With the New Mexico legislative session only a week away. New Mexico in Focus Host Nash Jones spoke with Democratic House Speaker Javier Martinez about the upcoming session and how lawmakers plan on balancing the budget while other states are tightening their wallets.
JAVIER MARTINEZ: I think for Mr. And Mrs. New Mexico, they're not going to see a huge difference, because our legislature has been very responsible in the way that we've budgeted and invested over the last few years, and so we are more than prepared for this moment. Now, our revenue is still up as compared to last year. It's just not as much as was expected back in August, a big part of the reason why is the dysfunction coming out of Washington, D.C. Every time the President talks about imposing tariffs, or every time he creates an international crisis or distraction, all of that impacts the economy, and all of that trickles down to us here.
NMPBS: You mentioned that you've been doing a lot of this work, you and your colleagues, of squirreling money away into savings accounts, trust funds. Is this moment one to you know, as as the revenue projections are shrinking, to squirrel more away? How do you balance the spending and the saving?
MARTINEZ: Look, the saving we've done a tremendous job with when you look at our permanent funds, for example, they are estimated to hit $100 billion over the next few years. That is a cause for celebration, right? Because a big part of the permanent fund is going to fund public education, for example, and universal, accessible early childhood education. Now, we have to keep in mind that we can't just save for the mythical future, right? That was one of the arguments I made back in the day when folks were saying, don't touch the Permanent Fund for early childhood because it's for a rainy day in the future. We've got to make investments today in our people as well, and that's what we've been doing, right? We're investing in early childhood and care. We're investing in free college for New Mexico students. We are investing in housing, we are investing in infrastructure. We can do both, and the priority this session will be to continue to do both.
NMPBS: You mentioned what's happening on the federal level. President Trump's first term was marked largely by these massive federal cuts that were showing up here in New Mexico. You had a special session in October. A lot of that was about back-stopping these federal cuts. What does it look like to do more of that this month?
MARTINEZ: You know, as long as I'm Speaker, no New Mexico senior will go without food, no New Mexican family will go without health care. And so we are going to keep investing in those systems to make sure that what's needed for our communities is delivered for them. But as I've said time and time again, no state, including New Mexico, can carry the weight of these cuts forever. And so we need Congress to grow backbone and do the right thing by the people. And we need this President to live up to his promise to the American people, a promise that he made a year ago that he was going to make life more affordable. In fact, he has made it a lot less affordable.
NMPBS: Is that going to happen? How does that happen?
MARTINEZ: You know, my family migrated here from Mexico because we didn't have much of a democracy back home. And a big part of the reason they migrated here is because of the promise of this country. I still believe in the promise of the United States of America to do right by its people, and I believe that the people of this country will deliver a Congress that is going to listen to the American people.
NMPBS: So you’re looking ahead to the midterms now.
MARTINEZ: The midterms are critically important, and Trump said so yesterday. He said they better win the midterms or the Democrats are going to do what they need to do, to do right by the people. There's nothing more absurd than to gut child care funding, as he's done in Minnesota. There's nothing more absurd than to gut Medicaid, as they are doing with the big, nasty bill. It is going to be up to a Democratic Congress and a Democratic Speaker of the U.S. House to bring back some civility and to bring back some common sense.
NMPBS: In the meantime, we can expect the state legislature to continue to allocate some state funds to those initiatives.
MARTINEZ: One hundred percent, no senior will go hungry, no child will go without health care.
Find the full length video of the interview here. The session starts Tuesday, January 20th.
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