The state House of Representatives passed the Welcome Child and Family Wellness Leave Act on Feb. 28, but Republicans and some Democrats voted against it. Minority Floor Leader Rep. Gail Armstrong (R-Magdalena) spoke with reporter Gwyneth Doland on New Mexico In Focus about why she opposed the bill and the impacts of federal actions, like tariffs, on New Mexico. Armstrong is a founder of TLC Plumbing.
NMPBS: President Trump has made some really aggressive moves on tariffs. You have a long background in small business, a lot of experience there, and you have the perspective of someone who has built small business into big business, right? So what do you think the impact will be on consumers of some of these actions happening at the federal level, and has the legislature done enough to try and push back on inflation problems, potential tariff spikes in costs? Have you done enough on affordability?
GAIL ARMSTRONG: Well, honestly, you know, at the state level, we're actually raising taxes. We want to raise taxes. We want to charge you more to do business in the state of New Mexico. We're passing the Paid Family Medical Leave Act. It hasn't passed completely yet. We're taxing, imposing a tax on one industry in the state of New Mexico. We are not business-friendly. We put up barriers. We put up red tape. We trick businesses into coming here by dangling a carrot. They're not really looking at the backside of the regulation part of New Mexico that actually hurts business in New Mexico. The tariffs that are at the federal level, you know, I'm not in charge at the federal level. I don't have a vote at the federal level, but I believe in treating people the way they treat you. If they're going to impose a tariff, we're going to impose a tariff. I'm okay with that, and I think it will be, we will see some sort of inflation, no more than we saw during COVID when the whole state was shut down.
NMPBS: So the speaker said that, you know, smaller businesses are exempt from the Paid Family Medical Leave Act as it is right now, and that for bigger businesses with more than five employees, he's like, it's like 30 bucks a year, and it's not that big of a deal.
ARMSTRONG: The problem comes when you're trying to replace that employee to do the job while that employee is off. When you're in a service industry, when you're in a restaurant industry, any kind of service industry, any kind of high-paying job, geophysicist, how do you replace that? That's where the cost comes in. The tax is not that big of a tax, and it is a tax. It's a payroll deduction, which is a tax, a benefit is when you can cash that out, you can't cash this out, and everyone has to pay in, and the employers will be paying in for, I believe, a year, maybe six months or a year, before the employee starts paying in. The other problem I have with it is there are no guidelines on how are they going to鈥� How is the reporting? Who's managing it? Who? Who decides if you have a good enough paid family medical leave already implemented in your business? How are you exempt? So, and it's also the reporting part of it, you're going to have to hire more people to do the reporting part of it, and it's just another mandate on business. We believe, we as Republicans, myself, as an individual, believe in taking care of their employees. We love our employees. We cherish our employees. We want to be able to sit down with our employee and say, 鈥淗ow can I help you? What do you need from me? Let's work it out. Not a problem. Let's work it out.鈥�
NMPBS: And maybe TLC Plumbing has the best employee benefits in the state. But the argument is that there are a lot of other employees who don't have those, business owners who aren't as generous, who maybe don't have that same ability. Shouldn't they be entitled to some of those similar benefits?
ARMSTRONG: How about mentorship instead of mandate? How about going to some of those companies and saying, 鈥淗ow did you do this? How do you make this work? Give us insight.鈥� But no, we're just going to mandate instead.