Columns

Taxes are complicated and difficult, except when they are simple.
The observation comes in the wake of my annual chat with the tax lady and the end of the legislative session.
Like most topics, taxes are simple at the big picture, the most general.
In the tax world, three main areas offer themselves as targets for being taxed: property, sales and income. For income, corporations and people are taxed separately.
In New Mexico, even at the most general, tax concepts are more complicated. That’s to be expected. Everything seems more complicated here, disrupted by the magic dust of enchantment.

This week, New Mexico received news that, due to budget cuts, the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is moving forward with a voluntary separation program that seeks to reduce the workforce of the lab by up to 800 employees.
For nearly 70 years, Los Alamos National Laboratory has contributed to the safety and security of the United States.  Its economic footprint in New Mexico has been significant, contributing in terms of dollars and jobs, both direct and indirect.  LANL contributes more than $2 billion to New Mexico’s economy and its impact can be felt throughout the state and the many local businesses the lab works with.  The vitality of the lab is critical to the economy of our region and news of job cuts at LANL is of great concern.

I was sitting in the lobby of the “Innocent Little Angels Child Care Center,” waiting for my friend as he was picking up his toddler.
Suddenly, I started cursing, spitting out a stream of obscenities that would make a sailor blush.  I did feel a bit guilty about all those crying children.
 This incident reminded me of the week before when I was visiting the “Golden Years Nursing Home.”
There too, without warning, I suddenly blurted out a few hundred choice verbs, adjectives, and colorful metaphors.  I’m not sure why so many old people were clutching their chests.  Maybe something they ate?

The troubled economy, both here and in Europe, has dominated most people’s thoughts.
Yet all around us are threats, with far reaching consequences to the national security of the United States, which must be dealt with….either on our terms or our enemy’s terms!
In the simmering caldron of the Middle East, Iran’s radical Islamist leaders continue their progress toward attaining a nuclear weapon. And while they do that, unfettered by the timid foreign policy of the Obama administration, they create trouble wherever they can.
Examples include their active support of the brutal Assad Regime in Syria which becomes a dependent surrogate that will aid and abet their ambition to control the entire Middle East, and destroy Israel.