Food Fight!

I spent the afternoon Monday at the first meeting of the recently appointed Balanced Budget Task Force at Santa Fe Community College. When I saw how full the parking lot was at the college, I realized that a high percentage of the 42-member board had showed up.

All sorts of tax increases and restructures are on the table. But, as I point out in my story in Tuesday's paper, the one topic that raised a some debate Monday was the possibility of reinstating the gross receipts tax on groceries. My story on that is HERE.

The food tax was repealed in 2004. I re-read some of the coverage of that bill in the Legislature, which reminded me of the fact that the final vote happened around 5 a.m. the last day of the session.

I even stumbled upon an old Roundhouse Roundup column I'd written a couple of days before that final vote, documenting some of the tactics and late-night, back-room arm-twisting at a time when it looked like the food-tax bill was dead. You can read that column HERE.