{"id":8152,"date":"2009-10-20T13:09:15","date_gmt":"2009-10-20T19:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=8152"},"modified":"2009-10-20T23:06:47","modified_gmt":"2009-10-21T05:06:47","slug":"cervantes-%e2%80%98denial%e2%80%99-is-the-theme-of-special-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/10\/cervantes-%e2%80%98denial%e2%80%99-is-the-theme-of-special-session\/","title":{"rendered":"Cervantes: \u2018Denial\u2019 is the theme of special session"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"State

State Rep. Joseph Cervantes (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cDenial.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Rep. Joseph Cervantes<\/a>, D-Las Cruces, says that\u2019s the theme of the 2009 special session of the Legislature thus far.<\/p>\n

\u201cFew here are willing to discuss, much less confront, the fact that we now have recurring expenditures\u00a0which are exceeding recurring revenues by about $1 billion,\u201d he wrote in an e-mail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe budget proposals floated around Santa Fe for consideration all rely very heavily on one-time federal stimulus grants, using capital outlay bonds and appropriations other than for capital outlay, depleting our reserves and raiding permanent funds created for other purposes including college student loans,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese tourniquets will keep the patient on life support for another year before bleeding out,\u201d Cervantes said. \u201cThere is no genuine debate about what we will do after next year when all of this one-time money has been depleted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawmakers and the governor are working to plug a shortfall of more than $200 million in last fiscal year\u2019s budget \u2014 which many expect them to do with cash reserves \u2014 and a shortfall of $660 million in the current year budget.<\/p>\n

Education funding makes up more than half of the state budget, but Richardson and others have been working to keep education cuts to a minimum. And in his special session proclamation<\/a>, Richardson took salary cuts and revenue-raising measures such as tax increases off the table, though the governor says revenue-raising bills can be considered when the Legislature meets again in January.<\/p>\n

The House and Senate committees that decide whether bills are germane in the current session have backed up the governor\u2019s rejection of revenue-raising legislation.<\/p>\n

Cervantes is vice chair of the House Rules and Order of Business Committee, which is responsible for deciding whether House bills are germane. He has said the way to consider revenue-raising measures when the governor has disallowed them with his special session proclamation would be to call the Legislature into an extraordinary session in which lawmakers, not the governor, decide what can be considered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFew here are willing to discuss, much less confront, the fact that we now have recurring expenditures which are exceeding recurring revenues by about $1 billion,\u201d says state Rep. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces.<\/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-8152","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\/8152","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=8152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}