Print

E-mail

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Don't Balance Budget on Backs of the Poor

By Allen Sanchez
New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops
      These are difficult times, and many families are feeling the pain of the recession in their daily lives. Far too many New Mexicans are struggling to make ends meet even though they are working hard. They lack health care and other basic support systems that most of us take for granted. They are the real people that we read about in our newspapers, and whose faces we see in our parishes throughout our state. We also see our elected leaders making choices — like cutting the budget instead of raising new revenue — that will further hurt our working families' programs.
       When an economic recession hits, it affects those with the fewest resources first. Job layoffs tend to start at the “bottom” of the employment chain, throwing families that were just getting by into abject poverty. The pain of not having enough money to feed your children or pay the heating bill is tangible and real, but the most disturbing outcome of poverty is the loss of hope. Unchecked poverty, even when it is limited to “other people,” makes us all poorer, if not in our pocketbooks, then in our hearts. And yet, New Mexicans can be a very generous people.
       The Catholic Church, along with many other churches, organizations and countless individuals, works daily to help people struggling in today's economic climate. Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy, says, “As a community of believers, we know that our faith is tested by the quality of justice among us, that we can best measure our life together by how the poor and the vulnerable are treated.” We run not-for-profit hospitals and schools. Food and warm clothing is collected and distributed to those in need. We are there to minister to the physical and emotional ailments of our friends, neighbors, and even strangers. Charity alone cannot solve all of the problems that working families face. We can take care of immediate needs, but we cannot address the systemic conditions that allow poverty to exist. That is why we have government; to protect public safety, to provide education to all, to ensure fair business and wage practices and much more. Our government is, in short, the way we accomplish great things collectively that we could not accomplish as individuals.
       Our state government must not fail to find ways to protect struggling families and address the systemic problems of poverty. Now state government is feeling the same pain that our struggling families feel. Anticipating a slower economy in the last legislative session, the governor ordered a hiring freeze and lawmakers passed a budget that cut education, underfunded health care and trimmed other services for families and children.
       In 2003 the Legislature cut state income taxes. Since then, revenues are down even more and there will be a special session to cut spending even further. Now is not the time for deeper cuts to education, health care and services vital to struggling families. The moral response in times such as these is to strengthen our support of families, not weaken it. Lawmakers should seriously consider ways to raise revenue rather than make even deeper cuts to the budget. The Legislature could now repeal the income tax cuts of 2003, enact corporate income tax reform and close some of the tax loopholes that benefit only a few. If New Mexico could afford to cut taxes by $1 billion in the past few years, surely we can find a way to restore some of those funds now when we so desperately need it.
       We urge lawmakers and the governor not to balance our state budget at the expense of the many New Mexicans working even harder to support their families, but to increase state revenues as a just and necessary tool to meet the very real needs of all of our state's people.
       We urge legislators and the governor to consider the working poor of New Mexico as they prepare for the special session.
       Allen Sánchez is executive director of the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops, which includes the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, the Diocese of Las Cruces and the Diocese of Gallup.

ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL STORY
 

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/242255148094newsstate09-24-09.htm

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Don't Cut Spending, Bishops Tell Gov.

By Dan Boyd And Olivier Uyttebrouck
Journal Staff Writer
       New Mexico's Roman Catholic bishops waded into the debate over how to close the state's estimated $433 million buget deficit Wednesday, urging Gov. Bill Richardson and legislators to repeal a 2003 income tax cut instead of cutting services they say would hurt the poor.
    The New Mexico Conference of Bishops, in a letter sent to the Journal, added its voice to a coalition of public employee unions and social advocacy groups opposing spending cuts.
    Repeal of the income tax cut would restore about $400 million annually in state revenues, nearly as much as the state deficit this fiscal year and the one projected for the coming year. However, the repeal is opposed by Richardson and business groups, which say a repeal would be a big blow to taxpayers and the already struggling economy.
    "We are deeply concerned about cuts that would hurt the elderly, the poor, the children, our schools, in order to meet the budget," Diocese of Las Cruces Bishop Ricardo Ramirez said Wednesday. "We often see that when there are cuts in spending, it's usually the little people who are affected."
    Top-ranking lawmakers have agreed with Richardson that tax increases, along with tax credits and exemptions, won't be on the table, in part because of the difficulty of changing the state's tax code in the midst of a fiscal year.
    Also, while called "top-bracket" income tax cuts, the 2003 cuts affected residents with joint taxable incomes as low as $24,000.
    Business groups say the income tax cuts have allowed residents to pump more money into the state's economy. A repeal would be an economic blow to the state at a time when businesses are already hurting, said Beverlee McClure, president of the Association of Commerce and Industry of New Mexico.
    "You can't find a company in the private sector right now that hasn't had to cut at least 3 to 5 percent," McClure said.
    Richardson, who pushed the income tax cut through in his first year as governor, met again Wednesday with legislators, whom he is expected to call into special session on the deficit sometime next month.
    The governor sat in on Wednesday's meeting between administration officials and a bipartisan group of legislators. He said later that the two sides made progress but remain at loggerheads on whether proposed spending cuts should include public education.
    Neither he nor lawmakers have proposed any tax increases to deal with the deficit and so far are considering only spending cuts and complicated bonding and budget adjustments.
    Richardson wants shallower cuts in spending than lawmakers and no cuts in K-12 school money.
    "Right now, there is no middle ground," Richardson told reporters at a Wednesday press conference in Santa Fe. "They've dug their heels in and I've dug my heels in. The gap is significant."
    One more meeting will be held Oct. 5, but Richardson said the odds of breaking the impasse are "50-50."