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Saturday, October 17, 2009

Build Tax Base Instead of Piling on More Cuts

By Emma Sandoval
SouthWest Organizing Project
          The state Legislature meets this weekend for a special session convened by Gov. Bill Richardson to figure out how to deal with a sizable and growing budget deficit. The governor and leaders of our Legislature all seem to think they can make cuts to government services alone to plug what some estimate could be a $700 million hole in the budget.
        As a young Chicana and single mom, I shake my head at the thought. Rather than target our social programs for cuts, it's time to find the revenue we need — we can no longer bury our heads in the sand.
        The state has an education crisis, especially concerning Latino youths. A study commissioned by the state in 2008 showed our educational system is already underfunded by 14.5 percent. Then, the Legislature gave us a budget this year that harmed education further by using one-time stimulus funding rather than finding the additional revenue we need.
        As has just been discussed in an Albuquerque Journal series, it's Latino youths who bear the brunt of New Mexico's lack of investment in education. For many of us, government-funded programs are the make-or-break factor for achieving bright futures.
        I dropped out of high school when I was 16. It was only through a mentorship program that I was able to turn that trajectory around and get back into school. I don't know where I would be today without that mentoring. These types of programs are essential if we want to turn around the achievement gap between Latino and Anglo youths.
        Then there's health care. One in four New Mexicans rely on Medicaid — a federal program that is one of the best investments our state can possibly make. For every $1 New Mexico spends on Medicaid, the federal government invests $4 in our state.
        I know very well how important Medicaid is. I was on Medicaid as a child until I was no longer age-eligible. I then had no insurance for three years. Then, when I got pregnant, I was able to re-enroll and both my son and I were covered until I became insured through my employer. Without Medicaid I wouldn't have had access to health care as a child or to prenatal care as a young mother, nor would my son have had health care in his first year.
        Similarly, many of the young people I work with every day are covered by Medicaid because their families don't have the resources to participate in the private health insurance system.
        When I consider the young people I work with and my own experience as a young mother, all of us with roots in New Mexico going back hundreds of years, I don't understand why our leaders resist creating a just and sustainable tax base to meet our needs.
        Not investing in our education or providing the building blocks of a healthy life means a huge number of our families will teeter on the edge of poverty our entire lives. And now we hear the state wants to make it worse rather than look at how to find the revenue we need. If we ever want to be a state not at the bottom of every national list when it comes to health, education and economic attainment, we must start with an adequate tax base.
        It's not unfair to suggest that upper-income classes or large corporations bear some of the burden of solving this problem. We should roll back the 2003 personal income tax cuts to start. Plus, corporations should pay taxes on all of the revenue they earn in our state.
        There are many more ideas as well, like the so-called "sin tax." My friends and I might not like it that much, but additional taxes on soft drinks might make us healthier.
        We are all in this boat together — let's acknowledge that and get busy with the hard work of creatively and fairly finding the revenue to meet the needs of our state.
        Emma Sandoval is a 22-year-old youth organizer for SouthWest Organizing Project and the mother of a 14-month-old son.
       

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