Attention New Mexico, if you are in a hole stop digging

© 2016 Jim Spence - Governor Susana Martinez is considering calling a special legislative session immediately after the regular session ends today at noon. It seems that New Mexico Democrats, who want the size of state government to grow until we have an economic disaster like California or Illinois, is forcing a showdown and a shutdown.
Bring it on.
Yesterday, the Democrat dominated legislature, which has made it exceedingly difficult for the oil and gas business to grow prosper and continue to carry the state budget with generous tax revenues, approved a $6.1 billion budget that includes a whopping $280 million in permanent new tax increases for the coming fiscal year.
The situation is disgustingly simple. Democrats have already crippled the breadwinner in New Mexico, the oil and gas industry, now they want to move on to crippling other productive entities. They do not seem to care that their asinine policies have driven productive taxpaying oil and gas companies across the border into Texas. They have put us in a hole and they are screaming for more digging.
New Mexico in general and Las Cruces in particular have cast self-destructive votes as a matter of reflex for decades. Instead of helping Governor Martinez change this state from an economic laughing stock to a competitive southwestern state, Democrats prefer to cast votes that are sure to push the number of poor people living here higher. They want to keep digging.
Governor Martinez has warned the Democrats repeatedly that she will not sign any new tax increases. However, it is predictable that Democrats continue to never learn from their mistakes. So they press forward with more self-defeating policies that have failed for decades. They want to keep digging.
Accordingly, Susana Martinez is gearing up for a state government shutdown in response to the budget standoff that pits her rational reform proposals against the Democrat’s absolute obsession with taxing productive citizens so bureaucrats can continue to live the good life without a care in the world.
Keith Gardner, who is Chief of Staff for the governor, has indicated that non-essential state government agencies will close if there is no deal.
Sadly, non-essential state agencies should not close temporarily, THEY SHOULD BE ELIMINATED PERMANENTLY. Clearly lawmakers and the governor already know the state agencies that are not essential. The big question is why is New Mexico wasting its precious resources on them when the state is expected to run out of money next month? This is lunacy.
The Democrats solution is more lunacy. They want to tax you, me, and everyone else who is productive in our state, to pay for things that are clearly not essential.
The governor’s office has indicated there is still “hope” for a budget deal today. But if none is reached by noon, when the session must end by law, Martinez is likely to call a special session.
Susana Martinez
Other than minuscule one percent cuts in funding to still fat-laden state universities, colleges, and specialty schools, the Democrat run legislature has refused to force any other highly paid bureaucrats who serve as economic balls and chains on the state, to reduce waste in their fat laden fiefdoms. Instead, the Democrat-led House voted yesterday to raise taxes and fees on gasoline, diesel fuel, retail sales over the Internet, trucking permits, and nonprofit hospitals. More balls and chains on the productive sectors.
It is astonishing to continue to hear Democratic lawmakers stick to the idea that making government bigger, bureaucrat’s days cushier, and taxes higher, will not hurt the economy in this state as it has since statehood. It is puzzling that New Mexico voters keep empowering Democrats to perpetuate dumb policies that fatten state government and produce more poverty.
The proof is in the pudding. A quick glance at the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona, where the Republicans have had chances to run the legislatures often over the last 105 years tells you all you need to know. New Mexico has languished badly under Democratic Party domination while these states have prospered. Our state is an island of poverty in a sea of prosperity. Our neighbors thrive with an electorate that has trusted the GOP, while we suffer under the domination of one party, the Democrats. Susana Martinez is the only thing standing between us and a more rapid acceleration in the deterioration in living standards in this state. She wants to stop digging.
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