Senate Minority Leader Says Budget Doable Before Session Ends Thursday

Senate Minority Leader Says Budget Still Doable Before Session Ends Thursday
Reacts to Governor Saying He Would Call Special Session Next Week

Santa Fe- Senate Minority Leader Stuart Ingle said the budget is doable and he said a budget compromised can be reached by Thursday noon when the session ends.

“There is a good possibility we will be out of here Thursday with a balanced budget,” Senator Ingle said in response to a question that the governor said he would call a special session next week if an acceptable budget to him is not agreed up on between the Senate and House. “We are here for the people. We need to take care of business and go home.”

“The House has the budget the Senate passed. The House knows how to send it up to the governor. Senate has completed its work on the budget. A conference committee will need to be called to work out differences,” Senator Ingle said.

Senator Ingle said the Senate did make cuts, did raise revenue and it is not the time to have any more taxes. “The Senate has passed all it can on taxes,” Senator Ingle said.
“While folks don’t like cuts in state government, our businesses don’t like cuts in their businesses either but they have had to do them. We can’t say the state can have cuts.”

When asked if the governor’s call for a short budget session was too long and perhaps why a budget agreement has not been reached yet, Senator Ingle said some issues like domestic partnership have taken a lot of debate time during this limited, budget session.

“In addition to all of the other committee assignments, the domestic partnership bill did take up three to four hours just last night in the Senate Finance Committee with the same results as it has last year, voted down 7 to 5,”Senator Ingle said. “It did not need to take up a lot of time this session as we face a budget crisis.”