By Paul Gessing
New Mexico is facing an increasingly dire situation on its roads. A recent Albuquerque Journal story stated that "New Mexico faces a $471.6 million gap in funding for priority projects around the state." A total of $5.6 billion is needed for road maintenance. Furthermore, the report noted that "the percentage of acceptable roads in New Mexico has decreased in recent years, from 75% in 2011 to 69% in 2023."
Deteriorating roads have real economic and safety implications. According to SourceNM, "deteriorating roads result in drivers paying an average of $2,074 annually, for vehicle maintenance, congestion and safety costs. New Mexico has 1.74 deaths per 100 million miles driven, which is the third-highest fatality rate in the country.
Of course, New Mexico remains awash in money. It has $64 billion in its permanent funds. Some of that money should be dedicated to road expansion and maintenance. New Mexico also has a $500 million general fund budget surplus this year and has had billions of dollars in annual surpluses in the recent past as state spending skyrocketed 70% under this Governor. Clearly, roads were not a priority during the recent boom years.
Instead of pledging to use some of the plentiful existing money available to them on roads Sen. Antonio "Moe" Maestas, D-Albuquerque, told the Journal, "It's been a "failure of government" not to gradually increase the gas tax rate over the past 30 years."
We disagree.
New Mexicans should not be forced to pay higher taxes to fund something as basic as road maintenance when the state is flush with cash. Before even considering raising taxes here are a few ideas to improve our roads without raising regressive taxes on average New Mexicans.
1) Free up some of the unspent $7.2 billion in unspent capital outlay money that is typically used for "pork" projects for roads.
2) Make EV owners pay a fee for road maintenance (they currently do not).
3) Repeal New Mexico's "mini" Davis-Bacon law that allows unions rather than market forces to set construction wages.
4) Tax gas "at the rack" to capture gas taxes on tribal lands (they currently do not remit state gas tax).
These are some simple ways to either generate more money for road repairs or to drive costs down. We are open to others but remain implacably opposed to raising the gas tax until or unless a few of these other efforts have been undertaken.
Clearly, roads are not a top priority for either the Legislature or the Governor. What is? The Governor recently outlined plans to spend an estimated $3 million annually to fund Planned Parenthood. She also has allocated $20 million in capital outlay in recent years for multiple abortion clinics designed to serve people from out of state.
Of course, there is also the new "free childcare" program the Gov. just outlined as well. The state is already spending $463 million each year on "free" childcare for those making up to 400% of the federal poverty level (more than $100,000 for a family of three). Expanding the program to those with even higher salaries will cost another $120 million with an additional one-time capital expenditure of $20 million.
The debacle over roads is on par with the approach Lujan Grisham has taken from day one: allocate resources to growing state government and placating political allies while letting core functions of government suffer. It's nothing new, but in New Mexico it is shocking how unwilling voters have been to hold Democrat politicians accountable for these and other policy failures.
Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico's Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility.
