Home Stretch Questions for Gary Johnson #5

Former Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson speaking at a Campaign for Liberty event at CPAC. (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikipedia)

Governor Johnson,

At OnTheIssues.Org, you are quoted to the following effect on federal spending and federal debt:

"I have proposed cutting the federal budget by 43 percent to bring it into balance. It can be done. It requires the will and ability to ignore and even fight the special interests that have a vested interest in more and more government spending." -- Washington Times, 02/02/12

"I'd avoid continually raising the debt ceiling by not incurring more debt!" -- 2011 Republican primary debate on Twitter.com, 07/21/11

"We can quibble over economists' numbers, but it doesn't take an economist to know that continuing to add to the national debt is bankrupting us -- and that debt has doubled on [Barack Obama's] watch, aided and abetted by Congress." -- Libertarian Party response to 2016 State of the Union speech, 01/12/16

How do you square these wonderful policy positions with the facts that:

• New Mexico's state government spending grew under your governorship -- in fact it grew faster than the rate of inflation, faster than the rate of population growth, and faster than federal spending has grown during the presidency of Barack Obama; and
• New Mexico's state debt more than doubled under your governorship, just like the US national debt has doubled during the presidency of Barack Obama?

ADDENDUM: In comments below this post, Marc Scribner offers a detailed argument as to why New Mexico's debt under Johnson is materially different -- and more defensible than -- US debt under Obama (or any other president). If I had to summarize that argument, part of it might go something like "New Mexico's debt is like a home mortgage, US national debt is like using a credit card to take a vacation." But there's more to it than that, so hit the comments and read Marc's explanation, please.

Home Stretch Questions for Gary Johnson #4

Former Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikipedia)

Governor Johnson,

In a recent debate with fellow Libertarian presidential aspirant Austin Petersen in Oregon, you said "So I have a political arm, Our America Initiative, and we've been more outspoken regarding the Patriot Act perhaps than any other organization, writing editorials constantly about the Patriot Act and the infringement that it poses to all of us. As governor of New Mexico, I would have never ever established the Department of Homeland Security. I think it's incredibly redundant." You make that claim starting at about 26 minutes, 10 seconds into this video:



The National Governors Association says otherwise in its reprint of the New Mexico Department of Public Safety's Homeland Security Strategic Plan:

In January 2002, Governor Johnson appointed the Department of Public Safety (DPS) Cabinet Secretary, Thomas L. English, as his Homeland Security Advisor. Mr. English immediately established the Office of Emergency Services and Security (OESS) to carry out homeland security functions and requirements. In July 2002, Mr. English established the DPS, Special Investigations Division, CounterTerrorism Intelligence Section (CTIS).

The strategic plan describes an aggressive intelligence and surveillance plan, to include expanding New Mexico's war on drugs under cover of the war on terror, in direct contradiction to your public statements indicating a desire to pare back the drug war:

The State's Homeland Security Advisor created a counterterrorism intelligence section within the Department of Public Safety, Special Investigations Division. This section will train law enforcement officers statewide in basic terrorism concepts and procedures in developing useful counter-terrorism intelligence. Another focus of this unit will be on identifying sources of drug funds and repositories for drug proceeds. It is believed that drug monies are being utilized to fund terrorist organizations.

The record says that you actually did exactly what you now say you never would have done, not just on the broad issue of "Homeland Security" but with respect to the war on drugs and police militarization (as of the strategic report, using federal grants of more than $5 million for equipment purchases).

What other parts of your actual record as governor of New Mexico are the exact opposite of the claims you make about that record today?

Home Stretch Questions for Gary Johnson, #3

Former Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikipedia)

Governor Johnson,

Most governors and other high public officials with significant wealth put that wealth in "blind trust" while in office. This involves liquidating known assets and having a trustee invest and manage wealth without the official knowing the details.

Your "blind trust" was a little different: It involved retaining ownership of your construction company, Big J, turning putative management of that company over to your campaign treasurer, allowing the company to bid on state projects run by your administration while claiming that it didn't, attempting to remove two New Mexico Tech regents who had the gall and temerity to choose another contractor over Big J for a state-funded project, and hiring Big J's former president on a no-bid contract under which he was paid $20,000 to write a ten-page report suggesting that you be more "bold" and "dramatic" as governor.

That record, combined with your 2012 presidential campaign's dishonest finance reporting, its outstanding debt of between $1.5 million and $1.9 million, and its tendency to function more as an instrument for the care and feeding of "political consultants" than as an actual campaign, raises two questions:

First, was your problem from 1995-2012 that you were ethically challenged, or that you were not a very competent executive, or both?

Second, is there any reason to believe that you've become more honest and/or more competent since 2012, especially given that your current campaign is once again spending the bulk of its money on the same "political consultants," operating from the same address, only under a new company name?

Home Stretch Questions for Gary Johnson, #2

Former Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson speaking at a Campaign for Liberty event at CPAC.  (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikipedia)

Governor Johnson, as of 1996 you supported having state employees kill 13-year-old prisoners:

Have you changed your mind about that?

And have you changed your mind on your 1997 support for lowering the bar from unanimity to majority vote for a jury to decide to have state employees kill prisoners?

What's your position on capital punishment this week?

In October 2001 you said that Terry Clark deserved to die and signed the death warrant for the first execution in New Mexico in 41 years. But by January of 2002 you were claiming to be against the death penalty. Kind of. Sort of. In one of those "say it, then take it back" ways you have:

"I believe in the death penalty ... I believe in an eye for an eye. I believe that if you kill somebody, you should pay for that act with your own life. But I have become convinced that the death penalty as public policy is flawed and shouldn't exist."

Errrrr ...

One of your Democratic opponents in the state senate implied that you were trying to trade death penalty repeal for the drug law relaxations you wanted. And it turned out you had actually said you would -- before retracting the offer: "I was asked at a press conference if I would consider trading the death penalty for the passage of the drug reform measures ... I said, 'Yeah, I probably would.' After I said it, I said, 'Time out. Let me renege on what I just said.' I would not trade that off. I'm telling you that because this is something I believe in and I will judge it on its own merits."

An exasperated Jim Belshaw confessed in an op-ed for the Albuquerque Journal to "rhetorical whiplash" over your backs and forths on capital punishment. "Is he sincere?" asked Belshaw. "I don't know. Only he does."

I don't know either. So I thought I'd ask.

Home Stretch Questions for Gary Johnson, #1

Johnson speaking at a Campaign for Liberty event at CPAC. (Photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikipedia)

Governor Johnson, in 1997 you became the first governor of New Mexico to ever be held in contempt by your state's Supreme Court, for attempting to rule by executive decree when the legislature wouldn't pass a welfare reform bill you wanted. Do you regret that overreach? Given the US Supreme Court's greater deference to executive power than your own state's, if elected president, could you be trusted to resist the temptations of the imperial presidency?