Today's Opinions

FINANCE NEW MEXICO

Toby Rittner wants to help communities leverage their limited financial resources to solve the needs of business, industry, developers and investors.

Rittner is CEO of the Council of Development Finance Agencies, a nonprofit organization that provides research, training and technical assistance to government entities that want to explore how bonds and other development financing tools can support and encourage public and private investment in infrastructure, redevelopment and other projects that benefit a community’s economy.

Most people are familiar with general obligation (GO) bonds, which are used to finance public projects such as building or repairing roads, sewers, schools and water treatment facilities and to purchase essential equipment to meet public needs. When tax-exempt GO bonds are offered to investors, the revenue provides capital needed to pay for a project, and the governmental entity repays the debt, with interest, to investors.

In a similar vein, private activity bonds (PABs) allow governments to act as conduits for private businesses that need to raise money to support their growth so they can bring jobs and prosperity to a community.  Governments issue PABs to accelerate a business’s growth and lower its cost of raising capital.

Negotiate” stirs up good business and bad political finagling. The word is a double-edged sword that is honed for cutting out debate. The word itself is its own counterpoint. 

In politics, “negotiate” connotes the cowardice in gathering ideas by talking with others. Worse still is talking about making a deal, with all of its taking in and giving away. A rude synonym is “compromise of principles.” 

With equal relevance, “negotiate” entails the bravery of making your own way across treacherous stretches to reach a worthy goal. An example is negotiating Death Valley in a covered wagon. A rude synonym is “defeat of barriers.” 

“Negotiate” reflects the oddities of politics in more ways than one. First: little success comes without some give and take along the way. Second: in a democracy, it takes a brave and wise soul to negotiate (in both meanings) a path to a worthy goal on the nation’s agenda. 

We can all agree that we have an opioid problem in the state and the nation, but can we be sensible about solutions?

Recently Dr. Richard Larson, executive vice chancellor of the UNM Health Sciences Center, recommended government-regulated restrictions on prescribing. In an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, he argued that “without strict government regulation, it won’t be solved.” His prescription? A three-day limit on outpatient prescriptions for acute pain and no opioids for adolescents.

Do we really want a distant bureaucrat overruling the judgment of our doctors?

The following week, the New Mexico Medical Board revoked the license of Dr. Walter Seidel Jr., forcing him to close his family practice in Ruidoso. The board took issue with the way he prescribed controlled substances and said he refused to cooperate with the board’s investigation. They declared him a danger to the public.

Maybe the board had good reason to end Seidel’s practice – I don’t know the details of the investigation – but his comment to the Albuquerque Journal was one I’ve heard before: “Look at all the patients in New Mexico who have chronic pain and are not being treated appropriately by their doctors because those physicians are afraid of the medical board.”