State Legislature Reacts to Campaign Promises

(Chilpancingo, NA 19 December) The chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee of the State Legislature, Carlos Álvarez Reyes, reaffirmed that the state budget for 2011 will not be approved at the expense of campaign promises made by candidates for State Governor. In particular, PRI Candidate Añorve Baños has promised to end the property tax on motor vehicles, called “tenencia.” “It is not up to the governor to change the tax structure,” he said. A popular PRD proposal to subsidize fertilizer in agricultural areas also was a target of the statement. “The current budget does not contemplate it. Not even the current governor (Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo) has the power to alter that.”

The legislator commented that “The state budget presumes that the next government will continue the projects started by the current one. I think we Guerrerenses are fed up with the fact that every six years there is a jerking, stop-and-start approach, where current projects are scrapped at a waste of public money, and new ones started.” “The intention of the continuing budget is that we keep going with that which ought to be advanced, and the only things that change are the [unfulfilled] political promises, because, well, they need to change. … The people have confidence in the state legislature because we are doing a responsible job, and are not beholden to the political campaigns.”

The vehicle property tax is an unpopular one, and always a political target during campaign season. But once in office, the income is always welcome, so the tax continues. It was first established in the1930’s by then-president Lázaro Cárdenas, who nationalized the petroleum industry into PEMEX. The tax was a method of generating revenues to pay for the expropriations. But PEMEX has long since been paid for, and yet the tax continues to survive.