Food tax opponents are making more calls than we are.  I know this is a hard revenue source to support, but if we're going to avoid an additional $68 million gap, we need our members to be relentless about calling the governor asking him to sign all of the revenue bills, including the food tax.

The governor's number is 505-476-2200.  Please make the call TODAY--he only has 9 days left to make up his mind.

For those of you who are still hesitant, here's a commentary I wrote for the New Mexico Independent on this issue.  Note that at the end I also challenged the anti-worker, anti-union, anti-government Rio Grande Foundation (RGF), which keeps publicly trashing the great work that each of you does every day.

Should Governor Richardson veto the food tax?

CARTER BUNDY, political action representative, AFSCME:

This is an incredibly difficult dilemma, but one that in the end does have a decisive answer.  My union proposed 19 different ideas for raising revenue, and was crystal clear that we thought raising the gross receipts tax and the food tax were the two least appealing options of the lot.

Four great ideas near the top of our list went through:  Personal Income Tax add-backs are progressive and simply close a bizarre exemption only used now by five states.  Applying the compensating tax to some out-of-state Internet sales is a long-overdue start to leveling the playing field for New Mexico businesses, including small brick-and-mortar shops.  Withholding state tax from out-of-state residents who work here and owe us money is nothing more than a compliance and efficiency tweak, which even conservative Republicans voted for in the Senate.  And the cigarette tax, while somewhat regressive, is also totally voluntary and has some outstanding health benefits and long-term cost benefits for the state.

Married to those four, though, were the small GRT and food tax increases, which moderate and conservative legislators insisted had to be part of the trade-off for the progressive elements of the revenue package.  I agree with Terri and others that the GRT is also regressive, but it was also exceedingly small:  12.5 cents for every $100 spent.

As for the food tax, the Catholic Church knows that it already won a major victory by having it scaled back from 6-7 percent to 1-2 percent. I’m also glad for that victory.  Food is going to be taxed at anywhere from 15 percent to less than a third of what other items are, and that’s due in large part to all of the advocates who argued for more progressive taxation and to the legislators in both chambers who listened.

So should that scaled-down food tax be vetoed?  Absolutely not.  Unless the same progressives think they can round up the votes for more progressive revenue sources, like a partial roll-back of the 40 percent tax break given to millionaires in 2003, a veto is insanely bad policy for the most vulnerable and poorest among us who use services like Medicaid and TANF, or child day care subsidies for working families.

Arguing for a veto is an easy political position to be sure.  Most people don’t enjoy taxes of any kind, particularly conservatives, and progressives, including myself, are appalled at any regressive taxation.  But the government programs that are funded by that $68 million form the very core of survival services for thousands of our most vulnerable.

If I thought there was one chance in 10 that the Legislature would come back and raise the personal income tax on the richest (say, $250,000 and up) New Mexicans in place of the partial food tax, I’d be in favor of giving it a shot.  In Dumb and Dumber, Jim Carrey asks the girl of his dreams “Give it to me straight.  What are my chances with you?”  She replies “Not good.”  He says “Like one-in-a-hundred”?  She comes back with “More like one-in-a-million.”  He lights up and says “Yes, so you’re saying there’s a chance!”

The revenue package is far from perfect, but it saved the programs we all know are vital for the poorest New Mexicans.  Holding out hope for another special to make up the $68 million with progressive revenue is a bit too Carrey-esque for those of us who saw up close how hard it was even getting the current package to pass.

Finally, for my friend Paul, I still haven’t heard the explanation for how government hasn’t been cut when it’s been slashed by $700 million in 2009 and by another $300 million this year.  Or how this administration is now about 15 percent SMALLER per capita than under Gary Johnson for front-line, classified employees, and several percent smaller overall per capita than under the RGF’s libertarian standard-bearer.  But that’s the fun of being political, si?