Now Albuquerque City Council members are considering a hike in the gross receipts tax of 1/8% to fund mental healthcare in Albuquerque. This is bad on a lot of levels. Mainly it taxes the poor to help the poor. Also, this is really a state responsibility that Governor Martinez has ignored. Finally, the gross receipts tax has risen to 7% already from the 5.7% rate 15 years ago. That climb in a regressive tax must end or we will make the poor even poorer. (At least Governor Richardson took this tax off food.) Couldn't these needs be taken care of by either raising the income tax, a non regressive tax, or tapping into the 17 billion dollars in state permanent funds? Of course one of these would be a good solution. So lets see if any courageous leader suggests it. I know many will say raising the income tax is bad when efforts are underway to attract business. It probably is. So, maybe going to the deep well of the permanent funds will work until new leadership comes into the Mayor's and Governor's offices.
4 comments:
Jim,
I have an idea. How about an honest budget staffing for APD. Instead of staffing for 1100 or 1050 sworn police officers, budget what we really have, 900 or less. Use the roughly $20,000,000 in salary saving by not budgeting for officers we do not have, to fund the city mental health plan. Or maybe even reduce our gross receipts? Honest budget figures will show tens of millions of dollars.
Dan
But don't they use the extra for lots of overtime, to make up for the officers they don't have?
How about replacing Berry and Martinez with leaders who have the citizens as their priority and beholden to no one else, cut out the corruption and let government employees know that their priority is to the people and no one else. The money saved by eradicating the corruption can then be used for its intended purposes - the citizens.
Money not used reverts back to the mayors slush, errr I mean the General Fund. It does not stay with the department.
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