John Arthur for President!

Number one in the Welfare Sweepstakes

John Arthur for President!

Start with One trusted

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

  

            One of the best things about growing up in Grant County was the fact nobody had any money.

            Oh, sure, there were at least three fellows in the county who could have come up with a million dollars, but that didn’t constitute wealth regardless of our outlook from ground level. We just didn’t know what rich meant. The guys our age that had money in their wallets (and other various and sundry paraphernalia) were the guys who had grease under their fingernails.

            They had a job, and few of those were glamorous.

            Stocking groceries at night at Safeway (or was it Piggly Wiggly?) was one cash cow. Paper routes were go to sidelines if you had an in at the Daily Press. Several filling station jobs were always available. Maybe somebody was sweeping floors downtown after closing, but that was pretty much limited. I hauled garbage in the ’51 Chevy for a number of years at the trailer park just west of town. There were two guys who worked at the mortuary, but they were always just weird. There was one good job at Brown Auto Sales (and my brother had that locked up for years). A handful of kids took orders and made change at the A&W. The going rate for bucking bales at Cliff was something less than two bits, but that was seasonal. There were no ranches that paid day work except the Bar Ys, but that was only in June after school was out. Nobody did yards because nobody had a lawn mower!

            The long and the short of it was youth income was very limited even though it wasn’t precluded in those days by the social police and their gestapo affiliates. We learned that being poor was a common ailment without knowing why we were any different from other places where folks owned the lands on their horizons.

            Number One in the Welfare Sweepstakes

            The ongoing saga of state rankings is a highly watched pastime in New Mexico.

            The race to the bottom is usually shared with New Mexico and Mississippi, or anywhere else that can boast an immediate past generation that went barefoot at least part of their childhood. Not to disappoint, the latest ranking of states that harvest the most tax reconveyance as a percentage of taxes paid into the Treasury was released just weeks ago. O’ Fair New Mexico was right there in the sweepstakes position as NUMERO UNO.

            Yessiree, we beat out Mississippi for the title. No hind teats for us! We go to the federal trough with the greatest gusto plus make it a political artform to insult the private providers of greatest tax payments into the state coffers.

            Somebody ought to recognize the lunacy of such absurdity!

            It was with that backdrop that we received a battery of yearling bulls recently. The bulls were from the great state of Kansas. To be more specific, they were from the Flint Hills which arguably competes with consideration as the best cow country in the world.

            In the drive into the ranch with our investment, we talked to the breeders (who deliver their bulls personally regardless of location from northern Alberta to the Mexican border) about their annual and  ongoing questions about why we can’t “fire” our pastures, why we can’t drive off road, why we can’t replace pipelines without permission, or why we can’t employ Mexican vaqueros to bolster absent counterparts. They were reminded we live under the auspices of a Crown that upholds federal dominion and constitutional suffocation rather than heralding private property.

            Being from Kansas is almost like being in the original States where federalism was held in enough abeyance that private property rights could be leveraged into true and lasting sustainability. Kansas ranks dead last in return of tax money as a percentage of taxes paid by their citizenry. They are on the other end of the spectrum from New Mexico.

            “When are people like you going to get fed up in supporting states like New Mexico?” was the prevailing question of the evening.

            John Arthur for President

            John Arthur Smith may be the only true blue dog Democrat left in the Union.

In terms of elected status, he is the long time New Mexico state senator representing rural District 35 in the southwestern part of the state. He is a real estate appraiser by trade, but his stature as the state’s finance committee chair is far more reaching. There are some that will maintain that John Arthur singlehandedly has kept New Mexico solvent. There are others who will say he has emerged to become the only elected state official to be trusted.

That includes a pack train of Republicans.

            His agenda is fiscal responsibility. His actions are patriotic. His persistence is undying. He also understands the border and not just because he lives within sight of it.

By the time this is read, there may be another ten Democrats running for their party’s nomination for president. Among the hookers, the commie, the booker, the virtual Indian, the beta male, the catcher, the one issue fanatics, and the rest of the Star Wars bar scene seconds (Trump haters all), John Arthur has actually controlled the fiscal integrity of a sovereign state. He remains the clear-thinking financial navigator of a body that would otherwise be hopelessly moribund based on its radical and Marxist leadership through the Rio Grande corridor on the Don Juan Onate Trail to Santa Fe and continuing to the halls of Congress.

Indeed, John Arthur Smith for President!

Let’s say that again and this time with Oomph …  John Arthur Smith for the Democratic candidate for President of these United States of America!

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “When you can honestly say there is only one office holder in your entire state that you trust, maybe that’s a good place to start.”

Frank DuBois

I would ditto all the kind things Wilmeth said about Senator John Arthur Smith. Not only is he a beacon for financial responsibilty, he's a fine gentleman who understands and acts upon the issues and concerns of our rural communities. In fact, he has been so successful in his legislative endeavors that he is once again being targeted by the leftist/progressive elements within the Democratic party. 

I would encourage everyone who is in favor of fiscal sanity in our state government, and everyone who is alarmed by the lack of legislators who understand and represent the rural citizens of NM, to be supportive of John Arthur Smith.

He has stood up for us and now it is time for us to stand up for him!