Broke but Woke

The governor of New Mexico is about to call a special session of the New Mexico state legislature.  The entire state should be afraid...very afraid.  Whenever this group of people gets together, there is no telling what might happen.  The Law of Gravity might be repealed or the state might join the Delian League and declare war on Persia.

Supposedly, the foremost legislative priority is to pass legislation legalizing recreational marijuana.  Unfortunately, this measure failed during the regular session because there was no consensus on how to tax it.  Well, to be honest, there was also a spirited debate on whether a citizen should be allowed to grow six plants or eight.  

Why is it that our legislature immediately presumes that any human activity that is permissible must also be taxed.

I’m probably wrong, but I’ve never thought the role of government was to regulate and control every aspect of its citizens’ lives.  I must be wrong, since evidently the sole responsibility of citizens is to provide an ever-increasing amount of tax money to our elected nannies.

Money, of course, is the primary motivation for the state’s justifying the legalization of marijuana.  Proponents of marijuana legalization have inundated the voters with ads and mailings claiming that if New Mexico will just legalize pot, it will magically bring in tens of thousands of jobs, will flood the treasury with new tax money, and probably will make it rain more often.

There is also the expectation that legalized pot would eliminate the criminal sale of marijuana.  Somehow, I’m skeptical to think illegal weed from Mexico—a country so close that I can see outside my office window—is going to be forced out of the market by a product regulated, licensed, inspected and taxed by the anti-business trolls from Santa Fe.

Supposedly, if the state will just legalize recreational pot, New Mexico will suddenly have 11,000 new jobs.  I live in a relatively small town, but if my math is correct, that means that my little town will suddenly have 550 people selling pot.  I’m curious: Is that about 100 little neighborhood pot shops (roughly one on every other street corner), or is that going to be one big, giant super Wal-Mart-like store?  Like a monster Cost-Co where I can just walk around and sample the chewables offered to me on a tray by some little old lady trying to supplement her Social Security check?

All of this sounds like that time about a dozen years ago when the state was going to legalize Indian gaming (Which is more aptly described as, “building tacky little casino wannabe bingo and slot machine parlors on every reservation”).  According to the out-of-state gambling corporations fronting for the various tribes, legalization would permanently solve the state’s entire budgetary problems with enough money left over to build an unused Spaceport and an empty tourist train.  

The horse racing industry took out ads that claimed that racetracks employed one out of every ten people in the state, all of whom would immediately become unemployed if people were able to play slot machines.  Actually, I don’t know anybody who works in the horse racing industry.  I don’t even know someone who knows someone who works with racehorses.  I still don’t know where those one in ten people are hiding.

The state legalized Indian gaming.  Aaaaannnd:  The horses still run around the race track and the promised the tax money did not appear.  I think the state may actually spend more money policing the gaming than we receive, though we went ahead and built the stupid Spaceport and the train, anyway.  If the state had built the stupid tourist train so that it connected the casinos to the race tracks….  Nah, I better not joke about that, the state legislature is still in session.

Then, there was the time that, if the state would only authorize a state lottery, it would provide so much revenue that the state could give every college student in the state a scholarship to cover tuition.   Now we have a state lottery, and the state allocates a measly 30% of the proceeds towards education.  Maybe the rest goes to cover the million dollars a month the stupid train loses.  (Which is a real bargain compared to the tab for the empty Spaceport.)

I hope you have noticed a couple of trends here.  First, the state keeps looking for an easy fix, since we know that actually expanding the state’s economy, creating jobs, and collecting taxes would violate the unofficial state motto:  We’ll try anything but hard work.  

Second, the state prefers to pass so-called ‘sin taxes’ that are primarily paid by people in the lowest economic strata of the state.  We have liquor taxes, lottery tickets, cigarette taxes, and casino taxes, and now we want to pass a marijuana tax?  All of these are incredibly regressive taxes for a state that prides itself on being so progressive.  

All of these taxes are aimed at products used primarily by the poor, the uneducated, and (at least traditionally) minorities.  We may be a state crammed full of schizophrenic hypocrites, but we be woke.  

In reality, the state lives and dies on the price of oil and gas, which provides one-third of the state government’s annual income.  We hate oil and gas, we despise fossil fuels, but we love the money.  The state pretends to be oh so progressive, but would secretly sell blood by the pint from the last surviving unicorn.  

Note:  Dear state legislature, I’m kidding.  There are no unicorns.  The last one was eaten by a wild jackalope.