© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. It’s amazing watching the New Mexico
Legislature. They want to name the Green Chile Cheeseburger as New Mexico’s Burger.
But they are ignoring that Texas is about to get New Mexico’s crop water in
court so the only Green Chile available for burgers may come from Colorado.
And that’s not all. The Legislature
was called into session primarily to deal with a large amount of money missing
from the budget. The first thing said by some leaders in the House and Senate was
that the New Mexico Government is too big to cut. Too many New Mexicans have
been hired to fire any of them.
They got that from the banking
crisis of 2008. It worked for the bankers then and seems to be working now. Thanksgiving
will be awful if some of the state worker cousins gets laid off and other do
not.
Since the state government cannot be
cut, taxes must be raised. That is exactly what the citizens do not want. But
the next election is many months away and many of the leaders in the
Legislature didn’t have an opponent in this last election so the citizens have
no control.
Making it worse is the betrayal in
the Legislature. Years ago, Governor Bill Richardson, who spent every second
running for President of the United State had a plan to make New Mexico better
and get lots of press while doing it. The food and medicine tax was abated while
that amount of money was made up by raising fees.
He was celebrated for his plan which
almost got him to Washington but for a few details. New Mexico was out the
money for his run at the Presidency but no one seems to care. Anyway, that Bill
Richardson plan compensated by increasing fees for the loss of revenue from the
tax on food and medicine.
The rank and file New Mexicans paid
the same amount of money out of the family budget each month but people who
were struggling daily would struggle less. Fast forward to today where since
the Legislature cannot cut the too big to cut state government they are going
back to taxing food and medicine, but the fees are going to be raised also.
To make us feel better, if that is
possible, the Legislature is not putting all of the taxes back on food and
medicine. But the counties were supposed to be held harmless by Richardson’s
taking the taxes off food and medicine. The Legislature was supposed to make up
the loss of taxes. Then the Legislature decided to not do that but let counties
raise that money themselves in taxes. Already then taxes doubled since the fees
were raised.
The revenue was neutral when taxes
were taken off food and medicine and fees to the state were raised. Counties
then raised the taxes in their county since the Legislature would not share any
of that extra state money from fees. Now the Legislature is bringing back taxes
on food and medicine while raising the state fees even more. Essentially, the
citizens got taken three times.
And what the Legislature this
session was supposed to do is fix the economy and find a way to deal with the
loss of so much water in the Texas lawsuit. Without water for crops there isn’t
going to be Green Chile, onions, alfalfa and Pecans. There will be plenty of
pecan firewood for sale.
These things will make the state much
less attractive for businesses. Taxes going up and minimum wage going up. You know
the minimum wage is price-fixing. It’s fixing the price of labor. Politicians don’t
care.
What’s the tipping point in New
Mexico? The edge where many businesses and citizens leave? When enough leave,
the budget crisis gets worse. Can’t cut the state government because it is too
big to cut. If New Mexico had enemies who wanted to harm the state, what would
they do differently in the Legislature? Nothing.
We will find out what Green Chile
Cheeseburgers made with Colorado green chile taste like since the Legislature
is doing nothing to replace the water lost to Texas. At least the green chile
isn’t coming from New York City.
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