Comments on: Potshots, posturing make budget crisis worse

By: merrittallen

merrittallen — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:15:10 +0000

I absolutely agree with her point on the Legislature finding itself in this mess by giving so much of their power away. While it was handing power over to the Executive Branch, it voted successively to increase the size of government by a total of 40% since 2001. We now have a bloated state stunted by single-party rule, led by a governor who only cares about leaving.

I think Ms. Childress gives a bit too much credit to Republican legislators in this fight….there aren’t enough Republicans in the Legislature to really impact anything. With nothing close to a majority in either House, the GOP just doesn’t have much impact. This is a battle among Democrats: progressives who want to raise taxes; the Governor, whose agenda beyond himself is unclear; and traditional Democrats, who have in their numbers a few fiscal conservatives.

By: Videographer

Videographer — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:36:01 +0000

NM can not be mired in a national economic meltdown. There is nothing to meltdown. When other states go down they just slowely are approching the level of NM.

By: nmprof

nmprof — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:50:31 +0000

“as though we aren’t somehow mired in a national economic meltdown that not only began but matured during a Republican administration. The pickle we’re in was caused by an unregulated field day in the banking sector that didn’t just hurt New Mexico, but hurt the entire global economic system”

Seriously? It’s bad enough to hear this from the current presidential administration, but it’s quite another to make the argument in regards to New Mexico’s situation, where the steps leading to this crisis are much more clear and traceable. The problem stems from over-optimistic projections of natural gas and oil prices, and a free-for-all spending spree. As to the fuel prices, lawmakers were warned well in advance of the 2008 session that speculation and not genuine demand had been driving prices. Dr Daniel Fine at New Mexico Tech, an energy economist, had sounded the alarm early and warned that the bottom would eventually fall. He even delivered a speech to that effect at an energy policy conference that April (video can be seen at http://nmcep.nmt.edu). But lawmakers ignored warnings and based the projected budget on inflated prices. Those had nothing to do with the Bush administration, Ms. Childress.

Nor did the out of control spending on pork projects that lawmakers got caught up in. For example, even after declaring a projected budget shortcoming in early summer of 2008, 120 million in ‘budget surplus’ was refunded to New Mexicans–many of whom paid nothing in taxes–in an August special session, just ahead of the November 2008 election. Within a month we suddenly had a hiring freeze of state employees and a 450 million shortfall. Again, Bush had nothing to do with this.

I do agree with the point that responsibility and accountability must be brought into play, but I think that should also be the case for commentators and pundits. I know there seems to be a knee-jerk reaction towards blaming Bush for anything, but the current debacle New Mexico finds itself in is completely owned by Richardson and the Round House.

By: qofdisks

qofdisks — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:56:00 +0000

I don’t know if i agree with Coalcracker but at least somebody is doing some creative thinking. Critical thinking like this will be required to get this state through hard times.
Richardson’s just saying that he doesn’t want to do this and doesn’t want to do that is not telling anybody what he is actually going to do.

By: Coalcracker

Coalcracker — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:09:02 +0000

A very good and mature essay, given what you have to work with (the pols, not you!). I would like to suggest that New Mexico should hold a constitutional convention and do some rewriting to better distinguish who has what power, etc. I would also think a unicameral legislature would be a good idea. We don’t need a Senate and a House. There will be plenty of checks and balances in a unicameral legislature. We might even consider a full-time legislature with term limits.