MLG agrees to have NM participate in federal school choice tax credit

After months of work highlighting the benefits of New Mexico participating in the federal school choice tax credit that was created as part of the federal “Big Beautiful Bill,” the Rio Grande Foundation is thrilled that Gov. Lujan Grisham has agreed to allow New Mexico to participate in the program. Starting in 2027 individual New Mexicans will be able to direct up to $1,700 ($3,400 for a married couple filing jointly) away from the federal government and towards New Mexico-based school choice scholarship organizations. As you can see on the fact sheet below there is a great deal of money that could be made available through this program.

The Rio Grande Foundation posted about this in early October, but it has been a top priority for the organization for many months. Even a 1% taxpayer participation rate would yield $3.8 million in local education funding, while a 30% participation rate could generate up to $114.6 million annually. See the fact sheet below.

This tax credit could have a transformational effect on New Mexico’s non-public schools. The challenge is that the unions absolutely HATE the program (see their quotes in the Journal article above). They will be busy lobbying newly-elected Gov. Deb Haaland to abandon the program and after that (once Trump leaves office) there will be legislative efforts to undo the program in Congress. Legislation already exists in Congress that has been signed onto by Sens. Heinrich and Lujan although that specific bill will likely go nowhere as long as President Trump is in office.

So, thanks to the vision of President Trump for creating this program and thanks to Gov. Lujan Grisham for allowing New Mexico children to participate. Now, we need to work with New Mexico’s education choice and reform advocates to get people to take the credit on their federal taxes next year and then to convince Haaland and eventually Congress to keep the program going. The work is never done.