Debate: Martin Heinrich verse Jon Barela

Let’s address the elephant in the blog room first, I don’t like corporate lobbyists or anyone married to corporate lobbyists! Lobbyists spend all of their time supporting large corporations at the expense of small business owners and the voting public in this state. Intel may bring lots of jobs to New Mexico which we do value but they also pay large dollars to lobby the state and national legislatures both in Santa Fe and in Washington DC to acquire valuable water rights in this state. I find it hard to believe in the coming years someone who worked hard in Santa Fe for this corporation would have the voting public’s best interest at heart when it comes to the issue of water rights in our state. When we talk about ethics one of the major issues that always arises is the appearance of impropriety, and I can think of no better example of that then a lobbyist running for a publicly held office.

Now as for healthcare, I just spent the entire day yesterday in line with my 15 year old child just to get free dental care. I was one of 1,000 New Mexicans who cannot afford dental care for their families. My child got 5 filings and I got a far overdue cleaning which just might save my gums and teeth. Jon Barela may not support national healthcare reform but he is not faced with taking off from work all day just to stand in line with 1,000 other New Mexican families who cannot afford healthcare for their children and themselves in this congressional district. Congressman Martin Heinrich is right that the current reform is far from perfect but what we started out with two years ago is not worth going back to just to watch large HMOs reap huge profits while the New Mexico workforce goes without healthcare for themselves and their families.

As for energy and the environment both candidates had good points. We need to support our national labs when it comes to developing new technologies that will support the growth of a sound diverse energy policy in this country. We need to invest in promoting the development of many different types of energy so as not to be far too dependent on any one source of energy. The military needs sound systems so that if something did happen that they would not loss power and be unable to support the voting public. Our economy in this city depends on our Airforce base, Sandia National Labs and the revenues they deliver to our local economy. We know that both candidates will support that system.

Education is an issue, I believe neither candidate fully understands this issue to the point that I would like in a U.S. Congressman. Throwing money at the issue is clearly not the answer since it does go to all of the wrong people while our children, our teachers and our state’s workforce pay the price for a failed system. Mr. Barela is dead wrong about just handing control of that money back to the educational administration at a local level. To hand back control of money to local educational administrators would be like giving money to a drug addict and asking them to go pay the rent. We need statewide and national reforms that puts teacher and not educational administration back in control of their classrooms and how they teach our children.

Yes, I believe that teacher should be held accountable as should parents, and society in general for the education of our future workforce. I think educational administrators should know that their paychecks should come last not first when we are faced with a tight budget. Suing the state when we have a losing coach who earns $750,000 a year while programs fail from lack of funding is just one example of a failed values system in this state’s educational administration. I am at this point not so sure that firing all educational administration in this state and starting over again with administrators who put our children’s education first and hold teachers accountable for individual children’s educational progress would be such a bad decision. If administrators cannot get their act together and put our children‘s needs before their own like most well-trained teachers who sacrifice a high paid industry paycheck just to educate our children every day of their lives do then what are we paying administrators for in the first place? Working in the educational system as a administrator should not be a pathway to getting rich at the expense of our children and their future or for that matter state taxpayers.

I am supporting Congressman Martin Heinrich for congressional district one because the other candidate is just far to unsuited for the job and would not do a better job if elected. We need someone in Washington who will work for the best interest of our children, the voting public and not a corporation that he spent time lobbying for in the private sector. We don’t need a congressman who would suck up to yet another large corporate interest just to land a new highly paid lobbying position in the future at the expense of New Mexican families.