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Legislators: 3 percent cuts might not be enough
The Roundhouse in Santa Fe (Photo by cjc4454/flickr.com)
Lawmakers negotiating a budget fix with Gov. Bill Richardson said today that cuts greater than the 3 percent he has proposed may be necessary, and they also want to consider cutting funding for education.
The lawmakers who are involved in the budget talks also said in a news release that they disagree with the governor’s proposal to use severance tax bonds to fund operational expenses next year.
“It is ill-advised to borrow money to pay your utility bill at home, and the state shouldn’t be borrowing money to fund operational expenses,” Sen. John Sapien, D-Corrales, said in the release.
Among the proposals Richardson has floated to help meet a projected shortfall of almost $450 million are the 3 percent cuts, which would exclude education; the diverting of $135 million from the bonds; and the spending of $91 million in federal stimulus money on education.
The lawmakers also took issue with the idea of propping up education funding with stimulus money.
“Education took a hit of about $165 million this last session. The proposed use of federal funds for this fiscal year would have a significant impact on public schools in the next fiscal year,” said Rep. Rick Miera, D-Albuquerque and chair of the House Education Committee. “… Education is taking a hit again, regardless.”
Lawmakers also said they’re opposed to further delays in funding the state’s educational retirement program.
The legislators said they think $500 million to $550 million might have to be cut from the budget. In the release, they said they are “looking at finding more money in the numerous funds within the state treasury than the amount the governor proposed” to help make that happen.
From the release:
“Both the executive group and the legislators emphasized their collective desire to avoid furloughs and layoffs. For that reason, the legislative members felt it would be necessary to be more aggressive in cutting the budget now to avoid furloughs and layoffs later. If the economy improves, as everyone hopes, it would be easier to restore those cuts rather than cut a little now and even more later.”
The legislators’ comments come following a closed-door meeting earlier today between the legislative group and members of the executive branch.
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The tax revenue shortfall crisis is easily resolved if New Mexico had lawmakers who would stop giving the rich huge tax “incentives” (that used to be call “cuts”).
Lawmakers can, and should, roll back the 2003 personal income tax cuts for the wealthiest New Mexicans and use the revenues gained to restore education cuts and prevent deeper cuts to the education budget. Individuals earning $295K or more a year get $13K+ in tax breaks.
These tax cuts for the rich add up to about $450 million a year. These are tax revenues which would have gone to help fund New Mexico’s preK-12 schools, colleges and universities before 2003. Now, the money goes into the bank accounts of the rich and powerful corporations.
Instead of looking at the budget to find more public programs to cut, which will result in layoffs and slow any hope for an economic recovery, our lawmakers ought to be eye-balling the tax cuts for the rich.
Our state lawmakers must tell the rich that they can’t have their $450 million in cuts anymore.
But, Gov. RICHardson says the tax cuts for the rich, plus the corporate tax giveaways, are $1 billion dollar’s worth of “economic tools”. What he means is that he thinks the rich and corporations used these tax “incentives” to create jobs.
“Earth to Bill”. There are no jobs. New Mexico’s unemployment rate is the highest in 12 years, 26,700 citizens of the Land of Enchantment, who had jobs this time last year, are now looking for jobs – jobs which Gov. RICHardson says the rich and corporations created with their tax “incentives”.
Sort of like looking for WMDs, don’t you think?
Sapien comes to the table the most un prepared to talk about the budget. He is there as a “front man” for Senators Smith and Jennings. Just a thought, how many women represent the Senate Democrats on this “committee”?