What dry government gathering has lately packed meeting rooms around the state with eager attendees?
It was the state’s briefings to coach local governments and tribes in the skills of trolling for economic stimulus money. Those sums seem to get larger by the day. New Mexico’s $1.8 billion is now $3 billion and rising, according to stimulus czar and former governor, Toney Anaya.
Local government officials all have long lists of projects, but supplicants are finding the process arduous.
“This is the most confusing process I’ve ever been associated with in all my years in government,” Clovis City Manager Joe Thomas told his local newspaper. His years in government exceed 35.
And yet Clovis has finessed the system well enough to receive $830,000 towards repair of an overpass, and other communities around the state will also see new money, but officials are surprised at the paperwork.
It isn’t nearly as easy as shaking money out of the Legislature. (And speaking of shaking money out of the Legislature, the state Republican Party has called for Rep. Richard Vigil, a Las Vegas Democrat, to resign after his wife became a felon for misspending public money – funneled to her by her husband’s legislation. The propriety of that move would seem obvious, but some elected officials grow ever more shameless.)
One lesson offered by the stimulus gold rush is this: When public officials crab about red tape, it indicates a process designed to track dollars, provide fairness, assure accountability and reduce abuses. The process won’t be perfect, but without it the program looks like a lottery that everybody can win.
Anaya’s office, according to its Web site, “is dedicated to securing as many federal funds as possible for New Mexico to revitalize the economy, protect existing jobs and create new jobs.” Securing federal funds is something we’re good at here in New Mexico. And the projects, so far, seem necessary, as opposed to the usual parade of community centers and ball fields emerging from the Legislature.
But eventually the bill will come due. The financial crisis that spawned this economic stimulus is all about bills coming due. And then what?
Last week I overheard two educated women talking about the government printing money, the deficit, the hyperinflation they expect and their general sense of doom and gloom. They’re not alone.
The Republicans, who sense this uneasiness, are peddling economic doom and gloom, just as Democrats did before the election. But nobody has all the answers. Like Captain Kirk, we’re lost in deep space, and even Spock doesn’t know how to get us back.
Most people understand that we’re trying to spend our way out of this recession, as FDR attempted to do way back when, only FDR’s programs didn’t end the Depression. It was the much bigger spending for a world war that pulled our economic jalopy from the ditch.
Republicans are officially alarmed about the deficit; it’s a suitable role for the “loyal opposition,” but they’re a wee bit compromised. For the previous eight years, only a few true-blue conservatives, the party poopers, complained about the Republican deficit. Their stock response: The economy will grow out of it. Which is now what we’re hearing from Dems.
It’s hard to imagine the economy growing out of this mountain of IOUs. So what will it be? Higher taxes or budget cuts? Either choice is politically unpalatable. In New Mexico and elsewhere, any threatened funding cut always provokes a loud public outcry. Elected officials of both parties have taught us that we can have it all.
Still, I don’t feel too gloomy just yet. In our Swiss cheese economy, I see progress and possibilities. The Enterprise, battered and minus a few crew members, always makes it home.
© New Mexico News Services 2009