{"id":4147,"date":"2009-01-19T13:05:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-19T19:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/01\/time-to-start-living-within-our-means\/"},"modified":"2009-01-19T13:05:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-19T19:05:00","slug":"time-to-start-living-within-our-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/01\/time-to-start-living-within-our-means\/","title":{"rendered":"Time to start living within our means"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By Tom Taylor and Keith Gardner<\/p>\n

After the economic crisis occurred last fall, many New Mexicans have learned a valuable lesson — that they can no longer spend every last dollar from their paychecks. All of us have come to realize that we must pay our bills, but we also put away something in the savings account in case times get tough.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Tough times are now here. For the last six years, Governor Richardson<\/a> and the Democratic-controlled Legislature refused to stop their spending spree. Now we must deal with the consequences.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Since taking office, Gov. Richardson and the Democratic-controlled Legislature have increased government spending by over 54 percent, from $3.9 billion in 2003 to over $6 billion for 2009. Additionally, the size of government has increased as well, as 5,700 new state employees have been hired — a 27 percent increase from 2004.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It is predicted that there will be another $400 million deficit for the coming year budget. At the same time, the growth of state government revenues has failed to keep pace with this explosion of spending. In just the last three years, state spending has grown by over 20 percent, yet revenues have only increased by about 3 percent. In other words, the governor and the Democratic Legislature continue to spend more money than they actually have. It\u2019s time to change the way state government operates and end the \u201cspend today, worry about tomorrow later\u201d approach that has spent taxpayer money so unwisely for too long.<\/p>\n

There is a $454 million deficit in this year\u2019s state budget primarily due to a decline in projected revenue from oil and natural gas. As the prices of oil and natural gas dropped so dramatically over the past several months, the amount of money the governor and the Legislature were depending upon to cover their continued spending spree failed to materialize. Last summer, the House Republican caucus warned that these projections were overly optimistic. A more responsible approach would have been to \u201clow ball\u201d unpredictable oil and natural gas revenues and not spend every potential dollar available in order to increase the chances of not having a shortfall or deficit. With an almost $800 million combined deficit projected for this year\u2019s and next year\u2019s budgets, a plan of action to curb spending is required before a large, unaffordable tax increase is imposed on New Mexicans.<\/p>\n

Spending money the state didn\u2019t have<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet the Democratic-controlled Legislature ignored this warning and spent $109 million of a \u201cprojected surplus\u201d during last August\u2019s special session. Instead of waiting to see whether the projected surplus would really happen, the Democrats spent money the state didn\u2019t have. Overspending hurts New Mexico working families the most. Spending more money than the state takes in means there is nothing left in our rainy day account for when we really need it — so we won\u2019t need to raise taxes to ensure enough money is left to fix roads, fund successful schools and provide other critical services upon which many New Mexicans depend.<\/p>\n

Even though oil and natural gas revenues are way below estimates, the state will still receive about $900 million in oil and natural gas revenues this year. While New Mexicans may think this amount should cover the $454 million deficit, the reality is that the governor and Legislature have already spent this money (and much more) as they had predicted that oil and natural gas prices would stay at near record levels. Again, House Republicans predicted in August that oil and natural gas revenues would fail to meet projections and warned against reckless spending. <\/span> <\/p>\n

In order to ensure that New Mexico has a bright future and will be able to provide a world-class education, build the best infrastructure possible and maintain important services, New Mexico House Republicans are committed to streamlining state government while bringing our budget back to reality. In two of the last three years, the Richardson administration and the Democrat-controlled legislature have put together state budgets that have a deficit and where the state \u201crainy day\u201d fund must be used to balance the budget.<\/p>\n

Again, we are saying it\u2019s time to stop the raiding of our savings account, it\u2019s time to stop the spending sprees and it\u2019s time for the state to start living within its means.<\/p>\n

Rep. Taylor<\/a> is a Farmington Republican and the House minority leader. Rep. Gardner<\/a> is a Roswell Republican and the House minority whip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tom Taylor and Keith Gardner After the economic crisis occurred last fall, many New Mexicans have learned a valuable lesson — that they can no longer spend every last dollar from their paychecks. All of us have come to realize that we must pay our bills, but we also put away something in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4147","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=4147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}