Sen. Bernadette Sanchez: Garbage In, Garbage Out on "Tortilla Tax"

Sunday morning we were treated to a twisted diatribe in the Albuquerque Journal by Sen. Bernadette Sanchez (D-Albuquerque 26) attacking Allen Sanchez and the NM Conference of Catholic Bishops and defending her misbegotten "tortilla tax." Her proposed bill (SB 10) raised the hackles of just about everyone with a conscience when she introduced it during New Mexico's regular legislative session last month. Bernie says she's going to try again during the special session that Gov. Bill Richardson says he'll call today at about Noon.

In the op-ed, Bernie reveals that she found it "deeply disconcerting" to be "under attack" by Allen Sanchez et al. on her proposed food tax. She says, "...it is my hope that before Allen Sanchez and his allies in the Catholic community send out attack dogs [emphasis mine] armed with poorly thought out sound-bite slogans and wasteful but eye-catching "tortilla demonstrations," they probe more deeply into the facts."

I guess she's willing to brave the criticism of the Catholic Bishops when it comes to taxing tortillas and other food staples not included on the crazy WIC list of "approved" foods, but she felt it necessary to follow the Bishops to the letter in her continuing battle against my civil rights and the domestic partnership bill. Of course, what she's really doing in both cases is following the orders of the leaders of the ConservaDem-GOP coalition that's running the NM Senate.

Bernie Takes Orders
When Senate Pro Tem Tim Jennings of Roswell and Senate Finance Chairman John Arthur Smith of Deming say jump, Bernie asks only "how high?" and votes accordingly. She's loyal to the Senate leadership, not her constituents or New Mexico's hurting citizens. How else do you think she remains the Chair of the Conservation Committee and gets to be a member of the Judiciary Committee -- even though she's not an attorney? It's her seat on Judiciary, after all, that keeps the domestic partnership bill and other progressive legislation bottled up. Last year she agreed to pass the domestic partnership bill out to Judiciary without recommendation, after walking out of the room on the first vote. This year, however, she made it clear she would vote no, period. She got her orders.

Garbage Food Tax Defense
Bernie's main defense of her tortilla tax is that it wouldn't fall on the poor because they get food stamps. Earth to Bernie: Earnings can be no higher than about 130% of the federal poverty guidelines to qualify for food stamps. That leaves out a whole bunch of low-income and middle-income workers who are struggling in this horrible economy created, in large part, by the very monied interests that Bernie and the others are working so hard to protect from any income tax or capital gains tax hikes.

Meanwhile, as noted in a report on New Mexico taxes by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, our revenue system is horribly regressive even without an additional food tax:

More so than most other states, New Mexico relies primarily on its poorest residents to pay for needed public investments. The very best-off New Mexicans pay effective tax rates that are less than half what the very poorest families must pay. This upside-down tax system is primarily due to New Mexico’s heavy reliance on regressive sales taxes, and its below-average reliance on the progressive personal income tax.

I don't know where Sen. Bernadette Chavez and Senate Dem leaders are getting their info to justify their mission to make an already regressive tax system even worse, but it's clear they're using garbage data to produce garbage legislation. Garbage in, garbage out.