Thanks for Commenting
Hi Mario:
I share your concern relative Tom Udall’s ambiguity in regards to LANL. I too, would love a clearer understanding of just where he stands. Is he for or against pit production at LANL, by FAR LANL’s largest mission statement? Is he for private enterprise, or for government welfare?
In the spirit of your blog (clear thinking) let’s start with distinguishing between two things:
1.What is good for LANL employees and what is good for the rest of New Mexicans
2."Jobs" vs. "economic well" being or “inputs” vs. "outputs"
Jobs, by themselves, do NOTHING to increase economic well being, something I used to think conservatives and “small government” folks understood, but apparently no more. The FEWER jobs it takes to achieve a particular objective, the better off one is. As one learns in Economics 101, one can “create” as many jobs as one wishes by dividing the labor pool in half, one half digging holes and the other filling them in. But what is accomplished??
What most people mean by “job” creation is really “welfare” creation- ie they are really interested, not so much in the job, but in the money payment. But again, one cannot create wealth by creating money. While it is true the recipients gain, this “gain” is offset by the “loss” to those not receiving welfare payments in the form of higher prices. In fact if there are strings attached to these welfare payments (ie one is required to stop performing useful work), there is a net LOSS to New Mexicans, the “unintended consequence” that is at the heart of what economists do. These payments are NOT merely redistributive, but result in an ABSOLUTE decline in goods and services available to New Mexicans, ie they result in an DECREASE in NM economic well being. The “jobs created” by reallocating labor from productive use to unproductive use means that, rather than the Government intervention being a “ major economic engine” as Charles Mansfield, president of the Laboratory Retiree Group Inc., alleges in your November 21, 2007 post, LANL is an economic albatross around our necks, driving us deeper into poverty. If one bothers to get out of one’s ideological ivory tower, and look at the economic data, one will find an INVERSE correlation between LANL expenditures and NM median income. Of course, I suspect it is not so much NM well being, but LANL well being that Mr. Mansfield is interested in, even if every dollar LANL employees receive cost the rest of New Mexicans two dollars.
Ditto for the illusion that finding a new mission for Cannon AFB is something NM should be thankful for. While it is true that there is a significant cost associated with employment transistons, studies show that these SR losses are offset by LR gains. So here too, NM would have been better served by having our NM delegation help wean us off of the government teat, and towards private consumptive goods (or at least public infrastructure that has consumptive value).
Until new Mexicans understand the
There appears to be different types of funding for, um, "our" federal laboratory. Some congressional spending bills fund nuclear pit manufacture, some computer science, some energy related. Udall appears to have voted for some types of funding while eschewing others. This is slightly different than the usual pork barrel pan handler's (Hi, Pete!) approach to federal cash but he appears to accurately describe which type of funding he has voted for.
Yesterday's New Mexican has a story about Udall voting for LANL funding: http://www.santafenewmexican.com...te-against-
cuts .
I'm not sure what you are trying to say. The Air Force no longer wants bases here; the labs are a WW II / Cold War legacy with an overpriced, ill-defined mission, but fighting to keep the federal welfare pouring into the state is what? The free market at work? Conservatism? Small government? No thanks, we have enough Ted Stevens, Don Youngs, and Pete Domenicis.
Hilarious.
And Mario you have to ask youself if this is the issue to vote on...who gives more support to the labs?? Udall or Pearce..hmmm Pearce votes against everything under the sun.
Two other articles that shed light on what is at issue are:
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
LANL Funds May Be Sliced
By John Fleck And Michael Coleman
Copyright © 2008 Albuquerque Journal
http://www.abqjournal.com/north/...alt06-25-
08.htm
This ABQ article links to the specifics in the committee proposal, comparing it to the DOE/NNSA request, as well as to the FY2008 amounts
Visclosky's statement is here:
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/p...y/
pr080617.html
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Cutting the W88 - The Right Target
by Peter Stockton and Ingrid Drake
Project On Government Oversight
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo...ng-the-
w88.html
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