New Mexico Embraces the Unthinkable

 NM's Future "Demand Economy"

The isignia just to the left is a clue that this post is another in MeanMesa's continuing series of suggestions for the growth of a demand economy in the State of New Mexico.  In each case, these posts pose another possibility for growing a robust, functioning economy by adopting courageous new plans or simply encouraging our State Legislature to "roll up their sleeves" and take a few common sense steps to reduce the unemployment, increase the disposable income in the pockets of New Mexicans and generally open the door to a promising new economic future.

The "demand economy" idea is simple enough.  Instead of our present infatuation with manufacturing private jets, fabricating high tech computer chips or promoting orbital sight seeing cruises for the rich and famous, we can build a self-sustaining economy which can offer thousands of New Mexicans a job, an income and a real opportunity for a prosperous, satisfying life.

Right here.  Right now.  Built on what we already have.  Built by the people who already live here.

We've already looked at manufacturing efficient thermal windows and residential cisterns.  This post looks at a remarkable agricultural possibility which seems to just be waiting for someone to "start the engine."

A Quick Over View of New Mexico Agriculture

The leading farm "business" revenue for New Mexico is solidly from dairy products and live stock -- primarily cattle and calves.  Predictably, the State's largest agricultural crop is the production of hay to provide the feed necessary.  Even so, due to the State's growing conditions for hay, a large percentage of this livestock is exported to "greener pastures" for feeding prior to final slaughter.

In terms of "grown crops," the largest revenue is from pecan orchards -- 3% to 4% of total revenue.

In terms of revenue generated New Mexico's top five agricultural products are dairy products [39%], cattle and calves [37%], hay, pecans, and greenhouse and nursery products [2%].   Various farms in New Mexico produce smaller crops of cotton, grain sorghum, onions and wheat.

Of course, New Mexico also produces its famous green chilies, widely considered a delicacy and a limited size but very profitable agricultural product.  [This information is from the New Mexico Economy Section of this site: http://www.netstate.com/economy/nm_economy.htm ]

A quick visit to Dreaming New Mexico, A Bioneers Collaborative Project fills out a few more of the basic statistic very nicely. [Read the entire article http://www.dreamingnewmexico.org/food/ff-crops ]

Overview New Mexico Agriculture

New Mexico has over 5,500 farms that grow directly about 50 edible crops (and endless varieties). Santa Cruz Farms in Española, for instance, grows 76 crop varieties of 3.5 acres. Chispas Farms grows 50 varieties of garlic for sale and over 300 to save the cultivars! The number of both truck market farms and crop varieties planted has continued to grow over the last decade. Top commercial crops for the mass market are: pecans, onions, greenhouse nursery crops, chile (see Boxes) and winter wheat (286,000 acres). Peanuts (about 10,000 acres), potatoes (about 5,500 acres), sweet corn and dry beans (about 7.500 acres) are important in specific agro-ecoregions. There are many farms growing apples (over 900 totaling over 2,000 acres), and over 1,000 acres each of grapes, pistachios, pumpkins, rye and watermelons. Most of the top crops are exported.

Given this mass-market production and local market diversity, New Mexico could eat well (in season) perhaps 50% or more of its edibles from foodshed farms. The exact amount will depend on crop-specific assessments to see what import crops can be most easily substituted and the willingness of farmers to grow the crops.

The typical New Mexico farmer is nearly 60 years old and may not be eager to redesign his or her business. Nevertheless, with good farmland decreasing, an unknown number of these farms and farmers will need to change crops to fulfill the dream.

How can government, private investors and nonprofits help increase farm gate profits and direct edible crops into local markets? A good example was the State Memorial to bring fresh, local foods to schools. The Farm to School program requires farmers to carry a one million dollar insurance policy, to harvest less than 24 hours before delivery, package in three-pound increments, and label each box with the farmer’s name and the package’s destination. Despite this extra insurance and work, this exclusive market segment stabilizes and reduces financial risk to the crop farmer, who knows in advance how much will be bought and at what price. Institutional markets help farmers switch to a new agrarian economy.

Overview Water and Crop Land

Some believe water will be more important than energy in the near future. New Mexico uses about 75% of all its water for irrigation. Water disputes rage over irrigation between: New Mexico and other states, tribes and nations; urban growth and farmers; outdated water rights rules and modern understandings of the connections between groundwater and surface water; farmers and the state on issues such as who owns conserved water; and many more. Water and energy have become entangled with farming as a major energy need: pumping groundwater and treating wastewater to meet water qualities demanded by downstream users. Water needs for power plant cooling (coal, nuclear or solar thermal) conflict with irrigation needs. The energy to desalinate brackish waters will limit new water sources for New Mexico.

