 percent. That means an estimate of 2,060,832 by the end of this fiscal year. If someone has a better estimate, I’d be happy to hear it, but absent that, this seems pretty fair. That’s a 10.328 percent population growth in these eight fiscal years.

Inflation

If you take self-proclaimed libertarian, anti-government growth Republican Gary Johnson’s last fiscal year (FY ’03) budget of $3.897 billion and factor in CPI (see below), it is $4.736 billion today (for those who want to do the math themselves, take $3.897 and multiply by 1.019 for the first year, then multiply that number by 1.033, and so on).

The most common measure for inflation is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index-Urban (often used even in relatively rural states). For reasons described below, this understates the real increase in government costs, but let’s be conservative and use this lower CPI-U number.

The below numbers are on a calendar year basis, so the eight year period of Jan. 1, 2003 to Jan. 1, 2011 doesn’t quite match our fiscal years. But fortuitously, the 2003 inflation rate and the current rate for 2010 (through June) are within a tenth of a point of each other, so it seems fair to use that number for the remainder of the administration. Again, if someone has better numbers for inflation or something more up-to-date than the end of June 2010, by all means say so.

Here is the link for annual inflation for the last eight years, from the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Detailed Report of June 2010 (see Table 26 at page 81). For those sane people who don’t feel like perusing the entire document, here are the annual inflation rates:

• 2003: 1.9 percent
• 2004: 3.3 percent
• 2005: 3.4 percent
• 2006: 2.5 percent
• 2007: 4.1 percent
• 2008: 0.1 percent
• 2009: 2.7 percent
• 2010: 1.8 percent (through June, annualized number)

Then simply account for the above-detailed population growth of 10.328 percent (multiply $4.736 by 1.10328), and the much longed-for lean, mean Johnson Republican machine budget, accounting for inflation and population, is $5.225 billion today.

How does that compare to our “big spending” budget today? Republican Johnson’s budget is actually BIGGER. The state’s FY ’11 budget was $5.343 billion. See page 6 of the appropriations section of the Legislative Finance Committee’s 2010 highlights here. The most recent $150 million in cuts puts it right around $5.193 billion — LOWER than the Johnson administration. Yes, accounting for simple inflation and population, the last budget of this administration is smaller than the last Republican budget.

What about the feds?

Heath deserves praise for raising an issue that the next governor and Legislature will have to grapple with: federal help for the state. The feds are adding several hundred million dollars to keep the state going in FY ’11, so if those dollars are included, state expenditures were closer to $5.604 billion (according to Heath’s research from the LFC) before the most recent $150 million in cuts. Heath’s column is here.

After the cuts, even including all federal spending replacing state spending, total state expenditures are $5.454 billion. That’s 4.283 percent higher than Johnson’s last year, or almost exactly half a percent growth per year — even counting Heath’s full federal numbers.

Generous assumptions

I’ve been very conservative in my assumptions, and generous to Republicans Susana and Gary, in one important way: I used CPI for inflation, even though it’s not a big secret that medical inflation is far higher than regular CPI. Since a big chunk of the state budget is devoted to health care (think coverage for poor children, high-risk people, and small businesses), if we’d adjusted the FY ’03 budget for the real increase in costs associated with state expenditures, Gary’s budget would almost certainly have been larger than the FY ’11 budget even with federal dollars counted. Several experts at a recent LFC meeting estimated medical inflation to have been roughly 9 percent over the last few years — three to five times higher than CPI most years.

Since parsing out medical inflation and applying it to those parts of the budget going to health care is something requiring a lot more time, health expertise and accounting analysis than most anyone has, I’ll stick with the more conservative estimate of inflation and call the FY ’03 and FY ’11 budgets roughly a draw. But more thorough inflation analysis would show state government smaller today than at the end of the last Republican administration.

Either way

Susana is saying state spending is out of control, when it’s virtually identical to — or lower than — the budget that ended 8 years of libertarian Republican leadership.

Whether you count federal help or not, and whether you use CPI-U for inflation or do a more detailed application of real cost increases, the state budget is either a fraction smaller now than under Gary Johnson or a fraction bigger. The margin is minuscule no matter what numbers you use.

