Sherry Robinson 3-24-25 on

sherry robinson 3-24-25 on

Social Security and the DOGE kids

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

At packed town halls held recently by New Mexico’s three U.S. House members, the defining feature of attendees was grey hair, and one of their most urgent worries was Social Security.

In New Mexico, 468,000 people get a Social Security check. Another 55,000 receive Supplemental Security Income. For a great many of them, missing even one check wouldn’t just be inconvenient, it would be disastrous – the difference between housed and unhoused, fed and hungry, as U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez learned when he surveyed constituents.

No recipient, myself included, considers Social Security an entitlement. “I paid in,” they will tell you.

Elders’ alarm over Social Security has festered for months. The president promised he wouldn’t touch Social Security except for “waste, fraud and abuse” and then turned Elon Musk and his DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, loose on the Social Security Administration (SSA).

In February Musk claimed that millions of people over the age of 100 were receiving a Social Security check, when he had, in fact, misunderstood the agency’s aged record keeping system. DOGE staff, without training or security clearances, embarked on a “major cleanup” of SSA records. Since March DOGE moved 10 million records to SSA’s Death Master File over the objections of SSA staff, according to the Washington Post. But DOGE itself was so unsure about its actions, according to Newsweek, that it advised SSA offices to reinstate people who came in with identification. That can take months.

The Washington Post reported last week on one man who learned he was added to the Death Master File when he couldn’t use his credit card to buy lunch. The government told financial institutions he was dead, clawed back his last Social Security check, and ended his pension checks and Medicare. Months later, he’s still trying to recover pension checks.

The undead have been showing up at Social Security offices, where they may or may not find somebody to help them. The Trump administration fired 7,000 people from SSA’s 57,000-person workforce, despite staffing at a 50-year low, and plans to lay off thousands more and close offices. At the same time, DOGE began requiring people without internet access to prove their identity with an in-person office visit.

The result was website crashes, hours’ long wait times by phone, and few actual humans still working in field offices.

U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury told a town hall this month that she was denied entry to the Albuquerque Social Security office, even though she had an appointment. She said the office, a regional call center normally staffed by 600, had around 250 to 300 employees.

She joined more than 100 members of Congress in asking SSA’s Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek to keep local field offices open.

Dudek, previously a mid-level data analyst, welcomed and enabled DOGE as other agency professionals resisted or resigned in protest. At DOGE’s direction, he has “pushed out dozens of officials with years of expertise in running Social Security’s complex benefit and information technology systems,” the Washington Post reported. In a recording obtained by ProPublica, Dudek urged co-workers to be patient with “the DOGE kids,” as he called them. “They’re learning. Let people learn. They’re going to make mistakes.”

Former Deputy Commissioner Jason Fichtner has compared DOGE’s Social Security cuts to a drunk operating a wrecking ball. His boss, former Commissioner Martin O’Malley, has warned Social Security recipients to save their money to prepare for future missed checks. He has explained that SSA’s overhead is far below commercial insurers. In his view the administration is trying to dismember the agency by breaking its ability to serve. Once broken, it can be privatized.

Which is what Stansbury said in her town hall. “They are trying to dismantle Social Security. The GOP has dreamed of privatizing it for years. A lot of major financial institutions can make a lot of money,” she said.

Project 2025, the administration’s 900-page blueprint, doesn’t address Social Security, but one of its authors, economist Stephen Moore, called Social Security a Ponzi scheme long before Elon Musk did, and Moore has long proposed deep cuts and privatization.

The debate over privatizing Social Security is long standing. Two thoughts: First, with a private account the broker gets paid whether the market is up or down, whether you make money or not. Second, we all deserve to make our own decisions about what happens to Social Security and not be forced into an outcome because the powers that be drove it into the ground.

As a Vasquez constituent told Source New Mexico, “It’s my money.”

Tax package was short on planning and long on politics

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Few subjects inspire as much fuzzy math and fuzzier thinking as taxes. It was just one reason the governor not only vetoed House Bill 14 but stomped all over it and lambasted Democrats in a smoking veto message:

“In a session where the Legislature found time to pass three separate license plate bills and designate an official state bread, it is deeply disappointing that they waited until the final days—indeed, the final hours—of the 2025 legislative session to take up a tax package. Even more troubling is the fact that what ultimately emerged lacked both strategic coherence and fiscal credibility. There was no plan and no preparation for how to pay for the tax relief in this bill. As a result, the Legislature had to delay any meaningful tax relief for working families until Fiscal Year 2027, despite the state sitting on more than $3 billion in one-time revenues and over 30% in reserves. That is not prudence—it is paralysis.”

