Sherry Robinson

Few subjects inspire as much fuzzy math and fuzzier thinking as taxes. It was just one reason New Mexico’s governor not only vetoed House Bill 14 but stomped all over it and lambasted

Democrats in a smoking veto message:

“In a session where the Legislature found time to pass three separate license plate bills and designate an official state bread, it is deeply disappointing that they waited until the final days — indeed, the final hours — of the 2025 legislative session to take up a tax package. Even more troubling is the fact that what ultimately emerged lacked both strategic coherence and fiscal credibility. There was no plan and no preparation for how to pay for the tax relief in this bill. As a result, the Legislature had to delay any meaningful tax relief for working families until Fiscal Year 2027, despite the state sitting on more than $3 billion in one-time revenues and over 30% in reserves. That is not prudence — it is paralysis.”

HB 14 was actually 16 previously tabled bills that Dems stitched together into a crazy quilt. Its sponsors were House Speaker Javier Martinez and Taxation and Revenue Committee Chairman Derrick Lente. It had something for everyone, but the major component was a tax credit that would have effectively eliminated income taxes for some working families.

The challenge, as usual, was how to pay for it. They seized on a new 0.28% oil surtax.

That idea met strenuous objections from the industry and the business community. As Dems would learn, the president’s trade war has injured the state’s golden goose by driving down oil prices and driving up the cost of equipment and supplies. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil was $71 a barrel when the bill was introduced, $67 when it passed the House and $61 when the bill was vetoed.

That wasn’t the only hurdle. The oil tax would have raised $130 million. House Dems needed $72 million for their income tax proposal. The Senate’s tax committee added $70 million of its own tax breaks. You can see this doesn’t add up. And the Senate stripped out the oil tax.

House and Senate were at loggerheads until the day before adjournment. During last minute meetings, the Senate refused to budge on the oil tax. The final compromise involved paring down tax breaks and pushing them into fiscal 2027, so lawmakers next year would have to figure out how to pay for them. It’s no way to run a railroad, although Dems said they could use the bill as a template for action next year.

Fuzzy thinking also afflicted Republicans, who introduced HB 275 to do away entirely with personal income taxes. This would have cost $1.8 billion in fiscal 2026, according to legislative analysis. Their reasoning, backed by no studies whatsoever, seemed to be that with this big budget surplus, surely we can get rid of income taxes. Trouble is, the surplus is one-time money, not recurring money. The bill was never heard in committee.

The governor accused HB 14 sponsors of “decision-making driven more by political self- interest than public good.” Seeing machinations in Congress to justify tax breaks for the rich, Martinez and Lente referred to their legislation as “the tax fairness bill,” one of many on a list of Democratic bills to help low-income and middle class people.

“Fundamentally, this tax package is about fairness and putting our values into action,” said Lente in a news release. “We are cutting or fully eliminating income taxes for 300,000 hardworking New Mexicans who power our economy, while also making sure that the prosperous multi-billion-dollar industry that profits from the extraction of our natural resources pays its fair share.”

Its “fair share” is a third of the state budget.

Lente insisted the tax would fall on Big Oil despite Republican arguments that it would also hit Small Oil. Not everybody here is Exxon. When the Rs argued that the tax would hurt the oil industry, Dems countered that the president’s tariffs, layoffs and mass deportations were hurting everybody. That’s all true, but it’s not the basis of tax policy.

If either party was serious about meaningful tax change, they would have started long before the session in the interim tax committee. Then they could think and deliberate. They could make a plan, hear testimony and draft bills. Instead, HB 14 seemed to come out of nowhere and spring to life, like an accidental collision of cells in a petri dish.

Sherry Robinson is a long-time New Mexico reporter and editor. She has worked in Grants, Gallup, the Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico Business Weekly and Albuquerque Tribune. Her columns won first place in 2024 from New Mexico Press Women.

By Javier Sanchez

This Easter Season, I was reminded that I don’t matter, that regardless of what I do or who I think I am, or even if I consider how hard I try, I just don’t matter.

Redemption comes not from the things I think I do, but the way we serve each other. Jesus died on the cross to give us another chance, to lead the way, and to abolish death. When we replicate that life — in our very small and meager way — we must do so with service and tradition in our hearts.

I am reminded of a sermon given many years ago wherein the priest asks the eternal question of how to get into heaven. Though he admits he has no direct knowledge of what it takes, he knows one thing for certain: When asked by St. Peter why we deserve to go through the pearly gates, you had better not start your sentence with the word “I.” As in, “I have worked hard to go to church and do the right thing.” Or “I have done all of the things Jesus has said in the Bible.”

