I wrote about Mayor Martin Chavez’s proposed tax cut a little more than a month ago. I caught some flack from my friends at Rio Grande Foundation for not being a Chavez cheerleader on this one. However, I thought I had made my support for the tax cut very clear:
We’re not excited because it is just not enough. However, with that said, I’ll take what I can get, so I do support the return of our money. I also would recommend that any Republican on the City Counsel considering not supporting the tax cut, immediately stop by the County Clerk’s office and change their registration to Democrat because that’s where they will need to look for support the next time they are up for re-election.
Well, last night the Albuquerque City Council voted (subscription), and here is the result:
City councilors late Monday night approved a tax cut proposed by Mayor Martin Chávez, but they delayed it for six months to help provide the county with $9 million for jail expenses.
The eighth-cent reduction in gross-receipts taxes will take effect on July 1, 2008. Chávez wanted to cut taxes Jan. 1.
Craig Loy, Sally Mayer, Ken Sanchez and Brad Winter voted against delaying the tax reduction. Voting to delay were Isaac Benton, Michael Cadigan, Don Harris, Martin Heinrich and Debbie O’Malley.
Houston, we have a problem. It seems one Republican thought it was okay to keep on spending money the City shouldn’t have had in the first place. Worse, he tried to portray delaying a tax cut as an act of defiance:
[Don] Harris, the council’s budget chairman, said the approved plan was “far superior” to the mayor’s budget proposal.
“We are doing our job. Our job is not to rubber-stamp whatever the mayor wants to do,” Harris said.
Note to Councilor Harris… Republicans ARE NOT going to look kindly on a city councilor who refused to give taxpayers back $9 million. You can’t say I didn’t warn you back in April. There are places to make a stand, but standing in the way of a tax cut is not one of them.