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Category: Editorials Editorials
Published: 27 May 2020 27 May 2020

Author: State Representative Larry Scott, Hobbs, who is a member of the House Taxation and Revenue Committee

Some time ago I wrote an op-ed article complaining that I and my Republican colleagues were not being consulted or even informed of the planning underway to resolve the state's imminent budget crisis. Nothing has changed in the intervening period. Despite the fact that we are mere weeks away from the rumored call for a special session, there have been no proposals advanced by the administration. There is a growing concern that the lack of transparent action dealing with these budget issues may have motives more aligned with flattening the political fallout curve than flattening the virus impact curve. What's going on in Santa Fe?

We were reminded of how dire our circumstances are becoming in a newspaper article just this week. It turns out that Santa Fe, a city of just under 86,000 people, is facing a budget shortfall of some $100 million dollars. Admittedly, Santa Fe relies almost totally on the tourist industry for its revenue stream and this industry has been decimated by the CORONA-19 pandemic. Tourism in Santa Fe however has fared, in relative terms, no worse than the oil and gas industry in Southeast New Mexico. Truly from a State finance perspective we are in the midst of a perfect storm. What's going on in Santa Fe?

We are in the middle of an election year. The Democrats in charge of the last two budget cycles have raised spending to unsustainable levels with increases of over 20 percent. With revenues from all sources cratering, the decisions we should now be making will be very painful.

No politician wants to vote for painful decisions during an election year. These votes always return to haunt in the form of negative advertising from opponents. With $1.7 billion dollars in reserve and particularly if Federal assistance becomes available, it will be politically expedient to postpone any significant budget adjustments until after the November elections.

Here are a number of predictions. The special session will be brief with the excuse that legislators and staff cannot gather and deliberate without risk. The minimal budget adjustments will be pre-packaged with little or no opportunity to debate the merits. The hard choices will be deferred until the regular session in January. The ultimate consequences to the New Mexico economy will be much harsher. We will all be reelected. That's what's going on in Santa Fe.