HB 14 was actually 16 previously tabled bills that Dems stitched together into a crazy quilt. Its sponsors were House Speaker Javier Martinez and Taxation and Revenue Committee Chairman Derrick Lente. It had something for everyone, but the major component was a tax credit that would have effectively eliminated income taxes for some working families.

The challenge, as usual, was how to pay for it. They seized on a new 0.28% oil surtax. That idea met strenuous objections from the industry and the business community. As Dems would learn, the president’s trade war has injured the state’s golden goose by driving down oil prices and driving up the cost of equipment and supplies. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil was $71 a barrel when the bill was introduced, $67 when it passed the House and $61 when the bill was vetoed.

That wasn’t the only hurdle. The oil tax would have raised $130 million. House Dems needed $72 million for their income tax proposal. The Senate’s tax committee added $70 million of its own tax breaks. You can see this doesn’t add up. And the Senate stripped out the oil tax.

House and Senate were at loggerheads until the day before adjournment. During last minute meetings, the Senate refused to budge on the oil tax. The final compromise involved paring down tax breaks and pushing them into fiscal 2027, so lawmakers next year would have to figure out how to pay for them. It’s no way to run a railroad, although Dems said they could use the bill as a template for action next year.

Fuzzy thinking also afflicted Republicans, who introduced HB 275 to do away entirely with personal income taxes. This would have cost $1.8 billion in fiscal 2026, according to legislative analysis. Their reasoning, backed by no studies whatsoever, seemed to be that with this big budget surplus, surely we can get rid of income taxes. Trouble is, the surplus is one-time money, not recurring money. The bill was never heard in committee.

The governor accused HB 14 sponsors of “decision-making driven more by political self-interest than public good.” Seeing machinations in Congress to justify tax breaks for the rich, Martinez and Lente referred to their legislation as “the tax fairness bill,” one of many on a list of Democratic bills to help low-income and middle class people.

“Fundamentally, this tax package is about fairness and putting our values into action,” said Lente in a news release. “We are cutting or fully eliminating income taxes for 300,000 hardworking New Mexicans who power our economy, while also making sure that the prosperous multi-billion-dollar industry that profits from the extraction of our natural resources pays its fair share.”

Its “fair share” is a third of the state budget.

Lente insisted the tax would fall on Big Oil despite Republican arguments that it would also hit Small Oil. Not everybody here is Exxon. When the Rs argued that the tax would hurt the oil industry, Dems countered that the president’s tariffs, layoffs and mass deportations were hurting everybody. That’s all true, but it’s not the basis of tax policy.

If either party was serious about meaningful tax change, they would have started long before the session in the interim tax committee. Then they could think and deliberate. They could make a plan, hear testimony and draft bills. Instead, HB 14 seemed to come out of nowhere and spring to life, like an accidental collision of cells in a petri dish.

Your word of the day: Uncertainty

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Tax season was extra painful this year. Because I did well in the stock market last year, I had to pay extra for capital gains, but those gains have evaporated and then some in Wall Street’s downward skid. Now, like millions of others with dwindling retirement accounts, I’m wondering what to do.

As a journalist, I’ve never made a lot of money, so it’s remarkable that somebody like me even has a stock portfolio. I credit that to workplace 401Ks, some smart brokers and the penny pinching I learned from my mother.

More than half of Americans are invested in the stock market, and now we’re watching the money we counted on as nest eggs or retirement income disappear, all because of the president’s trade war. As the markets bled trillions of dollars, even his supporters have objected.

On April 6 billionaire hedge fund investor and Trump backer Bill Ackman wrote that in socking allies and adversaries alike with massive tariffs we were destroying the world’s confidence in the United States as a trading partner, a place to do business and a safe place to invest. “(W)e are heading for a self-induced economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down.”

If this guy is alarmed, where does that leave people like me?

The state’s investment officers are also worried. Our much-admired permanent funds took a $1 billion hit, and public retirement accounts were also down. Bob Jacksha, chief investment officer for the Educational Retirement Board, blamed the market downturn on “economic malfeasance” by the Trump administration, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

Our permanent funds underwrite many of the lofty programs that come out of the Legislature, so a squeeze on the funds will eventually mean a squeeze in services. Managers of these big funds say they can ride out downturns in the short term, but what if it’s not short term?

