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.
Over three weeks ago Governor Bill Richardson handed a full plate of initiatives to the Roundhouse. So with just about one week left, how much are lawmakers listening?
A petition with thousands of signatures came to the Roundhouse on Wednesday, and the message was: We support raising taxes for education. The argument hits to the core of the debate going on during the legislative session.
The first two tax increases to reach the floor of the House made it through on Friday, but not before some strong words on both sides. One bill would temporarily raise the gross receipts tax by .5 percent; the other would raise taxes on the state’s highest earners by 1.5 percent. Both bills could bring in $300 million to state coffers.
House Speaker Ben Lujan’s bill to implement a temporary half-cent hike in the state’s gross receipts tax would presumably not have passed earlier today if two Republican members hadn’t missed the vote.
More than 10 tax credits, including some for film and green energy, could face some changes if a bill brought by Senator Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, passes. While the film credits are just a part of Senate bill 248, it…
The House Taxation and Revenue Committee on Tuesday passed a measure that would temporarily raise the gross receipts tax (GRT) by one-half percent. The measure is sponsored by Speaker of the House Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe. In a straight…
The state’s budget appropriation bill is “$312 million dollars richer than revenues are willing to support,” state Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming said Monday. So the Senate Finance Committee, which Smith chairs, has canceled all agency hearings until members…
A 25 percent excise tax on medical marijuana could potentially raise about $1.2 million dollars for the state, according to the Legislative Finance Committee’s fiscal impact report of Sen. John Sapien’s bill, SB 56. But in a response…
A long-simmering bill that would require multi-state corporations to pay income tax on their earnings in NM lived another day as the House Business and Industry committee came to a close Thursday night. Rather than being tabled, as several other…
Their voices were clear and their shouts were loud in the Roundhouse rotunda on Tuesday. One week into the legislative session and Better Choices New Mexico wants every law maker to know more budget cuts aren’t the answer. And…
This week we’re talking about something many of us probably couldn’t have envisioned only a few years ago: With New Mexico’s adoption of medical marijuana comes a bill that would tax the sale of medical marijuana. Should New Mexico tax legal sale of the drug?
A bill introduced by Sen. Jon Sapien, D-Corrales, would apply a 25 percent excise tax and gross receipts taxes on the drug. But the founders of a new medical marijuana patients’ group say that to force patients to pay tax on their medicine would “hurt them a lot.”
Sen. Tim Keller, D-Albuquerque, is pushing forward with two bills he says will make New Mexico more accountable with money. And both got the blessing of Gov. Bill Richardson on Monday.
Senate Bill 23 would force the state to produce…
On Wednesday night in Santa Fe, writers from The Independent mingled with dozens of guests gathered at Rio Chama for the first of four Independent Forum events. The Independent’s partner KNME was on hand to film a panel discussion…
The group Better Choices New Mexico (BCNM) is currently proposing nine ways to raise revenue and prevent more budget cuts and is releasing one proposal per day until the start of the legislatives session.
Gov. Bill Richardson’s budget proposal is similar to the recommendations issued by the Legislative Finance Committee, the Legislature’s budget committee: Bottom line, the competing budget proposals are similar. They recommend pain.
Spending on state government would shrink by 3 percent and millions of dollars sunk into stalled brick-and-mortar projects around the state would return to the state’s main budget account under a proposal made public by Gov. Bill Richardson…
Welcome to our new feature, The Independent Forum! Every week we’ll ask a different question and solicit responses from a diverse group of New Mexico thinkers. New responses are added all the time. From Wednesday: Bill Jordan of Voices for Children and Steven Robert Allen of Common Cause.
The task force created by Governor Bill Richardson to study options for raising revenue has now convened four times. There are some interesting reports added to the group’s Web site, covering various options for raising revenue, giving definitions, histories,…
A report released this week by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy provides state by state comparisons of how regressive or progressive a state’s tax system is. The analysis of New Mexico is found on pages 78 and…
