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.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted today to pass a budget on almost uniformly partisan lines. The budget created by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., with all but six Republicans voting yes and no Democratic votes.
The New Mexico delegation, two Democrats and one Republican, split on the vote. Overall, four Republicans voted against the bill while two did not vote on the bill.
Rep. Martin Heinrich, a Democrat who is running for the U.S. Senate, said the proposed budget would end Medicare.
“Republicans voted today to end Medicare—using our nation’s seniors as a human shield for the ultra-rich,” Heinrich said in an e-mail statement to The Independent. “How we fund our government is a reflection of who we are as a nation and what we stand for. I’ll continue working to reduce the deficit but not on the backs of New Mexico seniors or the middle class.”
Rep. Steve Pearce, the lone Republican member of the New Mexico congressional delegation, called the vote a step in the right direction, praising Ryan and his colleagues “for recognizing the severity of our nation’s looming debt crisis.”
“But with deficits in the trillions, cuts alone will not close our budget gap,” Pearce said in a statement. “Washington needs to reverse decades of burdensome regulations and oppressive taxes that are destroying our small businesses and killing jobs. It is only through job growth that we can hope to put America back on the path to financial recovery and fiscal responsibility.”
Rep. Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat, criticized portions of the budget that he said would hurt Medicare. Luján said Friday that the vote “balances the budget on the backs of working families and seniors by ending Medicare as we know it, dismantling Medicaid, and giving tax cuts to millionaires.”
“While it is critical that we tighten our belts and make important spending choices, the Republican budget focuses on the wrong priorities at a time when we should be investing in areas that will put people back to work and strengthen our economy,” Luján continued.
The legislation now heads to the Senate where it is very unlikely to pass. The Senate has a Democratic majority.
