Editorials

By Paul J. Gessing and Matthew Mitchell

In a study published earlier this year, we highlighted the fact that New Mexico was the only state in the US to have lost economic freedom since 1981. We now know that it is worse than we thought.

People are more economically free when they are allowed to make more of their own economic choices; economists measure this freedom by looking at the degree to which government spending, taxation, and regulation limits choice.

We relied on data from the Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom of North America index. Over the last two decades, it has become the most cited and most used measure of state-level economic freedom in the US. Like its national-level counterpart, The Economic Freedom of the World, the state index has been used in hundreds of academic studies assessing the effect of economic freedom on a wide variety of measures of economic well-being.

By David Otoski

The New Mexico legislature seems sure to make good on road construction funding in the upcoming session in January. The legislature in 2025 allocated only $65 million for road construction and maintenance for the entire state, well below the average of around $300 million. But in this session, legislators and the governor have said they intend to help by passing a $1.5 billion bond bill to pay for roads for years to come.

That's for state roads. The other thing that the legislature and Department of Transportation need to identify are funding sources for local roads for counties and cities. These are the projects that went unfunded last session, which is causing delays this year for road construction and maintenance. The legislature needs to recognize that the bond bill is for funding over many years. A special appropriation is needed in 2026 to make up for last year and fund the badly needed road projects at the local level.

CELEBRITY & BILLIONAIRE INFLUENCE DRIVING ABORTION-TRAVEL FUNDING TO NEW MEXICO

(Online Version): https://www.abortionfreenm.com/news/celebrity-billionaire-influence-driving-abortion-travel-funding-to-new-mexico

By Bud Shaver,

​Albuquerque, New Mexico — New Mexico has rapidly become a national hub for out-of-state abortions. This trend is not driven by local demand, but by an expanding network of wealthy donors, Hollywood celebrities, and billionaire-backed foundations that are actively financing travel, lodging, and abortion procedures for women—primarily from Texas and other states with protective pro-life laws.

DENVER—The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing today to discuss the land use planning process and the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act, or FLPMA.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Policy Director Rachael Hamby:

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OUT-OF-STATE ABORTIONS SURGE IN NEW MEXICO DRIVEN BY TEXAS AND NATIONAL FUNDS

https://www.abortionfreenm.com/news/out-of-state-abortions-surge-in-new-mexico-driven-by-texas-and-national-funds

By Bud Shaver,

Albuquerque, New Mexico — New research shows that national abortion funds, Texas-based nonprofits, and affiliated organizations are dramatically expanding their travel, lodging, and logistical grants to bring out-of-state abortion seekers into New Mexico, raising significant concerns among Abortion Free New Mexico leaders about the state becoming a national hub for abortion-on-demand.

By Paul J. Gessing

Among other things, the recent federal shutdown highlighted just how dependent New Mexico is on the federal government. According to the website Virtual Capitalist New Mexico is the most dependent state in the nation on federal dollars.

There are some good reasons for this. Our state has three major Air Force bases plus White Sands testing range. We also have two major national nuclear labs, Los Alamos and Sandia. Forty one percent of our state is managed by the federal government and a significant portion of that includes tribal lands.

But, as many New Mexicans recently saw for themselves, being reliant on the deeply indebted federal government ($38 trillion at last count) is not a comfortable place to be. New Mexico is not just dependent on Washington to manage its lands and military/national security operations, it is far too reliant on federal welfare programs like SNAP and Medicaid.

By Ruben Q. Leyva

They said there were two.

That's how the record tells it—two Apache women who entered the town of Fronteras to buy mescal, cooking pots, and a little sugar for the camp. Two women who spoke softly in Spanish and handed over gold to the Sonoran merchants while Geronimo and Naiche, son of the deceased Chokonen band leader Cochise, waited in the hills. Two women who Lieutenant Leonard Wood reports were temporarily seized by Mexican soldiers, on August 22, 1886, whose names history preserved as Tah-das-te and Dejonah. But what if there were three?

What if the one who carried the basket of mescal wasn't just a shadow between them, but Felicitas, a woman of the Leyva kin, who spoke both the language of the sierra and the marketplace, who knew the cost of survival? The National Archives don't say her name, not directly. They hint around her, "several squaws," wrote Lt. Charles Gatewood in his field journal (Gatewood 1898, 131). "Women," said Lieutenant Wood, who never stopped to count. Only the Mexican prefect of Arispe bothered to write them down: Felicitas and Cruz (Alonso 2025, 118). And so, from those fragments, an old story begins to breathe again.

Here is the link for information for voting on election Day, Nov. 4, 2025.

https://grantcountynm.gov/DocumentCenter/View/2242/2025-Regular-Local-Election-Brochure?bidId= 

Every USA citizen has the right to vote in federal, state and local elections. This year is an off year from  most congressional and presidential elections, although some states do have federal and state elections. New Mexico in off years, predominantly offers off-year elections on the local scale.

When you go to vote, whether in early voting, which has already ended, remember that your decisions not only affect your life, but also other folks' lives.