Water is “Don Divino,” the divine benefactor of sustenance. Native Americans have worshiped and danced for rain for thousands of years. When local foodsheds were the only foodsheds, water was life. Today there are great disharmonies between humans and water resources. Water can be viewed as a monetary commodity, an option for growth in the future that must be “banked” in the present, or for its intrinsic worth to all life (fish, trees, riparian birds). Water is central to defining a moral economy.

Agriculture and New Mexico's Demand Economy

New Mexico's agricultural production, the revenue it generates and the jobs it provides are all limited by water availability.  This is hardly a shocking revelation.  

However, in terms of both the economic growth potential of the state and the number of jobs in the agricultural industry, it's clear that the best business models will be based on producing the agricultural products which are most profitable.  With respect to marketability and the margin between production cost and potential sales prices, our famous apples, pecans, cherries and chilies seem to stand out above the others.

The pressing question is not "What and how much can be grown here at all?" but, instead, "What can be grown here which can bring the highest sustainable profit at market?"

The most successful agri-businesses produce the greatest discretionary income, the most jobs and the greatest foundation for the systemic wealth which can be the engine of a demand economy.  The better individual New Mexico businessmen -- in this case farmers -- can do, and the better that New Mexico workers -- in this case farm workers -- can do, the closer the state will move toward a local, sustainable prosperity.

There is no single solution for New Mexico economic growth.  What we want to do is to start thinking about a whole set of new ideas, each one of which can add a little or a lot.

So, we're looking for an addition to that list of high profit, good market products above.  Further, MeanMesa has no intention of conducting that new product search while imagining that New Mexico has just as much water and arable land as, say, Ohio. We will definitely have to work with what we've got.

Farmers are famous for their common sense.  The final test for the proposal in this post will be whether or not New Mexico farmers think they can make a better profit with the new opportunities it might present.

New Mexico Legislature Legalizes Hemp Agriculture

Let's eliminate  a "big dose of the flying fur and feathers" right off the bat.

A number of states, notably Colorado to our north, have recently decriminalized the possession of small quantities of marijuana.  Quite aside from the more Libertarian reasons justifying these changes, the sheer cost of massive prison populations, tied up judicial systems and police departments which are naturally, overly attracted to these essentially effortless arrests have finally reached a "common sense" tipping point.

One further point, most agricultural hemp has a THC content [the psychotropic ingredient in marijuana] in the .3% range, far below what would be required for the inebriating effect.

Of course this same change would benefit New Mexico's state budget just as much. [MeanMesa has posted on this subject before: Fixing New Mexico's Budget and Prisons ]  However, this post is not about legalizing marijuana.  This post is about the business prospects of growing hemp agriculturally.

The reason that hemp agriculture is illegal right now comes from several suspiciously advantageous judicial rules from decades ago.  As late as during World War II, the Defense Department actually encouraged farmers to grow the crop because it was so widely useful for the war effort.  After the war Southern cotton farmers influenced the Congress to pass the anti-hemp laws to protect their already dwindling [off shored...] cotton markets.

The anti-hemp agriculture laws never particularly had anything to do with smoking marijuana.  That was a primarily racist inflammatory injected into the mix in hopes of firing up the under informed electorate of the 1940's, a period we now know as the era of "Reefer Madness."

When we look at hemp agriculture through the lens of a more modern technology, we find a number of tantalizing possibilities.  Further, these are not simply flippant prospects founded on the "flame value" we might find inadvertently attractive for being the fist state to challenge those now pointless old Federal statutes.

The crop can produce plenty of commercially profitable products -- everything from compressed hemp building supplies to a very competitive biofuel with quite attractive emissions chemistry.  Various strains of hemp are currently in production across the planet where agricultural laws are, shall we say, somewhat more rational.

There are hemp strains specifically tailored for seed production. Hemp seed and fiber are presently used for biofuel production, food and food supplements, particularly as a non-fish Omega-3 oil source, fabric, livestock feed [remember? 37% of New Mexico current agricultural revenue is from livestock husbandry] and clothing manufacturing, rope and textiles.  Hemp crop fields provide soil rehabilitation following over-farming. 

