Click here to view: Senate Majority Leader of State Legislature offers alternative view of New Mexico.
Sen. Michael Sanchez expresses his concerns regarding the Governor's 2013 legislative proposals to give even more public tax revenues to special private interests, as well as the richest 2-percent of New Mexicans and corporations.
In his "State of the State" address, Sen. Sanchez of Belen also reflects AFT New Mexico's concerns.
Too many public revenues going to private interests hurts education.
When New Mexico's state lawmakers are persuaded to give public tax revenues to private interests, less money is available for early childhood education, K-13 schools, colleges, and universities.
Public tax revenues are collected by the State of New Mexico from:
- Gross receipts & sales taxes.
- State personal income taxes.
- State corporate income taxes.
But, when chambers of commerce and corporate lobbyists convince lawmakers to give more and more of these public revenues to private special interests, New Mexico's per-student spending has to be cut, cut more than any other state in the nation.
To make the situation even worse, there aren't enough public tax revenues to provide New Mexico's salaried teachers and hourly-paid education support personnel with pay increases or cost-of-living increases. Such has been the situation for the last five (5) years.
Education employees have little or no discretionary income to spend. Therefore New Mexico's state and local economies aren't recovering as quickly as Texas, Colorado, and Arizona.
Click here to view Sen. Sanchez's complete 'State of the State' address.
Click here to download flyer 'Deep impact of NM's per-student spending cuts'.
Click here to download flyer 'NM's ranking in per-student spending cuts'.