The Albuquerque Journal plays a dangerous game. This morning in their Business Outlook section they extol the economic importance of Sandia National Labs to the city of Albuquerque and the State of New Mexico. It describes the $386 million in contracts let from Sandia, the fact that it pays $65 million in corporate taxes, employs close to 10,000 citizens and generally shores up our economy.
But the tax hating and right wing Journal never manages to mention that this is made possible by, you guessed it, federal tax dollars that fund virtually all of Sandia's research and development. The Journal has attempted to turn this whole enterprise into a victory for corporate entities while making only one fleeting mention of the Department of Energy, and nothing about the American taxpayer who funds it all. (One can only wonder how the Journal will approach a story saying funding and jobs are drying up for the labs due to their insinuations that the federal government and its public servants are akin to blood sucking vampires.)
I am hopeful you will find the time to watch the interview that Bill Moyer did with a Reagan republican this weekend. You can find a link on yesterday's post.
1 comment:
Can't wait until those Republicans running for President come to New Mexico and tell our citizens that they'll abolish the DOE once they become President. Oh yeah, look at all the tax savings we'll have when we cut out all that government money. Can't wait to see who is going to step in from private industry to maintain those labs and waste sites seeing how there must be so much money to be made in holding onto and protecting nuclear waste and assests! And I don't understand where all the private enterprise is now that we've cut out the "middle man" - the federal government from the space biz in Florida. Gee, all the contractors should be lining up to fund from their own pockets that future base on the moon.
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