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.
Like New Mexico, Maine crafted a state budget expecting that Congress would pass a six-month extension of extra funding for Medicaid, the government’s low-income health insurance program. Without the extension Maine would be looking at a $85 million budget hole. Now Maine’s top budget official hopes President Obama’s letter urging Congress to extend extra Medicaid funding another six months will carry some weight in the nation’s capital, according to the Kennebec Journal.
But New Mexico is in a worse position than Maine. If Congress doesn’t extend the federal Medicaid stimulus dollars, New Mexico will have a $160 million budget hole for the year that starts July 1.
That’s because the state budget the Legislature passed in March assumed congressional approval of a plan to extend the extra funding from Dec. 21, 2010 — the current deadline — to June 30, 2011, the end of the fiscal year that starts July 1. New Mexico’s cut of that additional funding is assumed to be $160 million.
It’s unclear whether Congress will pass that extension, although state officials across the country are hopeful.
Maine and New Mexico are among the 30 states that crafted state budgets assuming that Congress would pass the extension of additional Medicaid funding.