Bill Ackman is not an outlier. Anybody who knows anything about business and the economy has one word on their mind these days: Uncertainty.

A panel of New Mexico economists and trade experts speaking at UNM recently agreed that fluctuating tariffs would not only slam consumer prices everywhere but jeopardize free trade between countries, reported Source New Mexico. Jordan Rosenberg Cobos, president of the International Law Society, said “the uncertainty and the unpredictability behind the tariffs may be even more damaging than the actual tariffs. It’s like you’re taking a load-bearing wall out of the global economy without much notice.”

Jerry Pacheco, executive director of the nonprofit International Business Accelerator in Santa Teresa, has written about trade issues for years. What Trump called “Liberation Day” in announcing new tariffs should be called “Chaos Day,” he wrote.

“I have never seen so much confusion and scrambling in the trade community as I witnessed that day.”

Pacheco spent days calling contacts, trying to sort out how the on-again, off-again, permanent and paused tariffs would work here. His usual government sources didn’t know. Neither did customs brokers. Companies are scrambling to learn which tariffs might apply to them and how they will affect their markets. “It is this uncertainty that is the most difficult challenge.”

As an old business reporter, I can tell you what happens when businesses face uncertainty. They hit pause. They postpone hiring, equipment purchases, and expansion. If a slump persists, they cut expenses and lay people off.It’s no different for individuals: Do we buy a new stove or put it off? Eat out or stock up on beans?

Economists locally and nationally are starting to use the R-word.

“At this point recession seems more likely than not,” Albuquerque economist Kelly O’Donnell told the Journal. “Seldom have so many negative factors simultaneously converged on the U.S. economy, and unlike the global pandemic or world wars, the current crisis is entirely self-imposed.”

Lately, the president said on his way to Mar-a-Lago for a weekend of golf that “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.” Clearly, he’s not the one taking the medicine.

Feds to New Mexico: Burn, baby, burn

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Our beautiful New Mexico skies have been stubbornly blue for months, and we know what that means. A few weeks ago, Patrick Lohman, of the online Source New Mexico, reported severe drought across the state.

Lohman has racked up more fire coverage than any New Mexico journalist, so when I see a fire story with his byline, I pay attention.

He also reported that “federal cuts could leave one-third of the state without dispatchers to monitor for nascent blazes and fewer firefighters to respond if they blow up.”

Go online and you’ll find colorful maps with the color red bleeding across the page to tell us that above normal fire conditions cover most of the state. Two years of moderate precipitation encouraged growth of fuels like grass and pine needles. Now they’re dry as paper. It’s a matter of when, not if.

“It’s bad, man,” UNM fire ecologist Matt Hurteau told Lohman.

In February the “Department of Government Efficiency” ordered the firing of 3,400 Forest Service seasonal employees. DOGE’s budget cutters were supposed to exempt firefighters. They didn’t know that 75% of the laid-off employees were trained and qualified in wildland firefighting. They didn’t know that most of the agency’s field crews are seasonal employees. They didn’t know that these crews not only clean recreation sites, they maintain trails and thin forests and that both steps are key to fire prevention. They didn’t know that during a fire, they’re also firefighters and fire support. And they didn’t know or care that the Forest Service is already understaffed, which is why every employee is involved in fire management.

A federal judge ordered the 3,400 workers to be reinstated, but they can still be fired in a reduction in force. The president has asked the Supreme Court to block the ruling.

What’s particularly shameful is that the Office of Personnel Management told these people they were being fired for “poor performance,” an obvious lie that hinders future employment. As one of them wrote recently, they willingly sleep on the ground, sweat and freeze to clear trails and clean campsites, and respond to backcountry medical emergencies – all for very little money.

At the same time, DOGE plans to close the supervisors’ offices of the Cibola National Forest and Gila National Forest. Both house dispatch centers that coordinate fire response by federal, state and tribal agencies and monitor wildfire detection systems. They cover 45,000 square miles. Although U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich has received “assurances” that they won’t close, the General Services Administration has been noncommittal.

UNM’s Hurteau worries that multiple wildfires in the West will quickly exhaust available resources. We’ll have permanent employees providing incident command, along with aircraft, but not boots on the ground. He also worries that under-staffed fire crews, who by nature and culture give their all, will be injured or killed.

The one spark of good news is that the state Forestry Division is in the process of training 1,500 full-time and volunteer wildland firefighters this year. It also has 37 full-time wildland firefighters in three crews.

