OPINION: Big beautiful bill attractive to many New Mexicans

I’ve had my suspicions for some time that New Mexico Democrats are more interested in resisting President Donald Trump than anything else.

I now have the receipts to prove it after our entire congressional delegation voted recently against including New Mexico in the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act, one of numerous provisions in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB).

Throughout his tenure in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House before that, including a stint as assistant speaker, Ben Ray Luján has advocated for extending and expanding RECA more than any other issue. Expanding RECA to include New Mexico Downwinders and post-1971 uranium miners has been a primary focus of his and other New Mexico Democrats for more than a decade, and the holy grail of the state’s environmental justice movement.

The junior senator from Nambé got so angered by my June 25, 2024, column, “Congress was correct to allow Cold War compensation act to expire,” that he and the other four members of our congressional delegation co-penned a July 7, 2024, column for the Santa Fe New Mexican, headlined “Compensation for radiation exposure must be continued.”

“The New Mexico congressional delegation joins countless radiation exposure advocates in New Mexico and across America in continuing to advocate for the extension and expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, program,” their column began. “As a delegation, we will not stop fighting until New Mexico families receive the justice and support they deserve,” it ended.

(Incidentally, the rebuttal from our all-Democrat congressional delegation was never submitted to the Journal — I checked our inboxes carefully — and the Santa Fe New Mexican hadn’t printed my column, just a hyperlink to it in the online version of the July 7 rebuttal. I had never before seen a newspaper print a rebuttal to a column it hadn’t published, but this is hegemonic New Mexico.)

As it turned out, our congressional delegation did stop fighting for RECA. Sen. Luján, U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, and U.S. Reps. Melanie Stansbury, D-Albuquerque, Gabe Vasquez, D-Las Cruces, and Teresa Leger Fernández, D-Santa Fe, all voted against the OBBB on final passage earlier this month, even after the expansion of RECA was added to the Senate version of the bill.

Heinrich explained he wanted a “clean” RECA bill, but he knows better than anyone that’s not how massive budget bills work in Congress. Numerous provisions, that may not pass as stand-alones, are thrown into a single bill to draw the widest net of supporters. It didn’t work with the OBBB though, as every Democrat in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House voted against its final passage on July 1 and 3, respectively.

Former Republican U.S. Senate candidate Nella Domenici committed to passing RECA if successful in her 2024 campaign against Heinrich. Although Domenici didn’t win the race, she was correct that it would ultimately take Republicans like U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri to expand RECA to include New Mexicans.

The OBBB contained other provisions that are good for New Mexicans, including tax exemptions for tips and overtime, work requirements for welfare programs, baby bonds and tax cuts for seniors.

No tax on tips, OT

The legislation creates new tax deductions for tips and overtime pay for workers making less than $150,000, capped at $25,000 each, through 2028. Both of these provisions are godsends for hard-working New Mexicans.

New Mexico’s restaurant industry employs over 90,000 people, according to the New Mexico Restaurant Association, and many of them are tipped-earnings employees. Eliminating federal income taxes on $25,000 of tip earnings will enable them, many of whom are part-time, to bring home more of the money they’ve earned.

And overtime is standard procedure in many New Mexico industries, especially in the oilfields. Not imposing federal taxes on the first $25,000 of overtime will help more than 100,000 New Mexicans who power the state’s oil and gas industry to keep more of the money they’ve earned. The O&G industry directly employs 27,000 people, accounting for 8.5% of the state’s total workforce. About 46% of them are Latinos, according to the New Mexico Oil & Gas Association, so the overtime tax deductions will be widespread and well-received.

Welfare reform

The OBBB reintroduces work requirements for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients and imposes work requirements for the first time on able-bodied adults enrolled in Medicaid.

SNAP beneficiaries between 18 and 64 years old will be asked to work at least 80 hours per month, while Medicaid enrollees between 19 and 64 will also be required to work at least 80 hours per month.

New Mexico has the fourth-lowest labor force participation rate in the nation (72%) according to the U.S. Department of Labor, the highest share of residents receiving SNAP benefits in the country (21.3%) according to Trace One, and one of the highest Medicaid enrollment rates (38.3%, well above the 24% national average), according to the New Mexico Health Care Authority.

Policies aimed at encouraging able-bodied adults to work at least part-time are sorely needed in New Mexico.

Baby bonds/child tax credits

The OBBB creates “Trump Accounts” for children born between 2024 and 2028. The U.S. government will deposit $1,000 per child, while parents may contribute up to $5,000 per year. The tax-deferred money can be used for higher education, job training or the down payment on a home.

The act also increases the maximum amount of the child tax credit from $2,000 to $2,200 per child, and indexes the amount to inflation.

Tax cuts for seniors

The bill offers a tax deduction of up to $6,000 for seniors with modified adjusted gross incomes less than $75,000, $150,000 for married couples. Permanently eliminating the personal exemption will result in 88% of seniors being able to claim enough deductions to clear their Social Security tax burden, up from 64% under current law, according to the Council of Economic Advisors.

Our entire congressional delegation was a no-vote to all the above because of cuts to health care and SNAP and other provisions in the OBBB. Luján, the lone member of our congressional delegation to attend Trump’s second inauguration, could have been a statesman and bucked his party for the good of Downwinders and uranium mine workers. But he chose to remain a partisan, instead.

I just hope he and other New Mexico Democrats don’t take credit for the first-ever expansion of RECA to New Mexico because radiation exposure victims have Republicans to thank for making them eligible for up to $100,000 of RECA compensation, and for the other provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill that will benefit New Mexico’s children, workers and seniors.