After months of hedging on the Life issue, Congressman Teague showed his weakness on protecting the unborn in one of the Floor Votes last night.

The Motion to Recommit the bill essentially would have reinserted the the Stupak Amendment that was included in the original House Bill and thus clearly prohibit the public funding of abortions.

"Tax cuts create jobs...."

-Governor Bill Richardson D-NM

The corollary is also true. Tax increases kill jobs. You will find a summary of taxes increased and will understand the jobs that will be eliminated when Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in the House pass the health care bill. Our economy is bleeding jobs and we see exactly the wrong policies come out of Washington.

No wonder people are furious. The health care bill punishes everyone working for a living and our economy as a whole.

Please take time to read the attached memo about the tax increases we will see when the health care bill is passed tomorrow.

People ask me how I know it will pass. The Speaker of the House cannot afford to be wrong on too many public issues. She has said they will have the vote tomorrow. She will not take it to the floor and have a failed vote, so you can be sure she has the votes.

She has already made one serious miscalculation as Speaker. She brought the TARP bill to the floor in September 2008 and the measure failed on the floor. She was furious with her team for putting her in the public position of failing in a floor vote.

Joe the Plumber…

…says we are just doing our civic duty when we gather to protest. 

He pointed out the tea parties are not about Republicans or Democrats but about Americans.   

He spoke in Roswell, Hobbs and Carlsbad yesterday.  We were on the same podium at each of the events.    Joe expresses things I greatly agree with.

He said we, each one of us, is responsible for the decline of our country and the dramatic move to socialism that is occurring.  He points out that most of us have been politically inactive for the better parts of our lives but now Americans are alert and engaged.  He asked us all what we had done before this year to back our values, where we had spent money getting a message out  helping a candidate or volunteering.

He declares it is not just our right to be involved politically that it is our responsibility as Americans to be involved politically.

Opinion Editorial by Steve Pearce

Published on NM Politics.net

The vote on the health-care legislation is expected to occur this week as soon as Speaker Pelosi secures the 216 votes needed to pass the House. New Mexico Congressman Harry Teague is one of the last undecided House Democrats whose vote will decide whether or not the health care bill passes. 

Congressman Teague says he hasn’t decided how he’ll vote on this bill. But what Congressman Teague needs to remember is that he represents the interests of New Mexicans, and this health-care legislation will have severe, negative impacts.

I support health-care reform efforts to improve our system. It affects the financial, physical and mental health of New Mexicans. However, along with many New Mexicans, I do not support the current health-care legislation. A government-run health care program poses threats to hard-working Americans and their access to health care.

Ultimately this health-care bill will destroy jobs in New Mexico and raise taxes on families and small businesses. In an already struggling economy, New Mexico cannot afford to shoulder the additional financial burden of government-run health care.

New Mexico is constantly losing doctors.

The risk of frivolous lawsuits is driving many of them out of the state. Nationwide, doctors every year are declaring their retirement. A big factor in many retirements is the threat of frivolous lawsuits. Why does the Governor ignore this loss of business? Obviously Richardson understands that frivolous lawsuits kill jobs. He is willing for that to happen, just not with the Spaceport.

According to an AP article on March 15th:

"A bill signed Feb. 27 by Gov. Bill Richardson, is similar to laws approved earlier in Florida and Virginia. It protects New Mexico's spaceport and its operators from legal liability if there are injuries or deaths during a spaceflight catastrophe.

"Without the legislation, Landeene said New Mexico was at risk of watching business go elsewhere.

Under New Mexico's law, spacecraft operators still can be sued if a judge determines gross negligence or willful disregard for safety resulted in death or injuries."

0530 hours
Friday, March 12, 2010

Cynthia, Jessica and I depart the house in total darkness, headed to Albuquerque. I will be speaking at noon to the NM Surveyors conference, then have a busy day of appointments with donors, volunteers and friends as we prepare for the Republican State Pre-Primary Convention tomorrow.

By 6:00 am we are in Lovington and watching the sun peeking up, barely visible against the orange and pinkish eastern horizon. It is my favorite time of day.

In 1970, during Air Force pilot training my favorite flights were the ones where the Preflight inspection was accomplished in darkness with a flashlight. The instructor and I would climb into the cockpit, plug in the g-suit hose, attach the 10,000 safety lanyard on the parachute, hook up the oxygen mask and start the engines. Outside, the sky would be getting light with the approaching sun.

After taxi and engine runup, we would be positioned at the hold line waiting for the magic moment when the sun began to peek up over the horizon. It was a moment of pride in my instructors to be in the runway, brakes locked watching for the first view of the orange flame of the sun to erupt up over the horizon. I would kick in the Afterburner, release brakes and we would go hurtling down the runway. It still is a magic moment of the day for me.

The Congress is suggesting giving itself a 5% pay cut. I agree with the move and heartily endorse it. However it does not remotely deal with the budget deficit. The savings is only about $3 million a year. It is an insufficient move.

To give the bill real substance if should be amended to requires Members of Congress to give up their healthcare and live with whatever they mandate for the rest of us. To really add substance to the bill I also call for a provision which gives the same 5% cut to all federal employees who make over $100,000.

One last provision should be that all federal employee pay raises given in the last 18 months should be rolled back. The rest of America has had their pay cut during that same time so why are we being asked to fund pay raises for federal employees.

Another provision should require that the entire savings from this bill should be put into the Social Security Lockbox to redeem IOU’s which Congress has put in the lockbox as they took out every bit of cash that Social Security has generated. We must start to solve the problems with Social Security’s insolvency.

The nation is dying for jobs with unemployment just under 10%.  We are spending billions on foreign energy.  New Mexico is starving for tax revenues…and the Democrats in Congress are going to make all of them worse.  The Administration has proposed to close the Otero Mesa permanently to all drilling for oil and gas.  Make your voice heard.  Call your representatives to oppose the move.

The Obama administration is taking steps to close off several parts of the Intermountain West to industrial activity, including four areas believed to hold significant oil and natural gas deposits.

If successful, the initiative would block future production of hydrocarbons in the San Rafael Swell in Utah, the Otero Mesa in New Mexico, the Vermillion Basinin Colorado, and the Northern Prairie in Montana.

I had the opportunity last weekend to participate in the annual Chile Challenge hosted by the Las Cruces Four Wheel Drive Club.  This is an ultimate off road adventure.  They drive 4WD vehicles on trails throughout the mountains. There are trails for drivers with different expertise levels.  They even suggest the drivers and passengers on the expert trails wear full body armor.  This “challenge” is definitely for the thrill seekers in Southern New Mexico.  

This activity in Las Cruces is in danger of ending because of legislation that continues to make more of our wilderness land off limits to people and activities. 

We are told the unemployment rate is 9.7% for the month of February.  It may be considerably higher, but that is fodder for another conversation.  

All employment numbers are aggregates.  The 9.7 (or whatever number you feel comfortable) is actually an average of lots of different numbers.  Those different subsets are where the real information is in the unemployment report.

For example, people without a high school diploma have an unemployment rate of 15.2%.  College graduates have an unemployment rate of 4.9%.  That is a stark reality. 

The better our education system, the better we compete in the world.  The better we compete, the more jobs we have.  When we compete in worse fashion, we have fewer jobs.

These are the basics of economic policy.  Work hard, educate more, push productivity to higher levels and our national standard of living improves.  Fail at these and other nations grab our jobs.