by David Safier
I happened to be at the Capitol Wednesday, camera and notepad in hand, so I took in the Dem press conference.
The thrust of the conference was to criticize the Rs for their piecemeal approach to budgeting: cut some stuff today and worry about everything else some time in the future.
Lujan and Sinema, who spoke and took questions, criticized Brewer for going back on her pledge to protect education from, in the Gov's words, "devastating cuts" by joining with Republican legislators to make, well, devastating cuts to education. They called for Brewer to include Dems in crafting comprehensive budget solutions.
Two D revenue suggestions struck me as more than reasonable, even to moderate and somewhat-conservative Rs. One was to restore funding for the Department of Revenue so it could chase down unpaid taxes. If 1 dollar will get you 4 (or 5 or 6 or 10), that sounds like a pretty good investment to me. The other was to increase taxes on non-renewable energy production. Since lots of that energy flows elsewhere, that would bring in new revenue from out-of-staters whose energy use helps to pollute our air, and it would also make renewable energy more attractive.
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