Letter To The Editor: Regarding GRT Tax

By RICHARD NEBEL
Los Alamos
 
I have a question for Lisa Shin regarding the GRT tax she discussed in her recent column. While I’m not a big fan of the GRT, I think that it is highly likely that it will be reimposed on LANL.
 
I think that the most likely scenario is that we will have both a Democratic governor and a Democrat controlled legislature after the election. Los Alamos County isn’t the only county that receives GRT money from LANL. The counties adjacent to Los Alamos also receive funding. These counties are heavily Democratic, and I doubt that they are going to be inclined to give up their revenue stream.
 
If the GRT is reimposed and it is opposed by Los Alamos politicians, then my expectation is that the legislature won’t give Los Alamos County any of the LANL GRT revenue. After all, if Los Alamos says it doesn’t need the revenue then our neighboring counties will just divide it up among themselves. What we will end up with is the worst possible outcome, which is LANL being taxed and all of the revenue going out of the county. I hope that whoever gets elected state representative will be pragmatic enough to see to it that this doesn’t happen. My question to Lisa is: Are you willing to support the GRT if it becomes apparent that it is going to pass the legislature?
 
I have lived in Los Alamos County for 38 years. For the first 30 or so years, Los Alamos was viewed as the pariah of Northern New Mexico. Instead of working with our neighbors, the attitude was to retreat to the mesa tops and pull up the ladders. That attitude did not serve the residents of the county very well, and I don’t want to see us return to that.
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