Rather, one should recognize that “He” said I could come. We are given redemption and a chance at everlasting life, not because of my ego, but because of the chance that God has given us to serve one another. It is no small task to help those in need.  But it is an even greater obligation to repeat the same service so often that it becomes tradition.

During the Lenten season in Northern New Mexico, small restaurants continued the small tradition of making panocha. Panocha is newly-sprouted wheat that only local millers produce for our community. They know what it takes to transform it into everyone’s favorite dessert. It takes eight to nine hours to make. Some of you leave it in the crockpot overnight, letting it bubble over onto your counters. Socorro at Socorro’s Restaurant makes some of the best around. At La Cocina, we too, use grandma Jessie’s recipe to cook up some pretty darned good panocha.

Thanks to Sennie of Big Dawg’s catering, we served salmon patties with torta de huevo, beans and potatoes on Fridays at Apple Valley Kitchen. More than food, our local community serves up tradition that inspires, feeds and reminds us that redemption comes from hospitality, love and service.

Service to others takes many shapes. Rio Arriba lost a great leader and deputy when Sheriff Billy Merrifield passed away on Easter Sunday. His unexpected loss comes at a time when his department was charging full steam ahead. He was responsible for bringing more than $3 million to Northern New Mexico with hard lobbying at the state. I have all the confidence that his well-trained team will continue his legacy of serving our county and state with honor.

This week, we also recognize the loss of our spiritual leader, Pope Francis and supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church who passed away on Monday. His lifetime of service was unmatched, becoming ordained as a priest in 1969 at the age of 32.

He led a long career focusing his sermons on mercy, kindness and humility — the three pillars of society we often find lacking. Again, the tradition of succession and service will take us through this difficult time.

We take these inspirations from Pope Francis to guide our lives. We look at the good deeds of our leaders and officers. They inspire us to do the little acts of kindness, like making traditional panocha for our friends and family. We seek to gain the grace of God with acts of mercy, not for ourselves, but for others. To serve, to protect, to feed others and accept God into our life. It is the only way toward humility and mercy.

Happy Easter. May the season of redemption be with you.

Javier Sanchez is the former mayor of Espanola, an independent businessman, columnist and El Rito Media investor.

Cal Thomas

In politics, creating and then owning the narrative is the best way to deceive the public, especially when a compliant media helps promote it and ignores later information that contradicts the initial narrative.

Such has been the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a native of El Salvador, who violated U.S. immigration laws and has lived in Maryland for the last 13 years. The media describe him as a “Maryland man” simply because he has been living in that state, but for fewer years than he lived in his native country.

The Department of Homeland Security characterizes him quite differently. Assistant Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin has an alternative and accurate narrative: “Garcia is an MS-13 gang member, illegal alien from El Salvador, and suspected human trafficker. The facts reveal he was pulled over with eight individuals in a car on an admitted three-day journey from Texas to Maryland with no luggage. The facts speak for themselves, and they reek of human trafficking.

The media’s sympathetic narrative about this criminal illegal gang member has completely fallen apart. We hear far too much about the gang members and criminals’ false sob stories and not enough about their victims.”

Garcia has also been described in some media reports as a “family man.” In 2021 his wife applied for a protective order, saying he beat her. He has admitted never to have been a legal U.S. resident. In April, 2019, an immigration judge ordered him detained until a deportation hearing. In October of that year, another immigration judge ordered Garcia deported, but the order was never overturned and has never expired, and he remained in Maryland.

Donald Trump was president in 2019. He must have missed that one.

Last week, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and a real “Maryland man” visited Garcia in his upgraded prison surroundings and came back claiming Garcia had been denied “due process.” As noted, Garcia received due process before two immigration judges. Is Van Hollen that misinformed? Several Republicans and conservative commentators have noted Van Hollen has said virtually nothing about the victims of MS-13 and victims of other criminal aliens.

Does Van Hollen think this is the best way for Democrats to improve their dismal poll numbers? Maybe he should join Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont democratic socialist, and AOC, a socialist congresswoman from New York, on their anti-oligarchy road show. There are probably a few seats available on that large $15,000 per hour private jet ferrying them around. Oh, the carbon footprints they are leaving!

President Trump ran on and won largely on closing the border and deporting those who broke the law to come to America. Polls show a majority still support his deportation efforts.

Last week the mother of Rachel Morin appeared in the White House briefing room. Patty Morin described how her daughter, a mother of five, was raped and murdered and her body stuffed in a tunnel drain. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt asked where was Van Hollen’s sympathy for her and other victims?

Good question. I sense a campaign theme for Republicans in next year’s congressional elections with relatives of others who have been raped and murdered telling their stories to the public. Voters are largely on their side and not on the side of Democrats who have again picked the wrong issue, mistakenly hoping it will return them to power.<n><n>

Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (HumanixBooks).<n><n>