No Good Deed Goes Unpunished Even for Republican Representatives

Mayor R. J. Berry is trying to get seventy-five of the most vulnerable homeless people off the streets and into a safe environment where they can be treated for their medical and mental conditions.

So far only 3 of those individuals have been helped but the process is a long one and finding placement is often difficult at best. The main difficulty for the people trying to place these individuals is the lack of medical facilities in the city that can treat mental illness and addiction.

Also there is the problem that no one wants a homeless individual moving into their neighborhood. These individuals usually have long criminal histories due to abuse of either drugs or alcohol. Their behavior is unpredictable at best and at worst could pose a potential danger to the people surrounding them.

Republicans are attacking Mayor Berry for wasting their few precious tax dollars on something as weak and unimportant as protecting vulnerable homeless people. With the summer heat coming those are the ones that will cost the city nine hundred thousand dollars in medical care and emergency services.

I see it all the time where the police are called to San Mateo and Kathryn for some homeless person who has passed out due to the heat or cold. It requires a few police officers and an ambulance to transport the individual to the nearest emergency room. All of these costs are paid for by the middle class taxpayers in this city. Very little of it is paid by the rich republicans who complain about the waste of helping these individuals the most.

It would help if the local convenience store would stop selling these individuals large cans of beer which they take to the local bus stop to drink since it provides the only shade in the area. These individual also go behind the local businesses to drink and do drugs which makes the local small business leaders upset because it discourages customers from visiting their establishments.

With over six hundred homeless individuals out on the streets and more to come this summer as the temperatures increase in the city I for one would hope that local government would do all they can to help these individuals. In the long run this will keep them and the good people of our city a lot safer on our city streets. It will also reduce the cost of caring for these people to the middle class taxpayers.

Still this one small program will not even begin to address the problems this city faces when it comes to helping the homeless. While the mayor is at it maybe he can do something about the dumping ground of sex offenders which has been building up in the southeast part of our city over the last ten years. This only encourages that part of our city from having safer neighborhoods. This in the long run attracts more of the homeless to that rundown part of the city.

The Lie Behind the False Truth—Cutting Government Spending does not Create Jobs!

Governor Susana Martinez refused to raise taxes and instead cut from education in this year’s legislative session. How does that affect New Mexico? First by cutting back teacher’s pay they managed to take that much more money out of the pockets of small businesses in this state. You can’t spend what you don’t have people.

Every time Martinez reduces government it means that other public sector jobs will also go away because those government workers will no longer have the money to spend in their local neighborhoods. Small town New Mexico is being hit the hardest because there are even fewer jobs in those areas to begin with in the first place.

So what should the governor of New Mexico be doing to fix the unemployment problem in this state? First close tax loopholes so that the money stays in the state. Second stop giving money to big oil and gas because their profits are already obscene.

Once we have that money how do we invest it back into the state to create jobs? First fix education so that the funding goes directly to teachers and support staff in the classrooms. Next we spend money on improving the classrooms with new textbooks, computers and supplies. We should spend some of it on educating our local teachers so that they can in turn improve their skills that they use in the classrooms.

Next we can start supporting small business growth in this state. Educate anyone and everyone who is willing to go out and start a small business. Encourage and promote new projects that are developed locally such as at the business park just outside Kirkland Air force base. Work with and encourage our National Labs to provide research and develop for local businesses.

All of this will put New Mexicans back to work and improve our economy.

Cutting funding to education and local government while keeping corporate taxes low is a sure way to cause our state to enter a second recession also referred to as a double dip recession which is something no one in this state wants to see happen. Not even the rich.