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More debt? How is this more debt?
I guess I could give up $35 a year for these worthy projects. Its certainly not going to put me deeper in debt. . .
Is this really a good time to take on more debt?
Yes, because this isn't debt to finance consumption. This is debt to invest in productive assets.
Now - a recession - is a very good time to invest in a better educated workforce and more effecient (cheaper to operate) government facilities. The investment will pay off in the short run buy providing employment (and spending money) to people who'd otherwise be unemployed. It'll pay off in the long run by increasing productivity, and therefore tax revenues and standards of living.
After all, we've been hearing 'cut taxes, reduce government spending' for 20 of the last 28 years, and that's what got us into this mess. Now's the time to try letting government do the job we need it to do - providing education and other necessary services.
Why do all the problems always have to be solved with raising property taxes??
Mario
I am a rabid liberal but I gotta agree. It isn't taking on more debt, it is taking on more and more cost of living. I know it is only 40 bucks but...garbage collection and water is going up and it's only 17.00 a month more but...Tuition at tech is going up another 100 bucks but...That cheese at the store used to be 6 bucks, now it's 10 bucks, chicken feed used to be 4.00 a 50lb bag, now it's 12 bucks.
Now is not the time. Costs must stop increasing because wages are not going up for sure.
You folks are out of your minds.
Our prosperity, such as it is, is built on educating ourselves so that people can do intellectually demanding jobs and earn a decent salary. Well paid, well educated workers make more money and pay more taxes and make life better for all of us.
Saving a few pennies - even forty bucks - in exchange for making sure that there's less opportunity for higher education is self-defeating. Education, even education for other people, is about the best investment there is.
In addition, many important aspects of modern life depend on educated workers. Bond Issue C will pay for, among other things, "Higher Education
Department: Clovis Community College Allied Health Building ($4 million); San Juan College Health Sciences Building ($5 million); University of New Mexico dental residency program educational facilities ($7 million)." (League of Women Voters' voter guide).
If we want to have decent, affordable health care we need people trained to be nurses and med techs and radiological techs and all the other medical specialties. These are the schools that will train those people. Without those schools our own people won't be able to train for those jobs, and we'll either have to import skilled people from the Phillipines or do without health care. Cutting off the money to build those facilities to train those people is stupid.
Similarly, Bond Issue D pays for improvements at UNM, TI, ENMU, NMSU, etc. Without those facilities the quality of education suffers.
Go read what that money will pay for, and decide whether you want New Mexico to be poor and uneducated. If so, save that $40. Otherwise do your part to help yourself and everyone else in this state. We're in this together, and if people who can own a $200,000 house won't put in $40 to share the cost of educating tomorrow's workers, we're all sunk. So show you care about New Mexico, and that you care about education. Vote to pay the $40.
The LWV voters guide is here:
http://www.lwvabc.org/elections/...s/
index.html#vg
I'm not going to disagree that, generally speaking, investing in education is a good idea. However, it's time for government to prioritize expenditures, as opposed to going back to the trough one more time.
However, it's time for government to prioritize expenditures, as opposed to going back to the trough one more time.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're saying.
This isn't about government prioritizing expenditures. We're not voting on whether government should spend money on one thing instead of another, about choosing more police versus more teachers or whatever.
This is about your money and my money. Your $40 (or whatever) and my $25 (probably, because my house isn't worth $200k).
We're voting on whether you, and I, and everyone else who lives in New Mexico, wants to spend a few more dollars on public education. It won't make public education perfect, or give us all whiter and brighter teeth, or taste more like real peanut butter. Undoubtedly some of it will be wasted, because nothing is perfect.
It will, however, help make public education better. Maybe it won't do as much good as some other plan would do - but that's not what we get to vote on. If we refuse to approve any tax increase until we're convinced we're being offered the perfect plan, we'll never approve anything.
I'm willing to spend a bit more of my (fast dwindling, given the stock market) money to improve public education, because I think it's my duty to help contribute to the well being of the state as a whole. Yes, it'll probably mean that I'll have to cut down somewhere else in my budget, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. I think I owe it to New Mexico. Don't you?
No, I don't. I think I give enough to New Mexico, and we already invest enough in education.
APS constantly sticks out their hand for more money and I dont see that they are responsibly spending the money they just received from the prior bond vote. I do think we need to invest in education but there has to be some accountability that the money is being properly spent.
I think I give enough to New Mexico, and we already invest enough in education.
That's a fair answer. I disagree, particularly with the second part, but it's a disagreement susceptable to rational debate.
I did a tiny bit more searching on the intertubes and I found UNM's description of what they need the money for. See here. Here's a part from one of the pages linked to that main page:
"Funds sought in the 2008 GO Bond D will replace approximately 24,000 square feet of classroom space that will be lost when the existing and failing educational classroom building is demolished. UNM educates more than a third of New Mexico’s classroom teachers. This renewal and replacement will fulfill the need for modernization that will meet their need for new technologies."
I haven't gone to look at the current education facility to see how badly the building is failing, or how desperate is its need for replacement. However, if we want to train more and better classroom teachers (for increased supply should also lead to lower cost and higher quality being affordable) providing decent, well equipped facilities makes sense.
This is just one small part of the bond issues. I'm sure that if you looked carefully at each piece, and looked at the plans, and visited the current facilities, you'd find some that are desperately needed and others, not so much. I'm willing to bet my money that overall it'll be well worth it.
I may be wrong. If you can find someone who has done the investigation, and looked at where the money will go, and can demonstrate that most of it is not needed, I'll change my vote. But as a default position, knowing that building get old and fail and faciliies need capital improvements, I'll put my money into education unless I have good reason not to.
APS constantly sticks out their hand for more money ... has to be some accountability that the money is being properly spent.
I don't understand how preventing NMSU and UNM and Highlands etc. from improving facilities will punish APS for their lack of accountablity.
Commenting by HaloScan
