I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
During filming for an episode of KNME‘s New Mexico in Focus that airs Friday night, Albuquerque Congressman Martin Heinrich answered a question—submitted via Twitter—about the national debt.
This question, and a couple others at the end, didn’t make it onto the show because of time constraints.
The question was: “Do you think there’s any chance of erasing the national debt in our lifetime?”
To which Heinrich, in the video above, responded with several points.
“If we would have continued the progress we were making in the late-90s, we could have seen that happen,” he said, adding that tackling the debt will require a bipartisan approach and a growing economy.
Asked if the federal government should be required to have a balanced budget, Heinrich said no.
“I don’t think it makes sense for the federal government to have a balanced budget every single year because if you’re in a recession or in a war, you have to go into debt, just like the average family goes into debt to buy their home. It’s an appropriate use,” he said.
“What is wrong is when we continue to have this structural deficit year after year in the good years,” Heinrich continued. “We need to start paying for things and that requires a consistent approach where you behave the same way whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, whether you’re majority party or minority party. It takes a little bit of trust, it takes a little bit of cooperation. That’s hard to come by in this political environment.”
