Ched MacQuigg Guest Blog: Let's Spend the Reserve Fund

This is a guest blog by Ched MacQuigg, who is a retired shop teacher and a Character Counts! advocate. His vision of the world includes public servants that are honestly accountable at least to the standards they hold up for children.

The State of New Mexico has a shoebox full of cash under its bed. It's called the reserve fund.

Right now there is more money in the reserve fund than there is in deficit. The fund could be spent to cover the deficit. To do so however, would mean depleting the reserve fund to a dangerously low balance. There would be no money for a rainy day.

I propose; in a special session dedicated solely to ending the culture of corruption, we take whatever money we need to, out of the reserve fund, in order to fully fund the end the culture of corruption through forensic auditing and transparency. Every branch of government, whose responsibilities include enforcing meaningful standards of conduct and competence, will receive whatever funding they need, in order to stop the stealing.

In a subsequent special session, spending will be cut or taxes will be raised, in order to maintain the necessary floor in the rainy day fund.

In the next fiscal year, hundreds of millions of dollars will be saved.

The savings will be put into the shoebox under the bed, or given back to taxpayers.

Ched MacQuigg blogs at Diogenes Six. If you'd like to submit a piece for consideration as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me link on the upper left-hand corner of the page.