From the by M.D. Fletcher |
February 2010 |
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I don't wish to alarm you, but you may want to bring the livestock into the barn, lock the chickens in the coop, tie the dog to the front porch, hide the kids under the bed and bring Momma home from the Bingo parlor. A tremendous calamity is about to befall the citizens of this state and nothing can be done neither to prevent it nor to mitigate its devastating impact. The Second Session of the 49th New Mexico Legislature is underway. I know, I know, it doesn't seem right that we ought to spend $4 million of money we don't have to pay for our so-call unpaid elected representatives to travel to Santa Fe and mill around in the hallways of the Roundhouse making legislative sausage and calling each other bad names, but that, gentle readers, is what the framers of our well-meaning but hopelessly archaic state constitution said we've got to do. What's worse is we've got a lame duck Governor who's not currently looking for campaign contributions calling the shots and let me tell you brother, these days Old Bill is all about putting it where the sun don't shine. The thing is, after seven years of very expensive political theater, the Honorable Governor Bill Richardson has got some scores to settle. Never mind that his tenure in office has hosted the largest and most widespread examples of elected official corruption the state has ever experienced and since this is, after all, New Mexico, never mind that that's saying a mouthful. Never mind that despite the fact at one point we were so financially flush that Old Bill was throwing $50 bills at us poor folk out the back window of his Limited Edition Mac Daddy SUV and today we can't afford to gas up a State Trooper's patrol car. Never mind that he stacked the State Investment Council with cronies more interested in extorting campaign funds for his political ambitions than fulfilling their fiduciary duties to the citizens of this state and now that money might as well be in Bernie Madoff's back pocket because it sure as hell isn't in the State Treasury. Never mind all that. |
The point is Old Bill's not happy, not with the rotten timing of the bottom falling out before he had his toes safely dug into the sand at Barbados and all. Now in his last year, he's got to find a way to prop up his rapidly depreciating political capital and spin straw into gold to unwind some of his previously ambitious and now plainly foolhardy adventures. Unfortunately, it looks more and more like he lacks the skill set to do it. I mean, we've got a four-car train running up and down between Belen and Santa Fe that will never, ever pay for itself. Nor will it ever alleviate I-25 traffic which, if you've ever traveled in that direction, most closely resembles rush hour in Bangkok. What the Rail Runner does most effectively is suck huge amounts of operating money out of state coffers for the benefit of a relative handful of riders and, more importantly, Bill's political image around the Beltway in Washington D.C. Throw in a Spaceport and you've got a toxic mix of non-refundable, non-performing assets. So what's he do? He directs the Environmental Improvement Board to jump way ahead of even a very liberal Congress and declare carbon dioxide a pollutant, thereby not only incidentally exceeding their authority but if their declaration stands, further burdening the electric generation industry in this state and, in turn, the people who buy the power, meaning you. Now, even if New Mexico were the vast empty wasteland the rest of the country believes it is, the elimination of its carbon footprint wouldn't make a flyspeck's worth of difference to the Earth's climate. For New Mexico to unilaterally take this step in the face of the worst economic crisis in over 80 years makes absolutely no sense unless, of course, it makes political points for a guy still hoping Hillary might eventually return his calls. So he's willing to stick it to the big investor-owned utilities in the state (all of which were his generous campaign contributors) for the sake of his chances for a Federal position worthy of his political prowess. So if you're a taxpayer in this state, watch your back, especially your back pocket. Old Bill's packing heat on his way into the sunset. |
