Paul Gessing has a letter in National Review about Gary Johnson’s record as Governor of New Mexico. Mr. Gessing is President of the Rio Grande Foundation, New Mexico’s free market think tank. He is responding to an article by James Spiller which claimed that government spending grew by 7.29% per year during the years Gary Johnson was Governor:
One problem is that Spiller “credits” Johnson with spending money he had little control over. His spending numbers include federal dollars that flow into the state for everything from Medicaid to education. Including just the General Fund that the legislature and governor must agree to each year, Johnson’s first budget was $2.7 billion and his final budget, eight years later, was $3.9 billion (an increase of about 41 percent).
Thus, under Johnson, New Mexico’s General Fund spending grew by 4.67 percent annually, not the outrageous 7.29 percent rate cited by Spiller. Once you factor in inflation and New Mexico being a relatively fast-growing Western state (population growth in the Land of Enchantment has stagnated since the late 2000’s economic crisis), Johnson’s spending record looks much better.
As a self-identifying libertarian, I still find that growth too fast, but there is no doubt that Governor Johnson has more fully embraced his Libertarian viewpoint since leaving office in 2003.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435804/gary-johnson-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-election-2016
I will as soon as I see it, My apologies. I was away fromt the computer for a while.
Hopefully, the other writers will take them down when they see them. The poster has been asked politely at least 3 times to stop posting. I have no clue why he doesn’t respect us enough to stop.
Could someone please remove this repetitive crap from the Jim the Long Island spammer?
Great comment, langa — and how pathetically true!
It’s embarrassing when the big government cheerleaders at Neocon Review are blasting the “leading” candidate for the LP nomination — not for being too libertarian, but for not being libertarian enough!