Marty Chavez should just go ahead and change his registration to Republican. After all, he is being egged on by Republicans to do a job on Congressman Tom Udall over budget cuts at Los Alamos National Labs. Chavez, who is running a negative campaign against Udall, is doing what he does best. Bait and switch. Udall sensibly saw the handwriting on the wall recently over the Lab's dubious role of concentrating on nuclear weapons component production and design. Marty Chavez issued a press release yesterday saying that Udall didn't care about Northern New Mexicans who would lose their jobs at the Labs. What Marty is really doing here is the work of the Defense Industry and their republican enablers. Nuclear weapons make a big market for other weapons systems.This is pure Marty Chavez. It is his way or the highway. Obviously he doesn't realize that there are a majority of 525 Congressmen and Senators who also feel that the labs missions must change. They also realize pounding money down a rat hole of nuclear weapons is not making this country energy independent or a leader in other scientific research. Just maybe, that might happen if the Lab's mission is redirected and that is what much of this budget fight is about. This is about Marty standing for the status quo.
If I were Marty Chavez I would start worrying about a looming budget crisis at city hall. His double digit budget increases will soon come home to roost on our city. Since Albuquerque's revenues depend primarily on sales tax we can be assured of a big hit over the next couple of quarters. Marty's traffic light cameras won't be able to fill in the gaps.
3 comments:
As an employee of LANL I'm upset that a lot of jobs are at stake and that the weapons program, which is going down, is not being replaced with another more progressive program. Why should good scientists and good people be fired, when they could be leading our nation to a brighter future with very inovative projects?
You are exactly correct on redirecting money from weapons to energy research at the labs. Bush wont do it because it wont go in the pockets of the defense contractors and it wont benefit the oil and gas industry.
Los Alamos National Laboratories doesn't have a production mission right now. Unfortunately, gutting LANL's budget will not guarantee a new mission of science, but rather will wither the Labs scientific capabilities and cement LANL's role as the nation's plutonium pit manufacturing facility, which doesn't require highly educated scientists. Udall's strategy of cutting the budget for the better is merely wishful thinking, and will only lead to New Mexico being home to the next Rocky Flats.
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