Less is More or Big Government is Better?

Recently on the pages of the Albuquerque Tribune, the Rio Grande Foundation and New Mexico Voices for Children have traded jabs on the issue of whether a Colorado-style Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights would be a boon or a bust for New Mexico.
While the answers to most of her criticisms are contained in my original piece, Kay Monaco is not singing a new song. In fact, her arguments are nothing more than regurgitated talking points from the Washington, DC-based Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Of course, our side has its own talking points and those were developed by the DC-based Tax Foundation. These talking points answer most of the rest of Monaco’s assertions.
Ultimately, the conflicting points can be summed up in one line from Monaco’s piece “Fiscal conservatives are careful to overlook the most important fact when they talk about taxes – that taxes represent an investment in America.” If you believe that government at any level needs an unlimited amount of your tax dollars — state government grew by approximately 8 percent last year in New Mexico — then you need to pick up an economics book. Governments at all levels are at their best when their roles are limited. That is why the Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution that strictly limited the powers of the federal government. State governments too need to take on only those tasks for which government is best, anything else tends to wind up being wasteful and/or a hindrance to our freedoms.