Last January, it was $500 million. Today, it’s $660 million. By January 2010, it should be $1 billion at least.

All this cutting, like Varela’s HB 17, which cuts student values by 12%, doesn’t help. It only makes matters much, much worse.

Varela's HB 17 balances the deficit on the backs of school children and higher education students. There is no other way to describe it. HB 17 cuts preK-12 and higher education student values in three (3) big-time ways:

1. At least a 2% pay cut above the line for 65,000 PreK-12 & higher education employees;
2. 6% cuts below the line to PreK-12 programs & school district budgets; and,
3. 4% cuts to higher education budgets.

If conservative Democrats — Jennings, Sanchez, Smith, Munoz and others (let's see how much help they get from Senate Republicans) — pass HB 17, Varela's 12% education cut will be on top of an 8% cut passed by lawmakers in January.

In total, a heavy, devastating blow to:
1. PreK-12 school children;
2. Higher education students;
3. Education employees who will have less discretionary spending money;
4. Education employees who will be laid-off, putting a greater strain on disappearing public services and the economy;
5. Capitalism, which will suffer a more prolonged, if ever, recovery due to even less discretionary spending;
6. NM's tax revenues, which will continue their death-spiral; and,
7. NM's treasury, which will collect even less tax revenues.

As President Obama said last April during his Georgetown speech on the economic collapse, “The last thing government should do in a recession is to cut spending.”

Now, let’s jump to Brian Sanderoff's Poll for New Mexico Education Partners. A poll which newspapers of record and independent media ignore. It provides this former university assistant professor with a ‘teaching moment’.

Sanderoff’s poll explains why educators, education employees, parents, and students unsuccessfully demanded the House vote NO on HB 17, and are now flooding senators with the same demand.

See poll results @ nm.aft.org – specifically, take a look at page 5: “Likelihood of Voting For Legislator Who Reduced School Funding Rather Than Raise Taxes to Help Balance Budget”.

Brian’s results are summarized, “The plurality of voters (43%) say they would be less likely to vote for their state legislator if he/she voted to reduce public school funding rather than raise taxes to help balance the budget. Just 14% of voters say they would be more likely to support a legislator who voted to reduce school funding rather than raise certain taxes to help balance the budget.”

Republicans get that finding. That's why HAFC Republicans, except Wallace, voted against HB 17. How many Republicans voted for HB 17 in the House today? Count 'em. Want to predict how many Senate Republicans will vote for HB 17 or similar spending cut bills?

If you're Kiki Saavedra, Ben Lujan, Lucky Varela, Ken Martinez, John Heaton, or other House members who voted for HB 17 — how would you enjoy running for re-election Nov. 2010 when 43% of registered voters, from the get-go, are less likely to vote for you because you voted to cut the value of school children and higher education students? What percentage did R. Berry win with?

Anybody want to announce early for a Democratic seat in the House? Likely there will be plenty of new, fresh faces — progressives most likely — like Eleanor Chavez, Eric Griego, Tim Keller — who will run in Demo primary and likely win.