{"id":5696,"date":"2009-09-01T17:17:27","date_gmt":"2009-09-01T23:17:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=5696"},"modified":"2009-09-01T17:17:27","modified_gmt":"2009-09-01T23:17:27","slug":"lawmakers-react-to-richardsons-budget-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/09\/lawmakers-react-to-richardsons-budget-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers react to Richardson&#8217;s budget proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>State lawmakers assigned to a legislative\/executive committee that\u2019s working on a budget fix said in a news release that they appreciate the plan Gov. <a href=\"http:\/\/governor.state.nm.us\/\">Bill Richardson<\/a> presented earlier today, but they\u2019re not in agreement on some points.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe see this as a good first step and look forward to additional meetings to discuss how his plan could be improved,\u201d Rep. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmlegis.gov\/lcs\/legdetails.aspx?SPONCODE=HSAAV\">Henry Kiki Saavedra<\/a>, D-Albuquerque and chairman of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, said in a news release.<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers and the governor must cut more than $400 million from the current fiscal year budget. Richardson plans to call a special session in October.<\/p>\n<p>Richardson says <a href=\"..\/2009\/09\/richardson-proposes-plan-to-balance-budget\/\">his proposal<\/a> avoids cutting education spending. In the legislative release, Sen. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmlegis.gov\/lcs\/legdetails.aspx?SPONCODE=SSMIT\">John Arthur Smith<\/a>, D-Deming and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he and other members of the legislative delegation \u201cagreed that while it is desirable to minimize cuts in public schools\u2019 budgets, the issue must remain open for discussion because public and higher education constitute about 60 percent of the state budget.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe remaining 40 percent of the state budget, which includes public safety and health-care programs, cannot realistically be expected to solely bear the burden of across-the-board budget cuts,\u201d Smith said in the release.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmlegis.gov\/lcs\/legdetails.aspx?SPONCODE=HVARE\">Luciano \u201cLucky\u201d Varela<\/a>, D-Santa Fe, said in the release that members of the legislative delegation believe surplus funds in the state treasury and federal stimulus funds that are specifically designated to be spent at the governor\u2019s discretion could be \u201cmore wisely used.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMembers also believed the governor\u2019s plan left too many difficult decisions for future budget years,\u201d the release states. \u201cSome members continued to express concern about what they believe is a slow economic recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe spending cuts that the Legislature and governor must consider will have a real impact on the lives of New Mexicans, and we must approach this task realistically and purposefully,\u201d Varela said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>State lawmakers assigned to a legislative\/executive committee that\u2019s working on a budget fix said in a news release that they appreciate the plan Gov. Bill Richardson presented earlier today, but they\u2019re not in agreement on some points.<\/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-5696","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\/5696","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=5696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}