The Richardson Solution

How Richardson Supports the Troops

Bill Richardson, in his last State of the State address proposed this innovative policy:

Next, one group is making enormous sacrifices on behalf of our state, our country, and our freedom—brave New Mexicans serving in the U.S. military. We have done more than most states to show our gratitude. Let’s go a step further – Let’s eliminate the state’s income tax for active duty members of the military.  Period. More than 190-thousand retired military veterans have made New Mexico their home. Many of those veterans put their skills to work in second careers. I believe we should acknowledge their benefit to our state, and encourage more skilled veterans to work here.  I propose that we offer military retirees a 50 percent deduction of their earned income up to $50-thousand dollars.

    Now, both proposals are reaching fruition in the New Mexico Legislature. New Mexico supporting our troops:

Military retirees in New Mexico who are now working in other fields would get a tax break under a bill passed 59-1 Thursday in the House of Representatives. The bill would exempt 50 percent of earned income, up to a $50,000 total exemption, from the state's personal income tax. It would not apply to income from a military pension. The bill is expected to be about an $8.7 million hit to the state's tax base, according to the fiscal impact report. But Rep. Edward Sandoval, D-Albuquerque, argued that the tax exemption would attract highly qualified workers to the state. "I think this will go a long way toward to helping our economic development," Sandoval said. He said the bill could, for example, bring more trained health care workers to New Mexico. The bill was part of a package of tax cuts proposed by Gov. Bill Richardson. "As many as 12,000 taxpayers would qualify for this relief," Richardson said at the time. "We want to attract second-career military retirees to New Mexico."

Instead of just talking about supporting the troops with rhetoric, Bill Richardson is actually pushing forward with positive and innovative dual-purpose policies.  First, the policy rewards those that have served our nation and secondly,

...the military trains career service men and women in a variety of occupations that are in high demand in the state, particularly in the high-tech and health care fields.

Supporting the troops and also attracting highly qualified individuals to your state?  Sounds like a win-win policy to me. Don't forget that Richardson proposed and implemented the nation's first extended life insurance program for National Guard servicepersons:

Gov. Bill Richardson signed a bill making the state the first to underwrite $250,000 in life insurance for National Guard members. The measure provides reimbursement for life insurance for more than 4,000 New Mexico Guard members, about 400 of whom are in Iraq. The basic premium is about $16 a month, which would cost New Mexico an estimated $840,000. Mr. Richardson, a Democrat, said 21 states had contacted him about the program.

Seeing opportunity and room for growth, Richardson has pushed forward with very exciting proposals to support our women and men from the armed services while also benefiting New Mexico.  While many people can talk up supporting the troops, Richardson has made substantial efforts in trying to support them with his policies and his political capital.tr

New Mexico-Native Revenue Sharing Agreement

Working with people, instead of against them:

Gov. Bill Richardson and all but two of New Mexico's 13 gaming tribes have reached an agreement that would allow more state oversight and a higher revenue-sharing rate in exchange for a longer gaming compact.

The proposed changes now head to the Legislature for approval. They would also need to be approved by the secretary of the Interior Department.

''The proposed compact amendments are not an extensive overhauling of the 2001 gaming compact,'' Richardson said in a letter to lawmakers. ''Rather, they make discrete and specific changes to the compact.''

The current compact was signed in 2001 and requires the tribes to pay the state no more than 8 percent of their casino profits. That revenue sharing amounts to more than $40 million a year.

Under the agreement, the compact would be extended to 2045 and the revenue-sharing rate that the tribes would pay to the state would increase to 9.25 percent and gradually rise to 10.75 percent, depending on each tribe's annual net return.

The higher rate is expected to bring an additional $10 million per year to the state between now and the end of the current compact.

The agreement also calls for tribal governments to be limited to two casinos per reservation with the exception of Laguna, which already has three.

Tesuque Pueblo Gov. Charlie Dorame, chairman of the New Mexico Indian Gaming Association, said the cap put on tribal casinos will affect the revenue coming in and that tribes will have to be more innovative in building their economies...

The tribes reaching agreement with the state include Acoma, Isleta, Laguna, Ohkay Owingeh, Sandia, San Felipe, Santa Ana, Santa Clara, Taos and Tesuque as well as the Jicarilla Apache Nation. Pojoaque Pueblo and the Mescalero Apaches have not agreed to the proposed changes.

