September 1, 2010

I was making my way toward Las Cruces yesterday when I saw a long time friend along the highway, and stopped to visit with him and his wife. Tom and Pam are ranchers east of Mayhill.  They have endured the rigors of ranching for decades in this very rural part of New Mexico. 

Tom told me yesterday that government regulators had completely wiped out the sheep ranching business in New Mexico. The US Fish and Wildlife Service implemented new regulations that prohibit ranchers from controlling the population of nearby predators, such as mountain lions and coyotes. As a result, Tom and Pam have completely quit raising sheep. Just a year or two ago New Mexico had 20,000 sheep grown and marketed here. Now it is zero. The jobs are gone. 

The revenue to the state is gone. The vitality of our nation’s economy is shrinking and prosperity is disappearing, because of our own government.   

It is not that people are eating less lamb meat, and it is not that people have quit wearing wool clothes. It is that a bunch of extremists in the environmental movement are constantly suing the government to increase the regulatory burden on ranchers, farmers, oil and gas, and mining. They have completely killed the timber industry in New Mexico, and as a result, 20,000 jobs have disappeared from our state. Rural counties cannot support their budgets because their jobs are being regulated away.

California is shutting down government offices a couple of days a week because their state has been so unfriendly to business that companies have closed or left the state. It is now happening here in New Mexico. The lunacy should stop before we kill the jobs that provide our food and energy. 

In the meantime, Tom and Pam are just two more of the casualties in the government war on prosperity—this government war on our jobs. They are not alone. Tim, who owns the ranch next to them, and virtually all the other sheep ranchers are gone in New Mexico because of a government bureaucrat who cannot be voted against in the next election—a government bureaucrat who will get his pension even after Tom, Pam, and Tim are all broke, and their investments are gone. 

This is not the America that has been the destination for generations of immigrants looking for a better life, looking for liberty and freedom. It can be that America again, but we must reverse the policies in Washington.