NM fuel tax increase could ease fiscal pain  -A A +A By The
Staff  For many years New Mexico citizens have seen gasoline
prices bounce up or down by 5, 10 or more cents per gallon.  
Sometimes there were several price changes each week.    Service
station operators, fuel distributers and the general public
easily handled the constant price changes.    Nor have we seen
any major negative economic impact or complaints from the
general public concerning these constant price bounces.   The
April 2010 AARP Bulletin listed the gasoline tax per gallon for
each of the states. The average for all the states was 26 cents
per gallon for gasoline. Forty-three states had higher rates
than New Mexico’s 18.8 cents per gallon.  The NM Legislative
Finance Committee’s fuel tax specialist told me each one-cent
increase in NM Fuel Tax provides an additional $12.7 million in
revenue ($8.4 million from gasoline and $4.3 million from diesel
fuel). If NM increased our fuel tax by 7.2 cents per gallon to
the national average of 26 c