One Woman's Viewpoint

What if you could pull power from the ground below us?

That’s all New Mexico does, Merritt. First coal, now oil and gas. Been at it for over a century now. Tell us something new.

All right, smarty pants. What if we had tremendous amounts of power in the ground here in New Mexico that was older than coal and even older than the Permian Basin (fun fact: the oil in the Permian Basin is older than most coal)?

Next-generation geothermal energy production taps into the heat under the Earth’s surface to generate electricity. If you have visited one of our many lovely hot springs in New Mexico for some rejuvenation, congratulations, you have seen geothermal energy at work!

The headlines coming out of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act - or the One Big Beautiful Bill Act - or whatever you want to call it – have been centered squarely on cuts to SNAP and Medicaid. For New Mexico, this causes worries at many levels.

On the Medicaid front, in a state where more than 7 out of 10 babies are delivered under Medicaid, and an already stressed rural healthcare infrastructure copes with sparse resources to support high-risk populations, this legislation weighs heavily on elected officials, healthcare providers and patients.

But an article out this week in The Economist places New Mexico at ground zero for the brunt of the SNAP fallout. One in five New Mexicans is enrolled in SNAP, the highest rate in the nation. The Economist's feature opens at a Santa Fe food bank, pointing out that monthly SNAP benefits last for five days in our beautiful but expensive capital.

On July 16, the Senate voted to claw back funding for soft power initiatives – that is, foreign aid – and for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This is important to the Heritage Foundation / far right appointees in the administration and some of the fringe elements of the Republican Party.

I don’t believe Congressional Republicans are excited about these clawbacks, but fear being primaried in the midterm elections far more than they care about eroding the United States’ position as the leader of the free world or providing vital educational, informational and artistic programming across the country.

We've gotten through the One Big Beautiful Bill, which is essentially a spending bill on top of tax and budget policy. This law raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, makes the 2017 tax cuts permanent and issues $150 billion in new spending for defense and $170 million in new spending for Homeland Security.

It reduces revenues while throwing out at least $320 billion in new spending – almost a third of a trillion dollars – in a very short time. And we have the fiscal year 2026 budget to look forward to.

Called The Skinny Budget, the White House FY26 budget keeps discretionary spending level from the previous year. The proposed budget sent to Congress moves more funds to Defense and Homeland Security from other Cabinet departments and agencies and moves funds from non-base to base funds.

Whether in government or the private sector, "Return to Office" orders are very much in vogue these days. The message to workers is to stop watching reality shows and come back to real work and productivity.

The reality is quite different. I started my company in 2005 as a telework company. We use a number of tools to track productivity, from total hours worked, to direct chargeable labor, to hours spent per task. Then we look at the metrics on the actual products created each month for our clients by type and by time spent.

With this lede, I know my readers are thrilled we are going down the exciting macroeconomic rollercoaster again! All the M1 money supply thrills! The monetary policy chills! This week we all held our breath for the Fed to spill the forecast tea.

Well, at least I did.

The Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve on Wednesday declined for the fourth straight time to cut interest rates, leaving the federal fund rate at roughly 4.3 percent. The FOMC is primarily focused on managing inflation and maximizing employment.

With a myriad of sources for information, it's hard to know where to go these days. For armed conflict, it's hard to beat The Institute for the Study of War, found at understandingwar.org .

Much has happened in the last 4-6 weeks in the Russia – Ukraine war. Most breathtaking was Ukraine's deep penetration into Russian territory June 1 with drones, destroying billions of rubles (and dollars) of aircraft and demonstrating an ability to penetrate deep into the Russian interior.

Let's note how large the Russian interior is. It is the largest interior that ever interiored. The Russian high command is a bit shaken. The drones were brought in with anonymous trucks. Even to Irktusk and beyond. This is RISK board territory.

I don't often get into the weeds of making news, but I think the craft is worth examining. I'll share it from my side of the equation – the providing of information. 

News comes from information. That is, actual events that have happened in real time, real statistics and figures, you know, facts. People like me – in public affairs, public information or public relations fields - work to provide that information. Often called spokespeople (or spin doctors, or flacks, or worse), we are responsible for telling the story for our bosses and representing our organizations truthfully and at the same time in the best possible light.