Councilors in tax-and-spend mode

What a difference two weeks make when you’re spending Albuquerque consumers’ money.

On March 5, the Albuquerque City Council struggled with a “difficult” 8-1 vote to increase the gross receipts tax on goods and services by $51 million a year to plug an estimated $40 million deficit. It also deadlocked on handing city firefighters a second raise this fiscal year because GRT revenues were below expectations. (Councilors Trudy Jones, Diane Gibson, Isaac Benton and Brad Winter voted against the raises; Don Harris was absent. Winter was the sole vote against the tax increase.)

On March 19, councilors voted 6-3 to OK the raises, though they were predicated on an uptick in GRT revenue that didn’t happen and will boost expenditures every year going forward. (Jones, Gibson and Winter still voted no.)

Apparently, the city was so broke on March 5 that the administration and councilors had to ram a tax hike through without evaluating expenditures or going to the voters, but two weeks later, that extra hard-earned tax money almost in hand, six councilors felt it was time to let the good times roll. Sponsors Sanchez, Harris and Benton, as well as councilors Klarissa Peña, Cynthia Borrego and Pat Davis, voted for the raises. Benton flipped — and actually became a cosponsor — after he got more than $761,000 for affordable housing projects into the bill, saying “We do have a lot of neighbors who are rent-burdened.”

Think about that the next time you pay more to buy your kids tennis shoes, a new tire or a meal out.

There’s no question Albuquerque must value its firefighters and paramedics, who do a difficult and dangerous job. But Jones, Gibson and Winter understand raising taxes to spend money you don’t have is the reason many folks don’t trust government. And unfortunately they are in the minority.