190 Negative Oil Prices, Voting Ruling, Taxes and Spending, Shut Down

On this week’s podcast, Paul has a brief discussion with New Mexico Rep. Larry Scott, a Republican from Hobbs. Scott is also in the oil and gas industry which saw prices go negative for the first time ever. What does it mean for the industry and NM’s budget?  

Paul and Wally take over from there with a few additional points about oil prices…how low can they go? Furthermore, the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day is coming up and CO2 emissions are plummeting. This should make the environmentalists happy, right? No, they claim we need several years of even larger decreases in CO2 emissions to “really” address global warming.    

RGF is working to get legislators to pledge not to raise taxes in wake of CoronaVirus: http://riograndefoundation.org/pledge

Bernalillo County Passes a budget with irresponsible 7% growth and new employee hiring. Albuquerque also faces a budget shortfall.

RGF’s recent “Eight Shutdown Decisions Gov. MLG Should Consider Reversing Right Now”generated a record response and website traffic. On the issue of reopening NM’s economy: 

Calibers gun shop receives a “Cease and desist” order from Gov. MLG.

Superior Express Car Wash in Artesia was shut down by NMSP. There was no person to person contact. Automated wash. Why shut it down?
Police attend funeral covered on front page of ABQ Journal, no social distancing.

The Archdiocese of Las Cruces Bishop Peter Baldacchino became the first-known U.S. prelate to lift a diocesan ban on public Mass April 15, 2020, and told priests they may resume sacramental ministry if they follow state health mandates.

New Mexico’s GOP wins unanimous Court Case against mail-in elections. Gov. Lujan Grisham says on Twitter that “In-person voting poses a grave threat of heightened transmission of #COVID19. I remain confident NM’s primary election can be conducted almost entirely if not entirely through mail to ensure the safest possible exercise of New Mexicans’ right to vote.”

Her spokesman Tripp Stelnicki stated “You don’t have to ask the death cult their opinion or publish their quotes. False equivalence now is actually life or death. There is no “both sides” to this. There is one group preaching accelerated illness & death because they “love” “business” & if you can’t see through that?”

Finally, Rep. Javier Martínez who chairs the House Tax Committee in the New Mexico Legislature wrote, “Years of policies that uphold historically racist systems like..failures 2 invest land grant fund in youngest kids, failures 2 build water systems in communities w/out, failures 2 build an economy that works for ALL..are big part of reason why #Covid19 is hitting us the hardest.”

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