BRS:  We'll see how much headway this agreement makes, but it probably has a good chance of working it's way into law. Unlike other states where Natives and revenue collectors are constantly at odds (and Natives are subject to demonization by media AKA California) it's nice to see New Mexico working an agreement out before it becomes too big of an issue.

Inaugural Themes Part 4: Opportunity

Any Democrat or Progresive that offers anything to our cities, states or nation must offer a vision of opportunity that is matched by real results. In New Mexico, Bill Richardson has extended a positive vision matched with opportunity for all the citizens of our state:

I believe we will sustain the highest job growth in our history.

More quality companies will come here, start here and stay here.

No longer will our children leave to find opportunity.

Opportunity will keep coming to New Mexico.

Businesses will choose to become part of our growing, high-tech economy.

And they will come to give their employees a better place to raise their families.

But you can't just have opportunity without discipline. That also has to be coupled with cutting waste and unnecessary spending. It just makes sense right? Reducing a bloated enterprise and streamling it's operation for future endeavours:

To sustain this opportunity economy, we must maintain fiscal discipline and keep a responsible balanced budget.

Four years ago, I promised to cut $90 million dollars in government waste and we cut $230 million instead.

We held the line on spending and returned over $1 billion dollars in taxes to hard-working middle-class New Mexicans.

Cutting taxes for the right people. Now how about that for an idea? I've wrriten about this before. I see absolutely nothing wrong with responsible and appropriate tax cutting for average Americans. As my debate partner Mitch would say often (both in-round and out-round) that middle and low income Americans have the a higher marginal propensity to consume.

Today, we are blessed with record budget reserves, the largest in state history.

We must continue to manage our budgets prudently, keep cutting taxes to build our economy, and maintain our savings for future generations.

As a state, we made the tough decision to use our permanent school fund and invest in the quality of our teaching and our teachers.

It\'s paying off for our schools and our students.

And our permanent funds have never been stronger - up $4.5 billion dollars in four years.

TRS Focus:

I've blogged before about the possibilities now that New Mexico has such a large surplus.

It is funny because I find such hostility towards tax cuts among the general left. Quite frankly, most of it is justified. We came of political awakening towards the completely unjustified Bush II tax cuts and from there we came to understand the general ideas. The problem with this understanding is that is doesn't fully appreciate the benefits of a positive tax policy for the middle and lower class of America.

For example, JFK and Clinton both pursued tax reduction for hard-working Americans. In New Mexico, Governor Richardson has developed positive tax incentives for new companies to move and invest in our state. In fact, this country would be much better off if we completely revamped or tax system to promote fairness, responsbility and savings. Unfortunately, we just have the same old structure which asks too little of our wealthy and creates an unfair burden on our hardest working.

NM finds massive budget surplus

What do you know? Being fiscally responsible (and enjoying some great revenue streams) pays off:

Study the state's economic outlook, its revenue forecast, its gross receipts tax trends and one thing will be clear: Gov. Bill Richardson has some serious cash in the bank.

The money - a just-announced boost for the next fiscal year of $723 million more than this year - no doubt will help Richardson appease the wants of 112 lawmakers in the upcoming 60-day session...

Richardson already has outlined parts of his wish list for the 2007 session. He got some input on his health care, homeland security, education and energy ideas at a closed-door retreat with a group of policy advisers, consultants and former governors from New Mexico and across the country on Monday...

On the list from Republicans and Democrats: More police officers to enforce DWI laws. Additional cash in the trust fund for water projects. Millions more for Medicare, health care, teachers. Expedited income tax cuts. And overall, avoid creating new programs that will take money each year...

Richardson said he wants $100 million in tax cuts. The relief among other things is aimed at helping New Mexicans make paying for college more affordable, helping clean energy companies and assisting working families.

"The consistent strength of our economy gives me confidence that we can cut taxes, invest in our schools and make health care available to more New Mexicans, while maintaining prudent cash reserves," he said in a statement.

TRS Focus:

1 - Tax cutting that helps out regular folks and clean companies just makes sense. This is such an excellent frame for the national debate - not a tax raiser, but a tax invester - that usually falls along such predictable lines.

2 - Richardson should take the Governor's scapel and cut some program costs right now when he has the chance. Being fiscally responsible means making tought choices and he's done it in the past. He might as well prove his mettle even more now while he has the money and resources.

3 - Be innovative. Experiment with some new ideas at the local level to increase resource (energy, water) conservation or development controls. Again, he's been doing this for awhile but more can't hurt.