country spent $160 million on negative ads and $17 million on positive ads. Now wonder my friend Lee Otteni from Farmington said the people up in San Juan County are turning off their TVs. They have been subjected to negative ads from Albuquerque TV in the Congressional race since Heather Wilson started them last July. They cant even vote in the race. The LA times says $11 million has been spent in this congressional race by the candidates and independant campaigns on 11,500 TV commercials. That is a lot of negative vibes going through the ether!My opponent has really helped in that too. He is at it again saying the I caused the Land Office to lose a hundred million dollars when I was Commissioner. Of course he fails to mention that 98% of all revenues are brought in by oil and gas and that plummeting oil prices in the 80's and 90's caused that. If he wants to blame me for that then you should blame him for $3 dollar a gallon gasoline for most of the year. Oh, thats right, it dropped to $2 a gallon for a few weeks until the election is past.
4 comments:
For one, during the debate, both candidates admitted to Madrid going negative first. Of course, that makes it harder to bash on Wilson so it's understandable for you to overlook that.
And for two, while I don't know the background, isn't it possible that companies can't or won't do business with you while they will work with Lyons; therefore validating is claim of you losing money for the land office?
That's about the most ridiculous thing I've read in a while - Companies "won't do business" with the Land Commissioner? Sure, oil and gas companies will just walk away from some of the highest producing gas fields in the nation because they don't like the land commissioner. It's pretty easy to find information on oil and gas production and how it relates to the price of these commodities, and how prices (and therefore production) fell in the 80's and early 90's. But then again, people like 'anonymous'seldom burden themselves with facts.
But what do they say about going back for a drink of milk after the milk has soured. Isn't that like expecting voters to vote you, a former land commissioner, back into office if there was, indeed, a financial fiasco last time you held the office?
Anonymous, I'm going to assume that your question is asked in good faith, not as a Lyons campaign worker cynically promoting a falsehood.
There was no financial fiasco, period. In truth, Jim Baca is probably responsible for more money distributed to our schools today than Mr. Lyons. Why? In his first term, Baca raised royalty rates and started the first audits of the oil industry on state lands. Why do you think he's not their favorite guy?
Not one Commissioner of Public Lands has ever influenced world oil prices. The question is whether Commissioners have done the best possible job for the trust funds and public lands during their terms. Lyons collects money from investigations started by Baca and Powell, and if Baca wins, he'll collect money from Lyons' activities.
Politicians tend toward the self-aggrandizing, but Lyons goes further than most. He may have donated some used computers, but even during record-high oil prices, he hasn't given anything close to a billion dollars to public schools.
Because the beneficiary institutions receive disbursements from the earnings -- not the principal -- AND because of the time value of money, AND because of the institutional changes he brought, during Pat Lyons's 4 years in office Jim Baca has almost certainly been responsible for a larger share of the payout to public schools than the current Commissioner. Ten, twenty, thirty years from now, the impacts of funds collected during Lyons' term will really be felt. That's the beauty of the trust system all of us -- Baca and Lyons included -- have inherited as New Mexicans.
Hope this helps.
-Geoff Webb
former Assistant Commissioner
New Mexico State Land Office
Post a Comment