I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
During remarks about the nation’s national debt and annual deficit at today’s Rio Rancho Town Hall, President Obama took the media to task for only paying attention to earmarks in the federal budget when there are much larger problems, namely “entitlement reform.”
Here are his remarks (slightly paraphrased):
During a recession of this severity, its important for the government to step in and fill the hole left by consumers and businesses …. But the long term debt and deficit is unsustainable.
We can’t keep borrowing from China or other countries. We have to pay interest on that and are mortgaging our children’s future. But also, they’ll eventually stop wanting to buy our debt…which will raise our interest rates…and dampen our economy. …The biggest thing we can do is tackle entitlements.
My administration has been going through the budget line by line to root out waste. We’ve eliminated 40 billion in procurement practices and no bid contracts in defense, and we’ve found $17 billion in programs that don’t work.
Let me pause to give a little commentary on the media.
When congress included in last years budget a whole bunch of earmarks, there was a weeks worth of stories about earmarks, but that’s less than one percent of entire budget that had been signed.
When we find 17 billion in cuts in programs, what do they say? “That’s not significant, not important.” But you can’t have it both ways. If those earmarks are important, then this is important too
But what is very true, is that we can eliminate waste, earmarks, and we still have a major problem because of social security, medicaid and medicare, and interest on the national debt.
I have said before and will say again, we are going to work with congress to enact serious entitlement reform that preserves a safety net but puts it on more stable footing
Its going to be hard, with some tough choices, and I’m going to need the support of the American public.