All this may appear a bit encyclopedic, but ... what if agricultural hemp products, grown on farms in New Mexico and manufactured in facilities in New Mexico, actually held the promise of being a commercially profitable industry?

And, while we're on the subject, what if that new industry could also promise sustainable manufacturing jobs for unemployed New Mexicans along with increased agricultural revenues for New Mexico farmers?

How We Get Started

The inhabitants of the Round House will be, predictably, uninterested in such a controversial proposal unless it is based on well conducted research.  Not even famously impulsive MeanMesa would suggest simply diving into this filled with wild expectations while wearing a blindfold.

Still, shouldn't we find out the facts?  If it turns out that this proposal doesn't make sense, we can shelf the whole works and return to whatever we were doing before to increase economic growth in the state.

It so happens that the Round House crowd loves to hire consultants from Texas to figure out just about everything.  When those consultants hand over the results of one of their famous investigations, the Round Housers take it seriously, Otherwise, dreams die by the dozen right there in Santa Fe.  The price we pay for this stunning lack of imagination is dumbfounding.

This particular research task won't need to be handed over to out of state experts.  Our legislature is subsidizing a nice collection of state universities -- some of which contain some real talent, in this case, agricultural engineers.  One or more of those agricultural engineering departments would jump at the opportunity to land a nice sized State grant.

This research project would encompass other areas, too.  Markets and products will need to be explored.  Manufacturing processes must be examined. The economic and environmental impact must be studied. Soil, climate and water questions must be answered.  However, our universities have plenty of talent specifically focused on every one of these areas.

After such an investigation has been conducted for, say, a year, the results can be handed to the Round House with fairly strong confidence.  Then a decision can be made.  If the proposal has merit, a pilot project can be started a year later.  Cash-wise, the money spent for this would 1. pale in comparison to what we pay daily to out of state consultants and experts, and 2. would wind up funding engineering departments right here in New Mexico state universities.

This one deserves a vote.

If you are a New Mexican fortunate enough to have an actual Representative -- one who actually read your letter or email -- drop them a note.  Refer them to this MeanMesa post.

Further Reading

There are plenty of pro-hemp sites on the internet, but a particularly useful one is from the Oregon State University Extension Service.  It is titled:

Feasibility of Industrial Hemp Production in the United States Pacific Northwest

and you can visit it at this link: 

 http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/html/sb/sb681/#Climatic%20Requirements

New Mexico Windows & the New Mexico Legislature

About This Post

This is another MeanMesa post in the series about job creation and economy growth in New Mexico.  Some of the most recent previous posts on this subject can be found at these MeanMesa links:

NM Jobs: It's Not Working! Do It Some More!

Supply and Demand in the High Desert
New Mexico: Getting Serious About Economy Growth
New Mexico: Recovery Jump Start or Marshall Plan?
 

It is also important to note that this post is actually intended to accomplish a few things.  Most importantly, it presents an action plan which it would be nice for the Round House to consider.  If, as a New Mexican, you think that some or all of the proposals might actually help the State's economy, take a minute and email a note to Santa Fe.

Second, it contains the rationale behind the MeanMesa proposal to get New Mexico rental owners to participate in the window renovation plan. This part of MeanMesa's proposal is an important one.  New Mexicans with higher incomes are doing well enough, but the "poverty part" of being the "poorest state in the union" extends for miles in every direction from the gated communities -- like tattered wall paper.

State legislatures in more prosperous places have to deal with "pockets" of poverty.  New Mexico has "pockets" where there isn't poverty.

One would assume that Santa Fe is eagerly awaiting some sort of plan to address this!  This post runs through exactly what the role of our State government would be if they really wanted to help.

 A Quick Look At Where We Are

The MeanMesa posting first listed among the links above contains a few direct quotes from the Governor.

Gov. Susana Martinez must have been listening. While addressing local chambers of commerce on Jan. 3, she rolled out her New Century Jobs Agenda that included what has been called a “single sales factor” that would only tax products and services sold within the state. And she outlined a plan to reduce corporate income taxes from 7.6 percent to 4.9 percent for companies generating more than $1 million in net income.

and there was this,

Other aspects of the governor’s jobs agenda include: $10 million to fund the Local Economic Development Act for recruiting companies to the state; $4.75 million for hiring and training new employees through the Job Training Incentive Program; refining the capital outlay process for state infrastructure projects; passage of an “informed consent law” for spacecraft manufacturers and supplies; and increased investment in the New Mexico MainStreet program to preserve downtown historical and cultural locations.

