If you want to get the skinny on how today’s Special Session of the legislature is shaping up, you are well advised to check out Barb’s latest posts on DFNM (look here, here and here).
So forget your Smith & Wesson. Now it’s Smith (Senator John Arthur) and Jennings (Senator Tim), the leaders of the conservative coalition in the state senate, who have a gun pointed at the heads of the House Democratic leadership – and the latter blinked.
To some observers, it is still rather astonishing just how quickly, and obligingly, they capitulated.
Indeed, during the regular session the House and Senate each passed different plans to address the state’s revenue shortfall. That session ended with the two sides unable to come to an agreement. And while both plans imposed a disproportionate share of tax increases on the poor and middle class New Mexicans, the Senate version was especially egregious.
The Senate Plan hit low-income families with tax hikes roughly 18 times higher, as a share of income, than those on the wealthiest taxpayers.
Now with the House’s apparent surrender to the newest iteration of the Smith and Jennings tax injustice plan, it would seem that any hope of introducing some much needed progressivity into New Mexico’s grossly unfair tax structure is off the table.
Here’s a good recap from the Santa Fe Reporter on where the tax burden currently falls in New Mexico.
Tags: NM Legislature, Sen. John Arthur Smith, Sen. Tim Jennings, Special Session 2010, tax policy
