{"id":24215,"date":"2010-12-10T08:28:05","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T15:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=24215"},"modified":"2010-12-13T08:45:43","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T15:45:43","slug":"martinez-admits-shift-away-from-campaign-pledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/12\/martinez-admits-shift-away-from-campaign-pledge\/","title":{"rendered":"Martinez admits shift away from campaign pledge"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Susana Martinez<\/p><\/div>\n

Gov.-elect Susana Martinez<\/a> says cuts to \u201ccertain bureaucracies,\u201d including education and Medicaid, might be necessary to balance the state\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo final decisions have been made, but it certainly is a possibility,\u201d the Martinez transition team told NMPolitics.net this week when asked if education and Medicaid funding might be cut.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an acknowledgement that Martinez is shifting away from one of the central promises of her campaign. She said repeatedly on the campaign trail that she opposed any cuts to education and Medicaid.<\/p>\n

Faced with worsening budget deficit numbers<\/a>, Martinez has recently shifted the language she used<\/a> away from that campaign promise, talking instead about protecting \u201cclassroom spending\u201d and \u201cbasic health care for those most in need.\u201d<\/p>\n

But this week\u2019s statement to NMPolitics.net is Martinez\u2019s first public acknowledgement that she is moving away from her campaign promise.<\/p>\n

Martinez\u2019s team recently asked state agencies to identify ways to cut 10 percent<\/a> from their budgets. A statement about that given to reporters this week mentioned protecting \u201cclassroom spending\u201d and \u201cbasic health care.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the fact that the budget deficit nearly doubled after the campaign, she recognizes that it might become necessary to look for savings in certain bureaucracies in order to maintain core functions,\u201d the transition team said in the prepared statement.<\/p>\n

Asked by NMPolitics.net whether \u201ccertain bureaucracies\u201d might include education and Medicaid, spokesman Danny Diaz said Martinez and her team \u201care closely reviewing and analyzing all expenditures within the budget to ensure efficiencies are identified, critical programs prioritized and real savings realized.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Seeking political cover<\/h3>\n

The Martinez transition team also provided the statement indicating that, while no final decisions have been made, cuts to education and Medicaid are possible. But, in doing so, it sought political cover by pointing to an Albuquerque Journal article<\/a> in which Senate Finance Chair John Arthur Smith<\/a>, D-Deming, said worsening budget numbers might compel Martinez to revisit her campaign pledge and give her \u201csome flexibility to maneuver.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith has previously told NMPolitics.net that Martinez\u2019s campaign promise wasn\u2019t realistic<\/a>. He said he believed that, \u201conce you get the campaign people away from her\u2026 she\u2019s going to look at it in a different light.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to opposing education and Medicaid cuts, Martinez said during the campaign that she opposed tax increases and taking money from the permanent funds to deal with the state\u2019s fiscal crisis. That left cuts to the other 40 percent of state government as Martinez\u2019s plan to balance the budget.<\/p>\n

The Richardson administration currently estimates a deficit of about $450 million, which, according to The Associated Press<\/a>, would require cuts of around 20 percent to areas of government other than education and Medicaid if such cuts are the only solution used to balance the budget.<\/p>\n

Martinez said during the campaign that she feared the Richardson administration wasn\u2019t being honest and that the fiscal situation was worse than budget estimates indicated. But she made the pledge to balance the budget without cuts to education and Medicaid anyway.<\/p>\n

When she started shifting language away from her campaign promise, she said the $450 million estimate was \u201cfar worse\u201d than even she expected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov.-elect Susana Martinez says cuts to \u201ccertain bureaucracies,\u201d including education and Medicaid, might be necessary to balance the state\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[118,107],"class_list":["post-24215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-economy","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}