 

These are "schemes."

Just the kind of "supply side schemes" that ALEC really likes.  The kind of "schemes" ALEC doesn't mind "paying" for, either.

The "supply side" aspect is worth just a little more inspection here.  What the Governor has proposed with the one sided corporate income tax exposure "scheme," has everything to do with making it even cheaper and even more profitable for companies which re-locate to New Mexico. 

Ask yourself.  What does policy like this do for the entire State of New Mexico?  The answer is: "next to nothing" compared to the advantages it carves out for the businesses that won't have to pay State income tax on almost any of what they produce.

The twenty or forty jobs created when one of these re-locations takes place will  probably employ New Mexicans who already had jobs.  Further, these jobs will last until the next state somewhere else offers a larger bribe to re-locate there.

There are two million people living here, and lots of them need jobs.  It's almost inconceivable that schemes like this can even hit the table in our State legislature.  It's like no one in the Round House can so much as think of anything else.

In the first quote, the Governor wants to reduce taxes by excluding any sales made to buyers outside of the state from New Mexico State [Corporate] income taxes.  But wait.  The things which are being produced in New Mexico can, basically, not be sold in New Mexico anyway  -- the poorest state in the union -- because New Mexicans don't have the discretionary wealth to buy expensive German solar panels, space trips, private jets or pricey computer gizmos.

Then in her second quote, the Governor is trotting out another $20 + Mn for "job training" and "bribing" out of state businesses to relocate here.  Maybe ideas like this would have sounded a little better if we had not already practically bankrupted ourselves trying them over and over already.

$20 Mn worth of State of New Mexico funding -- or even loan guarantees -- would pay for a pilot plant to produce windows.

Does this mean that we have to just keep trying these schemes as long as there is a dime left in the Treasury for another "tax expenditure"  financed incentive?  We really need to move on from the idea that New Mexico is at the brink of becoming Silicon Valley if we just throw enough State money at the transformation.

From the previous post on this subject, we can look again at exactly what is being proposed here.

The MeanMesa Windows Modernization Proposal

The over all goal of the proposal is to replace the inefficient casement windows which saturate every corner of our State with very affordable, modern insulated windows.  The replacement windows would be manufactured inside New Mexico.  The financing necessary for the purchase the new windows would be provided by State of New Mexico programs.  The installation labor would be performed exclusively by New Mexicans, trained, bonded and certified to do this work.  Both home owners and renters -- everyone who pays a monthly heating bill -- would benefit from the program.

Of course, that "benefit" that we're looking for here is an increase in discretionary wealth, that is, more money in New Mexican pockets to buy things.  This is absolutely the founding principle of what we have described as a demand economy.  When the discretionary wealth increases, well, "...it floats all boats."

So, where do we start?

Because it's very unlikely that the State legislature would be interested in managing something like this in the first place, the job will almost certainly be  handed off to a State "enterprise" management commission responsible for setting it, starting the process and running it once it starts.  The legislature might be willing to be responsible for some kind of "over sight" so long as the accounts arrive in Santa Fe in a nice, clean package.

We'll need to match up the actual work with folks who are competent to do it.  This is not a theoretical proposal.  With respect to schedule, this same Governor should appear on local television still in this term -- hopefully her last -- with the first window emerging from the new factory in New Mexico.

The Legislature's Part

 Of course most New Mexicans reading this post will assume that our State Legislature will do nothing.  The Governor will be too busy chasing after a electronic umbrella maker who is looking for a totally unregulated "profit paradise" where wages are as low as China, relocation incentives are high and folks will "look the other way" while his plant's effluent dribbles into the river.

All this brings up what might be one of the first things on the Legislature's "to do" list.

The State needs to establish a state "enterprise commission" to not only watch out for our state by watching over some of the relocated businesses which are already here, but to protect new enterprises such as the windows project from New Mexico's "natural predators" which have traditionally been able to crush dreams just as handily as, say, the US Senate.

1. Drunk, corrupt or incompetent locals who have no interest in an enterprise's success, and see it only as an opportunity for mismanagement, misdirection and theft.

2.  State Legislative ideologues -- such as ALEC "cross interest" politicians -- who will eagerly wreck even a sunny afternoon if it means a political advantage.

3. Ruthless out of state competitors who are equally eager to lay waste to an enterprise in New Mexico, take whatever loot breaks away easily -- usually complicit with someone in Santa Fe -- and leave with the cash.

