Sarah Welsh, Assistant News Editor of the Rio Grande SUN accompanied a group of AFT New Mexico supporters to the State Capitol and filed a report March 19, 2009. Below is most of that report:

Under a bill pending (HB 854 sponsored by Rep. Kiki Saavedra) in the state Senate, nearly all public employees would have to pony up more money for their retirement accounts while the state would contribute less.

To protest this and other financial pinches on public employees, a group of about a dozen Northern New Mexico College employees visited the Roundhouse March 13. They pressed Rio Arriba County legislators to find different solutions for the budget crisis.

“We’re the ones that make America work, you know what I’m saying?” Northern carpenter Ignacio Coronado said. “It’s our own tax money, and we’ve gotta fight for it. For the past five or six years, we get a 2 to 3 percent raise but our insurance goes up, so we don’t get anywhere.”

House Bill 854 would reduce the gross income of all public employees by 1.5 percent. The money would go into the employee’s retirement account, to offset an equal reduction in the state’s own contribution. The measure would save the state about $42 million per year for two years.

American Federation of Teachers New Mexico President Christine Trujillo said it represents a dual blow to workers already facing the possibility of doubled co-pays and fewer benefits under changes being instituted by the state Public Schools Insurance Authority.

HB 854 purportedly protects employees’ retirement accounts, but it really just shifts the burden onto the worker without a salary increase to compensate, she said.

No Money? The Northern employees heard essentially the same refrain as they circled the Roundhouse traveling from office to office: to save jobs, the state has to cut spending.

“We’re in the hole about $600 million,” Rep. Nick Salazar (D-Ohkay Owingeh) said. “The only way we could do it was to make some cuts.” Sen. Richard Martinez (D-Espanola) said some funding could be restored when the federal stimulus package comes rolling in. But right now cuts are inevitable, he said. “I hate to give you this doom and gloom, but the reality is there’s no money,” Martinez said. Rep. Debbie Rodella (D-La Mesilla) emerged from her office after a long wait to tell the group that people don’t want to pay more taxes, and the revenue simply isn’t there.

AFT New Mexico, however, points out that the legislature has plenty of money for certain things. It considered using state money to purchase the failed College of Santa Fe, and it’s weighing approval of new tax districts that opponents say raid the general fund for the benefit of private corporations.

Perhaps most importantly, the state is still carrying massive cuts to the personal income tax that were enacted in 2003, cuts that disproportionately benefit wealthy taxpayers.

The tax cuts were slowly ramped up over time, and it now costs the state at least $400 million each year, according to the non-profit organization New Mexico Voices for Children.

“They can afford to do these other things,” AFT New Mexico Political Action Committee (COPE) Vice president Tim Crone said. “So why are they telling us there’s no money?”

On the floor of the House March 12 Rep. Miguel Garcia (D-Albuquerque) broached the subject of repealing the 2003 tax cuts. “A lot of us in this body, even though we voted for it, we were reluctant,” Garcia said. “Was that a wise investment? We kind of learned our lesson.”

It’s unclear how much support such a move would generate. Salazar said he would support a repeal, but he hasn’t heard anyone discussing it.

When the Northern group met with Sen. Carlos Cisneros (D-Questa), who serves as vice chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, biology professor Catherine Clark asked him directly about the possibility of repealing the cuts.

Sen. Cisneros said tax increases could be on the table when legislators return later this spring for a special session to discuss the ongoing economic crisis and the federal stimulus package. “Those are the things we’re gonna be talking about in the special session,” Cisneros said.

If legislators do move forward on such a plan, they’ll likely hit a brick wall in Gov. Bill Richardson’s office. Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said repealing any part of the tax cuts or tax credits, which he said total $1 billion, is not an option. “Absolutely not,” Gallegos said. “I think those tax cuts have led to increased economic growth in the state. If not for those tax cuts and the number of new jobs, we’d probably be in a bigger hole than we are now.”

ingram1ja's comments: There are no jobs, Gilbert. Look at New Mexico's unemployment rate. It's growing. New Mexico needs these tax revenues to pump-up the public sector. Cutting the take-home pay of public school employees and state workers will only deepen the recession and add to the unemployment rate. Rep. Saavedra and Sen. Smith are protecting the rich by refusing to repeal the 2003 tax cuts. Worse, they should be following President Obama's lead by supporting the repeal of Bush's federal tax cuts for the rich by repealing their 2003 state tax cuts for the rich. But, they can only voice empty threats about layoffs and furloughs.

for more info about repealing tax cuts for the rich, closing corporate tax loopholes, repealing 854 and spending President Obama's $1.8 billion stimulus for New Mexico on saving jobs and creating new jobs check-out the presentation on http://nm.aft.org/aeaa.