News

On Monday, KRQE 13 News bullied a local Albuquerque restauranteur, forcing an apology out of him for calling Gov. Lujan Grisham a “Nazi” and calling Joe Biden a “socialist” because of the extended unemployment benefits given during the lockdown. These government checks have lowered the numbers of Americans in the workforce because they incentivize not working.

Walden Minoli, the owner of Gecko’s in Nob Hill put up a sensible sign reading, “Gecko’s is closing our kitchen tonight at 6 pm due to a lack of staff. Special thank you to our Nazi in Santa Fe and our socialist in D.C. for trying to buy votes with extended unemployment benefits.” 

But the television news station couldn’t help themselves from ambushing Minoli at his restaurant about an apology, claiming him calling Lujan Grisham a “Nazi” was anti-Semitic. Minoli said, “I was angry, and it was stupid on my part.” 

According to the report, “Minoli said it’s been a frustrating year for restaurants and said he reached a boiling point this past weekend when he decided to put a sign up on the bar’s front door Saturday evening letting everyone know the kitchen was closing early because they were lacking staff. Minoli said he’s down three cooks.” 

“Minoli said when the state fully reopens on July 1, he’ll maintain capacity limits and cut down on business hours because he still doesn’t have enough workers.”

Gov. Lujan Grisham’s condescending press secretary wrote in response to Minoli’s sentiments toward the scandal-ridden Governor: 

“On the whole, we do not respond to people who choose to invoke that kind of language as if it doesn’t have actual, terrible meaning.

It’s important to note, and I hope your reporting does, that the Federal Reserve studied this specifically and found that the $300 benefit is not keeping people on unemployment longer the $300 benefit is not keeping people on unemployment longer than they would be otherwise – “the value of a job significantly outweighs the benefit of temporary additional UI income.” Additionally, we are not seeing dramatic swings in unemployment in the states that have cut the $300 benefit – while some may try to say otherwise, such an assertion is not based in the reality of the job market, which the NY Times also covered this weekend. The best thing the state can do to assist both employers and those workers who are not yet ready to return to work for health or family reasons is to end the pandemic quickly, which is exactly what we’re doing, in addition to supporting New Mexico small businesses with grants and funding, making over $1 billion available for reopening and rehiring.

I’ll also note that the $300 supplement expires on September 5th regardless and requires a one-month notice per the federal program, my point being that any action to end the supplement and provide that month notice would only minimally advance the program’s end date – a program that, again, is not incentivizing people to stay on unemployment at the expense of finding a job.”

Sackett’s analysis uses far-left sources from the New York Times to bolster her non-answer to the question, where economist analyses, such as by the left-leaning U.S. Chamber of Commerce notes that “the $300 benefit results in approximately 1 in 4 recipients taking home more in unemployment than they earned working.”

Many states, run by both Democrats and Republicans, are cutting these benefits to unemployed workers to push people back into the workforce. They would not do this if the incentive was not keeping Americans from returning to work.