Where did all the optimistic business leaders go?

Winthrop Quigley wrote an interesting column in the Albuquerque Journal. He expressed surprise at the way virtually all civic-community business leader types have changed. Few hold an optimistic view anymore. He seemed genuinely puzzled. Here’s what it means to me to be a successful business person, a community-civic leader, and a New Mexican: 

We live in a state where occasionally we get a Governor who slows the relentless march towards bigger and bigger state government. We have one now and she is a good one. She is routinely chastized by 90% of the NM media. 

There is a huge trend in place in our state and it has been accelerating for decades. It seems that it does not matter what the problem is in our state, the solution insisted upon by the party that dominates public policy (Democrats since the 1950’s) is always the same. We need bigger government. The same is true in Detroit, Chicago, Washington D.C., Baltimore, L.A. etc. When Republicans win the governorship here they will from time-to-time compromise with Democrats. These actions allow government to only get a little bigger instead of a lot bigger.

Naturally as it has done everywhere in recorded history, big government always fails. As the failures become obvious Democrats do what they always do. They suggest that because government did not get even bigger New Mexico is still floundering. As a result of New Mexico’s obsession with making government bigger for many decades our state is so far behind Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas in virtually every important category, it is hard to see how we can ever catch up.

New Mexicans remain more stuck in losing paradigms than ever because every child except those home-schooled or enrolled in Christian schools is not taught to respect entrepreneurial risk takers who make payrolls. If a child’s parents are ignorant, as so many in New Mexico are, they release the minds of their children to the public education system. There kids are taught to be highly suspicious of all businesses. They are taught that the most important fact in the world is that the public needs protection from business. This attitude is entrenched and reflected in our newspapers and in our television news outlets. Virtually every issue that could lead us out of the total abyss is falsely framed wherein businesses is portrayed as labor exploiting profiteers and government is falsely portrayed as the ultimate job creator.

The Democratic Party of New Mexico has been headed by a long line of people who regularly attend national meetings. There they fall under the influence of the most radical anti-business extremists in the nation. When they return to New Mexico they have a renewed commitment do everything in their power to destroy our healthiest taxpaying industries like oil, gas, coal, and agriculture. Because of this pattern New Mexicans are trapped in a permanent cycle of creating more and more poverty.

The children of most community-civic leaders and other successful business people tend to leave this state and live elsewhere. They do so because New Mexico is so dominated by big government we are not competitive at hardly anything.

We do have good weather in New Mexico and fortunately this is the one thing Democrats cannot destroy with their demands for ever bigger government. Good weather tends to attract retirees. Retirees are not looking for good paying jobs, just good weather. For them the widespread poverty actually keeps their living costs low.

 Those of us who own businesses and work hard to be competitive every day stay here in New Mexico mostly for three reasons. We love the weather, we value our lifelong friendships, and we depend on our businesses, which are anchored here.

However, once you move beyond the great weather, the friendships, and the businesses we built, we recognize  we live among a vast majority of uninformed people who have been conditioned by a politically motivated public education system to be fervently anti-business. At all levels in blue counties like Dona Ana the local elected officials are suspicious of and hostile towards free enterprise. Either overtly or by inference nearly every day, the motives of business people, even their basic sense of morality is questioned.

In New Mexico the fact that community-civic leaders who are successful business people pay the vast majority of the state income tax, property tax, and gross receipts tax is taken for granted. And despite the fact we support all of the important charity fundraisers to a much greater extent than any other segment of the population we are still characterized as ruthless bastards who exploit poor people for our own greedy and selfish purposes.

That is how I define what it is like to live in New Mexico.