It's time for New Mexico to quit being so surprised when this happens here, over and over.  Realistically planning for it can make all the difference in the world.

The necessity of improving the individual economic status of individual New Mexicans is not theoretical.  Sure, we've tried some things that didn't particularly work in the past, but that is no reason to allow the prospects for the task to grow an exaggerated difficulty or even slip into the realm of "impossibilities."

Let's look at the chart of legislative activities.

1.  Conduct the preliminary research for the pilot program:

• plant site options
• window design
• area for pilot program window installation
• financing criteria
• program cost estimates

Site options:  The legislature has already constructed and paid for a fair number of unused buildings across the state.  Commercial real estate vacancies in Albuquerque -- including a few dreams about the use of the old rail way terminal -- are at an all time high in Albuquerque.  MeanMesa thinks the pilot program should probably go in somewhere which currently has a crippling unemployment problem.  There's no reason to wait to attack the problem.

Window design:  Low cost, high efficiency, cheap installation are all high priorities.  A window factory is nothing remotely similar to a computer chip manufacturing facility.  The window design could provide a good engineering contest for the technical universities the State supports.  The prize could be a scholarship.

[MeanMesa will have more designs to be engineered -- coming in later posts.]

Pilot Program Installation:  The pilot program is just that.  By limiting the region of the state which will receive the first windows, much of the transportation and installation labor issues will be more manageable. The experience derived from the pilot program's first installation phase will be invaluable.

Financing Offer: The  State's "enterprise management" entity can respond to unanticipated difficulties, mistakes and innovation advantages.  The pilot program installation will also be a good opportunity to work out the details of credit qualification, financing and other, business issues.

Cost Estimates:  Of course there will be a projected cost estimate for the pilot project along with a preliminary estimates for the cost of the project once it enters its matured state. The costs for manufacturing windows can be fairly well contained, but installation costs may be another case.

In any event, the actual costs for the pilot project should provide good data for the overall cost of the program once it is fully under way.

2. Write legislation to start the windows pilot project and fund it

Santa Fe wrote legislation to fund the New Mexico Space Port for $210 Mn.  That "enterprise" is now teetering at the edge of becoming the equivalent of a New Mexico Afghanistan.  The local news last night reported that the subsidized value of the facility investment which could be recouped in case of the project's failure would be worth around $3 Mn if the current trends continue.

With this as a preface, MeanMesa will be interested in hearing Santa Fe's arguments that the windows pilot project -- or at the very least, something similar to it -- is not needed, too expensive, too complicated or simply can't be attempted.

The space port provides around 60 jobs. Most of these employees would have been employed even if the space port had never been built. Even in the reduced scope of the windows pilot project there would be hundreds of jobs.  Many of these employees would have been unemployed without the windows project employment.

The manufacturing and installation work of the windows project can be located where the jobs are needed most and where the windows are needed most.

3. Set up a bi-partisan oversight committee to monitor project schedule and costs

First, there are no parts of the windows proposal which cannot be entirely transparent.  There are no convenient niches for technical secrets, financing secrets or political secrets.

Second, the folks in the Round House have to actually be capable of managing something.  This is not an unfair expectation.  MeanMesa doesn't even see the possible necessity of consultants for this mission.  New Mexicans have not had the best results from legislation which depended on consultant services.  Public service responsibilities and loyalty seem to vaporize somewhere "down the hall" in the consulting company offices.

4. Establish pilot program landmarks to verify project progress
5. Establish regular reports to New Mexicans about the project's progress
and,
6. Set up an educational program to completely explain the project to citizens

Program transparency with respect to both State policy and public interest needs a bit of rethinking here in New Mexico. In the past a theoretical trail of data which could be followed to finally reveal the facts has served as "transparency."  The predictable result is that common citizens find that they know less and less of the actual process under way in Santa Fe.

The results bring three dilemmas.  First, the frustration with the difficulty of establishing good information about the actions of State government leads to a stoic cynicism.  New Mexicans simply, and perhaps even somewhat understandably, "shut down."  What goes on in Santa Fe stays in Santa Fe.

Second, as citizen interest diminishes, citizen over sight also suffers.  This presents the less than entirely honorable folks in the State government with the cover needed for all sorts of corruption.  This claim could be more easily discharged as a simple exaggeration if we had not seen so many repeated examples.

