As state lawmakers prepare to address New Mexico’s fiscal fiasco next week, the Democrat-led Legislative Council has approved allowing them to sit at home during virtual meetings and be paid before and during the Special Session: this is an insult and another hard slap in the face to all hard-working New Mexicans.
So let’s pay ourselves, at home, while the state is going broke. Spend, waste, repeat, as we all face an uncertain fiscal future.
Per diem expenses for legislators are for food, lodging and travel for legislative sessions while they are in Santa Fe. Republicans on the Council know this, and voted against the home payment.
The state is sinking, businesses closing, unemployment rising, people can’t support their families, but Democrat lawmakers are gaming the system and paying themselves, declaring that the taxpayer has to compensate them for “opportunity costs.”
“People are asking what is the definition of ‘opportunity costs.’ It means that in their mind they must sit at home doing the work they campaigned to do but that they are missing the opportunity to get rich if it weren’t for this dratted bankruptcy the state is facing, the fiscal hole that they, the majority has dug. The funds are tapped out, but they’ll still find a way to squeeze more for themselves and squeeze the public,” said Republican Party of New Mexico Chairman Steve Pearce.
So missing all those opportunities, they have to stick it to you, the taxpayer, and draw per diem to pay for the hotel they are not staying at.
If you think that’s convoluted, wait til you see the solution to the state’s financial crisis.