And the Legislature passed House Bill 191, which creates two wildfire-related permanent funds to bolster the state Forestry Division. The Wildfire Suppression Fund will pay for contract wildland firefighters, equipment and supplies, and vehicle rental and repair. The Post-Wildfire Fund will pay for recovery efforts and environmental rehabilitation.

It’s a great idea, but the appropriation is $12 million, hardly enough to make a dent during a major disaster, especially if Forest Service cuts are permanent and FEMA disappears.

The bottom line is that Elon Musk, who pays close attention to his own bottom line, is leaving New Mexico to burn.

Juvenile crime divides lawmakers

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Scott Habermehl was riding his bicycle to work in the early morning darkness as he always did, when a stolen car driven by a 13-year-old struck him. The force of the collision threw the Sandia National Laboratories engineer up over the top of the car. The driver and his accomplices, ages 11 and 15, raced away, leaving Habermehl to die in the road.

The kids then posted their escapade to social media, revealing that they saw the bicyclist, talked about hitting him, and then laughed as the driver swerved into the bike lane. The two older boys have been arrested and charged. Authorities are still figuring out how to charge the 11-year-old.

News of this crime broke on March 18, after legislators sent their crime package to the governor – without a juvenile crime bill.

“This case is an appalling and heartbreaking reminder of the serious juvenile crime crisis we face in New Mexico – and our lack of tools to properly address it,” said the governor.

Lawmakers this session had two bills aimed at juveniles. On March 6, a committee tabled House Bill 134, the one cops and district attorneys wanted. A weaker bill, HB 255, failed in a Senate vote.

Let’s look at HB 134 by Rep. Andrea Reeb, R-Clovis and a former prosecutor, who had worked with Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman to develop the bill.

HB 134 would have changed the state’s Delinquency Act to include 14-year-olds in the definition of “serious youthful offender,” triggering adult prosecution and sentencing, according to legislative analysis. Along with first degree murder, they could be charged with second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, robbery while armed with a deadly weapon, and shooting at a vehicle or dwelling resulting in great bodily harm.

On March 6, Reeb explained to the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee, “We’re targeting the worst of the worst” and trying to hold them accountable. “We have 13-year-olds committing murder.”

Opposing the bill were juvenile advocates. Vanessa Hulliger, of Stronger Together, Never Alone, said harsher punishment doesn’t effectively deter juvenile crime. The ACLU said HB 134 would lead to over-incarceration of kids.

Speaking in support, Marcus Montoya, of the New Mexico District Attorneys’ Association, called attention to the effect of violent juveniles on the rest of the increasingly fearful community. The most violent kids need to be separated from other kids.

Reeb pointed out that under HB 134 kids would still receive a hearing about whether they were amenable to treatment. “We’re not giving up on kids,” she said. “Evaluations will be conducted.”

Bernalillo County Deputy DA Troy Gray testified that between 2022 and 2023 there were 24 murders by juveniles and 471 crimes involving handguns. Juvenile crime was up 57%. Without the bill, juvenile offenders would be free at 21, even if they were not rehabilitated. HB 134, he said, would give them the “flexibility of time.”

Rep. Andrea Romero, D-Santa Fe, complained that the bill would commit kids to incarceration with no chance for rehabilitation.

Gray assured her that they wanted to rehabilitate kids, but they must also be accountable. “This represents the worst kind of behavior,” said Gray. Some kids would continue to harm others as adults.

Democrats prevailed in a committee vote to table, but this bill really wasn’t partisan. Sam Bregman, who pushed for this bill, was once Democratic Party chairman. The governor and other Dems wanted it.

What we saw here was the divide between those who want to give child offenders every chance and those who know that some of them can commit heinous acts.

As a former volunteer juvenile probation officer, I see both sides. At times I sat in my car and cried about the kids’ lives. People always ask, “Where were their parents?” Well, most of these kids have zero home life, and drugs, alcohol and poverty play a role. One of the saddest comments I heard: “My mom’s boyfriend doesn’t like me. My dad doesn’t have room for me where he stays.”

Imagine that you’re 14 and nobody wants you.

Years ago, when juvenile crime was in the news, a reader informed me about psychopathic kids and the difficulty of treating them. Some will always be a danger to the public.

Legislators need to keep working on this. The governor is correct to hold their feet to the fire.

Sherry Robinson 3-24-25 on

sherry robinson 3-24-25 on

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