In New Mexico, I inherited the largest structural deficit in state history, and our legislature is controlled by Democrats. We don't always agree, but we came together in a bipartisan manner and turned that deficit into a surplus. And we did it without raising taxes.

Raising taxes does nothing to allow the economy to recover.

New Mexico is an environment where we are open for business.

I said we are going to balance an $11 billion budget deficit in a $29 billion budget, so by percentage, the largest budget deficit in America, by percentage, larger than California, larger than New York, larger than Illinois. And we're going to balance that without raising taxes on the people of the state of New Jersey.

Unfortunately, New Mexico depends significantly on federal dollars. We have four military bases here in New Mexico. We have two national labs that are very important to our national defense.

While the deficit and debt are serious problems, I oppose solving these problems by raising taxes.