Commentary: On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy addressed a joint session of Congress and announced that it was his goal to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. Within eight years, the U.S. did just that. July 20, 2019 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 space mission in which Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins flew to the moon, and the first two human beings, Armstrong and Aldrin, walked on the moon. Apollo 11 was the most famous of the Apollo missions, but each Apollo mission, those that proceeded it and those that followed it, increased NASA’s technological capabilities and scientific results.  

Commentary: A historically large share of the nation’s wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, reducing opportunities for millions of Americans and reinforcing barriers that make it harder for people of color to make gains. These inequities are made worse by most state tax systems – including New Mexico’s. By designing better tax policy, state lawmakers can help spread opportunity more widely and build more broadly shared prosperity.

Among the solutions on state policymakers’ lists should be expanding the taxation of assets of the very wealthy, since loopholes and other special benefits currently shield much of the value of these assets from federal, state, and local taxes, a new series of reports by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) argues. Eliminating these tax advantages would shift some of the responsibility for funding critical public services and investments like schools, roads, and health care from low- and moderate-income taxpayers to those best able to pay, while increasing opportunity for everyone.

Commentary: New Mexico has received a very large present from the oil patch. And when it was unwrapped, what was found was a $1.2 billion surplus. But state budgeteers are playing the role of Grinch.

The wide spread adoption of fracking in eastern New Mexico coupled with higher prices has resulted in a sharp increase in oil patch dollars, hence, tax revenue. But the Grinch/budgeteers warn that what the oil market giveth can be taken away, so argue for caution in spending our new-found wealth.

Many, and by many, I mean me, think budget technocrats too pessimistic. Certainly, oil prices will fall in the future; just as certainly they will rise. Oil markets are volatile, and nothing has happened to change that. But, and this is a big but, there has been a fundamental shift up in the energy market. For any given price, New Mexico oil production will be more than in the past.

Commentary: U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and U.S. Representatives Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), Marc Veasey (D-Texas) and Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) wrote to leadership of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) demanding an immediate investigation into the tragic death of a 7-year-old girl from Guatemala who died on December 8, 2018, after being taken into custody with her father by CBP in Lordsburg, N.M.

“Her death raises significant questions about the leadership at Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and CBP’s ability to appropriately respond to the humanitarian crisis happening at our southern borders and the agency’s ability to prevent such tragedies from happening in the future,” the lawmakers wrote.

Commentary: Governor-elect Michelle Lujan-Grisham should quash serious cuts New Mexico’s Medicaid program faces in the Centennial Care 2.0 waiver approved by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The cuts, proposed by the Human Services Department under the Susana Martinez administration, would hurt families and violate federal law according to the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty.  

HSD’s Centennial Care 2.0 waiver proposal asked the federal government for permission to increase New Mexico’s Medicaid premiums and cut retroactive coverage. The cuts are scheduled to roll out in 2019 over a series of months.