And don’t blame the 90s legislature or state employees for the last Republican administration — Johnson not only had veto power that he used regularly, he had control over the entire executive personnel system, and for his last term, no unions.

Seriously?

So Susana’s big complaint and reason to elect another Republican administration is… a flat budget?

That whole story — that state government overall has stayed flat while Susana’s cushy slice of it grew — is not nearly enough to fire up Susana’s Republican base. In fact, quite the opposite — they’d be disappointed to know that the present administration, partly due to the ongoing national economic crisis, but also largely due to massive Democratic tax cuts, is as thrifty or thriftier than both an icon of the national libertarian movement and the current GOP gubernatorial nominee. To motivate those who want to believe that Republicans magically run a tighter ship of state, Susana and her political consultants have told and re-told the “50 percent” story to enrage voters and scapegoat state and educational employees.

Does she know?

Would it change Susana’s position if she knew that New Mexico was 49th in the country in teacher salaries at the beginning of the current administration, and bringing us into the 30s in that category accounted for hundreds of millions of dollars? Does she want to slash teacher salaries further (they’ve already been hit) and work our way back down to Mississippi pay levels? If so, say so. How does that square with recruiting, retaining and rewarding great teachers?

Or should we further decimate our prison staffing? How’s that working for Arizona, where murderers wire-clipped their way out of a cheap private prison on their way to kill again in Santa Rosa?

Who would really notice if the poorest kids in the state — many of whom live in Doña Ana County — were cut out of Medicaid? Right?

Does Susana even know that over 75 percent of our budget goes directly to K-12 education, higher ed, and Medicaid? Which of those will she cut? All of them? None? OK, Does she realize that the remaining 24 percent includes things like corrections, the judicial system, and law enforcement? The remaining 24 percent includes help for small businesses and high risk individuals’ health care? That it includes CYFD, which both helps vulnerable children and protects society from the kids who have turned violent?

Does she want to underfund our roads and leave our infrastructure to rot, as Republican Tim Pawlenty did for years in Minnesota, right here in New Mexico? These aren’t scare tactics, these are real consequences of politicians not understanding the important role government plays in keeping us safe.

All the cuts we’ve endured in the last few years have come at exactly the same time that our citizens are relying more than ever on state services. When jobs are scarce, more people than ever turn to our universities and community colleges for training. Unemployment lines are around the block. There are more poor kids losing private health insurance every week. Tough times, sadly, tend to put more demands on our police, judiciary, and correctional systems.

Demands for many state services are known as “counter-cyclical.” That is, when the economy goes down, the public’s need for help goes up. Susana’s and the Republican Party’s cold attempts to blame the effects of a national and worldwide recession on public servants are wrong.

Not ready for prime time

This isn’t an academic quibble. If Susana thinks we’re 50 percent bigger than under Gary, that means she thinks there’s 50 percent fat to cut to get back to Gary’s number. Problem is, we’re already there — or lower. Our next governor has to understand the budget, what’s in it, and where it can be tightened without jeopardizing public safety, health, education or infrastructure.

If Susana starts out misunderstanding the state budget by a billion or more dollars, that’s a real problem regardless of your party affiliation. Further, if Susana thinks that Dems raise taxes, she has the wrong state and the wrong party. This administration has slashed taxes well below the levels of Susana’s Republican Party, much to the disappointment of many education, health care and public safety advocates.

If Susana really thinks we’ve grown 50 percent or had a net increase in taxes, she doesn’t know much about New Mexico state budgets and isn’t ready for prime time. If she knows better but keeps up the deceit for political gain, well, shame on her for scapegoating teachers, corrections officers, nurses, police and the many other public servants who are doing more than ever with less than we’ve had in decades.

Maybe Susana really didn’t understand our budget, its size, and what it funds until now, but going forward, she can’t plead ignorance. She’s even free to have her own team of Texas Republican Swift-boat donors and political operatives check sources and methodology. Lord knows they have the money. It seems a bit wonkish but it’s all easily confirmed by a calculator and access to official websites and budgets.

State government is the same size as it was 8 years ago, period. In some key ways (specifically, number of state employees per capita) it’s actually significantly smaller. But if Susana and her Republican Party keep telling the 50 percent bloat fable, well, after their dissembling on vouchers, we’re going to have a bit of a pattern emerging.

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.

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