Bill Jordan, of New Mexico Voices for Children, said the additional tax would hurt those who could least afford it. “Adding a 7 or 8 percent tax is not a solution for obesity,” he said. “New Mexico also has a problem with childhood hunger. Adding a $100 million tax a year is not a solution to hunger.”
Nobel prize-winning economist James Heckman notes that New Mexico could save $38 million annually on incarceration costs and crime-related expenditures by boosting the high school graduation rate of male students by just 5 percent. If that same 5 percent also went to college at the same rates as typical male high school graduates, their cumulative income would be $20 million higher than if they hadn’t attended college.