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.
New Mexico is hurting financially, no doubt. Unemployment is at a 22-year high. Tax revenues that pay for services are way down. But apparently things could be worse.
Thanks to a monthly tracking report provided by the Legislative Finance Committee, we can see that revenue from the oil and gas industry is keeping the state’s bottom line from drooping even lower than it might.
A chart in this month’s report shows that as of February personal and corporate income taxes had come in $100 million short of expectations. (roughly $69 million for personal income tax and $37 million for corporate income tax). But revenue derived from the oil and gas industry — mineral production taxes and revenue from rent and royalties — has softened the blow a bit, coming in roughly $70 million over projections.
The state’s largest revenue-generator, the gross receipts tax, which produces close to a third of the state’s tax revenue, meanwhile, had brought in $12.5 million below expectations through February. That’s as good a measure in the LFC tracking report chart as anything on how the economy is doing here in New Mexico. Gross receipts tax tracks the purchases of hundreds of categories of goods and services across the state.
The Albuquerque Journal had a piece over the weekend that touched on some of these dynamics.
