Commentary: Whether it is a family, business or government agency, each will have both revenue and spending. Somehow, Republicans don’t understand that truism. When it comes to government, all they want to do is cut taxes, but want to continue their favorite programs like foreign war interventions, subsidies for corn, soybean and cotton farmers, protecting patent rights of corporations like Apple and deregulate Wall Street so they can cause another financial crises. “ Supply side” tax cuts in the Reagan and George W. Bush Administrations resulted in more debt and far less revenue from the rich. Corporations today only pay about 5% of the Federal income tax as compared to about 20 % in 1960.
This constant insistence on reducing taxes resulted in the 2013 implementation of the Sequester budget cuts of over $100 billion annually or $1.2 Trillion over nine years.
These cuts have hit New Mexico especially hard, because we have historically been heavily dependent on both federal defense and domestic program spending. I recently spoke to an Academic Dean at NMSU, and he said his revenue from Federal program and research dollars have declined 25 to 30% since 2012, and they cannot be covered by State revenue or Tuition fees: A major reason why the University is talking about furloughs for Professors and employees.
Our Congressman, Steve Pearce (along with his Tea Party cohorts in the House) have been at the forefront of this tax cut frenzy. Mr. Pearce had no concern for all the federal expenditures in his district—just an ideological loyalty to his limited government friends in the House.
Time to replace Steve Pearce with Mary Lee Soules.