We will be hearing, to the point of nausea, for the next 60 days lots of debate about the State Budget. We certainly are not in as bad of shape as California, Arizona, Illinois and most of the other states. But all of the rhetoric over the next few months as state legislatures convene will be about their budgets. Revenues, Taxes, expenditures and cost cutting will be the subject of much 'word barf'. (I heard that term on Bill Maher this weekend.)
As these debates go on it seems that we need another kind of budget discussed. And that is the 'Moral Budget.' I am not sure exactly what that should entail as lawmakers set about their business, but I know it is about more than just dollars and cents. It is about poverty, justice, gun laws, extremism and any other number of topics. I am thinking this will get little or no attention as the questions of appropriations and taxes get worked over. But just the same someone should present a Moral Budget to the New Mexico legislature.
Maybe 'Think New Mexico 'could do it. Or some community and private foundations. It should become an annual thing that gets at least a bill sponsor and hearing. It would certainly be time better spent than debating the wisdom of a new kind of license plate for someone's favorite constituency.
2 comments:
Excellent, excellent idea.
Besides those groups you mention - people from the homeless shelter in the South Valley and the methadone clinic on Bridge Boulevard.
I wonder if there's a way to let everyone have input, then maybe vote. Then march it up to Santa Fe and stay there until they take it up.
Come to think of it, all I've been hearing is Susana Martinez' agenda. What Susana Martinez wants to cut. She summons the media and they come and lap it up. They have more responsibility than that. They should be asking around, but aren't there any Democrats up there who know how to use the media? Who have any ideas? Besides you?
Speaking of Susana Martinez, the up and coming Republican, I'm listening to a radio program and they are in Tucson talking to Hispanics about the climate of hate in Arizona, about what's going on in Arizona, where Susana Martinez' party controls government. That nefarious bill 1070 Susana Martinez' Republican party passed, where you can be stopped and interrogated for Driving While Brown, is just the tip of the iceburg when it comes to the assault on Hispanics by Susana Martinez' party in Arizona. One thing they are doing is outlawing the teaching of Chicano studies. The Republican Party, Susana Martinez' party, is doing that. The history of this region for the 8,000 or 10,000 years before Anglos showed up is insignificant, just like Hispanics are, in Arizona, where Susana Martinez' party is in control.
I wonder if we can look forward to anything like that here?
The program by the way is Flashpoints. It's a Pacifica show. It will be up pretty soon at Flashpoints.net or KPFA in Berkeley if anyone wants to listen to it.
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