Third, even when the efforts made in Santa Fe to govern the state fail miserably, the legitimate of outrage among voters has long since been exhausted.  The Round House should be filled with a continuing presence of voter outrage, but the voters have, instead, adopted a level of tacit acceptance.

The missing idea is not all that complicated.  Citizen interest must be courted.  The information to form a solid opinion about State policy still needs to be "marketed."  MeanMesa isn't entirely sure whether or not this is a foundational under pinning of the democracy idea, but, facing facts, it seems necessary.

Part of the legislative role in the windows project is to not only present the entire program to New Mexicans, but to also keep everyone informed along the way.  As mentioned before, there is nothing about this proposal which can be served by secrecy or reasonably be obscured by being deemed as "too sophisticated" for general consumption.

7. Legislative incentives for land lords to participate in the program

There are, to make things simple, three basic groups of New Mexicans as we consider the windows project.

a.] Home owners who already have installed high end thermal windows
b.] Home owners  who are currently unable to afford to install high end thermal windows
c.] Renters living in rental units which need efficient windows but with land lords who have no incentive to install them

While both the second and third groups comprise the target market locations for the project, the "incentive question" really affects the third group.  In terms of spurring growth in the state economy by increasing discretionary wealth by lowering non-discretionary spending on home heating, this third group is what we can call a "gold mine."

Any reductions in heating bills will immediately leave more money in the pockets of this group -- money which we know will be spent.  When this happens, demand increases.  We already know that the jobs the windows project will introduce will help the economy, but when renters have lower heating bills, that will increase the economy even more. When demand increases, the economy grows.

We clearly need to "break the habit" of distributing thermal efficiency subsidies exclusively to home owners.  The real pay back is waiting when we can offer these advantages to renters.

Let's just allow this narrative to enter the realm of imagination.  Of course, there's legislative work to do, but instead of threading through all of that, we can envision what things would be like after it was done.

If you are a land lord, you would have hired a thermal imaging service to make winter time infra red pictures of the apartments you want to rent.  These would provide the information needed to calculate the over all "R" factor -- the apartment's thermal efficiency based on the heat loss shown in the survey photograph.

When you show your apartment to a potential renter, you could then tell that renter what this "R" rating was.  While the renter would naturally be interested in the amount of rent for the apartment, he would also be quite interested in the apartment's insulation efficiency.  The information about the "R" factor would be a good way to estimate how much the heating bill was going to run during the winter.

While MeanMesa is sure that the ALEC "free market" influence in the Round House would prevent this from ever becoming an actual law, as a land lord, you would realize that the other apartments your potential renter was considering were, most likely, offering this information.

The apartment with good thermal insulation -- and, consequently, lower heating bills -- would be chosen even if the rent were the same.  The way things are now, land lords don't have to compete with the heating efficiency of the apartments they offer.  In the terms understandable to the "free enterprisers," this means that renters enjoy no advantage from competition on this basis.  

It means that there is very little possibility for one of the "free enterprisers'" favorite things -- a "market correction."

"Hello.  We were looking at the apartment you advertised.  Can you tell us the unit's 'R' factor please?"

"I ain't lettin' no big government thugs tell me what I gotta' do with my own property."

"Oh, I see.  Good bye."

If the land lord winds up with crappy thermal efficiency for his apartments, he's not simply stuck.  The Windows Modernization Program will include State financing or loan guarantees for this land lord to improve the "R" factors of his rental units by installing efficient windows made right here in New Mexico.

Hmmm.  Window manufacturing jobs.  Window installation jobs. Window and supply transportation jobs.  Manufacturing facility construction and maintenance jobs.  Financing access jobs. Infra red photography jobs.  Informed renters.  Increased discretionary wealth.  More demand.  Growing economy.

8. Lay out full scale windows modernization program

With a pilot project accomplished, and the inevitable challenges addressed and solved, the path forward to a full scale project becomes quite manageable.  All the "moving parts" of this program won't magically appear over night, but none of those "moving parts" are imponderables.  They are all quite straight forward.

They can all be managed.

This means that whatever might "come up" during the process can be handled, fixed, adjusted, replaced, rethought and so on.  All we need is the will to get busy and start solving our economic "poverty" problem.

Stay Tuned!  There's More To Come

While this post is primarily about the legislative leadership we will need, the next MeanMesa post in this series will be all about what will happen "on the ground."

We hope you're not getting tired of proposals.  There are more after the windows modernization program.