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’s congressmen are split on the tax cut-extension compromise that the White House brokered with Republicans. The compromise would extend tax cuts for those at all income levels, including those making $250,000 a year or more, and extend unemployment insurance for another 13 months.
Reps. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján both signed onto a letter opposing the deal while Rep. Harry Teague sent out a statement backing the proposal.
Heinrich and Luján were joined by 52 other House Democrats on the letter spearheaded by Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., which said the signatories “oppose acceding to Republican demands to extend the Bush tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires for two reasons.”
The letter continues:
First, it is fiscally irresponsible. Adding more than $900 billion to our national debt, as this proposal would do, handcuffs our ability to offer a balanced plan to achieve fiscal stability without a punishing effect on our current commitments, including Social Security and Medicare.
Second, it is grossly unfair. This proposal will hurt, not help, the majority of Americans in the middle class and those working hard to get there. Even as Republicans seek to add billions more to our national debt in tax cuts to the wealthy, they oppose extending unemployment benefits to workers and resist COLA increases to seniors.
Teague, who lost his re-election bid to Republican Steve Pearce last month, sent a statement to the media supporting the deal: “The bipartisan compromise negotiated by the President is not perfect, but allowing middle-class tax breaks to expire while we are still in this fragile economy will obstruct job creation and slow our economic growth.”
“I do have serious concerns about the long-term impact of extending the Bush tax cuts for wealthy Americans,” Teague wrote. “[B]ut it is important to note that those extensions are temporary and just one part of a larger package that includes maintaining tax cuts for the middle class, a new payroll tax cut for working Americans, key tax cuts for small businesses to spur investment and job creation, an earned income and child credit for hardworking families, a higher education credit to help families send their kids to college, and an extension of unemployment insurance for Americans seeking work.”
