New Mexico's Working Families Tax Credit works with the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, which has been hailed as one of the best anti-poverty, pro-job creation measures Congress has ever enacted. This fact sheet explains why this tax credit works so well and how New Mexico policymakers could make it even more effective. And it could all be paid for by ending an ineffective tax credit. (April 2018)
Tax Fairness and Budget Adequacy
Call me crazy but I really enjoy Tax Day because I am truly proud to pay taxes. If voting during Election Day is a self-expression of our values, then filing our tax returns on Tax Day is the method through which we celebrate those values. Taxes provide the resources to make shared investments in the things we all care about like a cleaner environment, public health, and quality schools.
The recent decision to include a question on citizenship status in the 2020 decennial Census is certain to increase the number of people who won’t respond to the census. And that’s exactly the political motivation behind the decision to include a question that hasn’t been asked since 1950. This change will be particularly bad for New Mexico.
The Lottery Scholarship—the state’s largest financial aid program—is not need-based even though New Mexico has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation. What's more, it's not distributed in a way that helps many low-income students. Learn more with this Working Poor Families Project fact sheet. (Feb. 2018) Read more
Thanks to the Medicaid expansion, thousands more adults now have health care, but even though the number of people covered has increased significantly, the cost to cover them has not. (Feb. 2018) Read more
The Medicaid expansion hasn't just provided health care to thousands of New Mexico adults -- it's also been good for the state's bottom line. This fact sheet follows the money to show how this program has helped New Mexico's cash flow. (Feb. 2018) Read more
Prosperity requires investments. You can’t grow a garden without good soil, water, and some hard work. Same with a state—you can’t have prosperity without resources, infrastructure, and a skilled workforce. But New Mexico has tried to cut its way to prosperity and it hasn't worked. This brief offers several recommendations for raising revenue so lawmakers can invest in our state and its people. (Policy brief; Jan. 2018) Read more
Created for a workshop presented at the Community Pantry in Gallup, this PowerPoint presentations looks at the negative impacts of taxing both food and nonprofits, and includes information about how to advocate with legislators on behalf of low-income and food-insecure New Mexicans and the nonprofits that serve them. (Dec. 2017) Read more
This PowerPoint, presented to the Legislative Health & Human Services Committee, goes over KIDS COUNT data on child well-being and covers several policy recommendations that would help improve child well-being by helping improve family economic security. (Oct. 2017) Read more
Updated! Learn the basics of New Mexico’s tax system—where the state gets its tax revenue to pay for public programs—in this simplified guide. (A Fiscal Policy Project publication; updated Sept. 2017) Read more
