TENN TAX BATTLE: NOBODY LIKES THE DOG BUDGET (budget cuts)

The Oak Ridger ^ | 4/1/02 | AP

[GailA]

Nobody likes the DOGS budget

The Associated Press

NASHVILLE -- A budget that makes deep cuts in education, health care and eliminates the departments of tourism and economic development has a label at Legislative Plaza: the Downsizing Ongoing Government Services or DOGS budget.

Some lawmakers say passing it would throw the state's future to the dogs. Nobody likes it. Department after department uses "devastating" when describing its potential effects.

"It would not set this state back years, it would set us back generations," says House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, who favors an income tax to raise revenue.

But it remains a possibility as the Legislature continues to struggle unsuccessfully to find some way to raise money.

Rep. Matt Kisber and Sen. Jim Kyle put together different versions of the bill, but both with the same aim -- to show what will happen to state government if no new taxes pass. They say it's not a scare tactic.

"This is where we are with no new revenue," says Kyle, a Memphis Democrat.

The state faces a $350 million shortfall in the current budget year ending June 30. It would take about $800 million to fund the same budget again next year, and $1.2 billion in new revenue to fully fund Gov. Don Sundquist's proposed $9.6 billion spending plan.

The DOGS budget would cut about $775 million from current spending levels.

The House Finance Committee is about halfway through its budget hearings with leaders of state departments and agencies. Every commissioner is asked what the DOGS budget would mean to them. Under the budget, the biggest loser is K-12 education, with a $400 million cut.

"I cannot begin to describe the devastation this budget would mean for us," Education Commissioner Faye Taylor said.

Comptroller John Morgan calculated the likely property tax increases needed if local governments had to replace lost state funding for K-12 education, or how many teachers would lose jobs if local governments didn't raise taxes.

The property tax increases range from 3 percent in Shelby County to 117 percent in the Bradford Special School District in Gibson County, one of three districts where property taxes would have to more than double to recoup lost state money.

If taxes weren't raised by any local government, 8,352 teachers would lose their jobs across the state, including 887 teachers in Memphis city schools; 428 in Davidson County; 379 in Knox County; 342 in Shelby County; and 254 in Hamilton County.

The budget also would cut up to $90 million from higher education.

"The DOGS budget would basically stop our efforts to increase educational attainment dead in its tracks," said Rich Rhoda, executive director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. "We're not doing enough now. A decrease would set us even further behind."

Judicial branch representatives say it will slow criminal prosecutions, and those that go forward would take longer. People would remain on bond or in jail longer waiting for trials.

About 500,000 people who now get their health care coverage through TennCare, the state's health care program for the poor and uninsured, would lose benefits.

Both budgets revert TennCare to the Medicaid program. TennCare was created a decade ago to replace the Medicaid system so more people who need medical care would get it, such as those who can't get insurance because of pre-existing medical conditions or have lost jobs and have no access to health insurance

Only those who qualify for Medicaid, primarily poor children and the disabled, would qualify for the scaled-down program. Doctors and hospitals say the people shut out of the program would put a tremendous strain on medical services if they sought charity care.

Two departments, Tourism and Economic and Community Development, would be eliminated.

Attorney General Paul Summers, in an appearance before the committee last week, said the courts could mandate state spending if the Legislature passes an unbalanced budget. A balanced budget is required by the state Constitution.

"The members who don't think we'll be laying off teachers and raising local property taxes across the state because nobody will vote for this budget need to understand it could happen anyway," said Rep. Randy Rinks, D-Savannah. "We could end up with it by court order if we don't do something else."

Sen. Jerry Cooper, who has pragmatically tried numerous approaches to end the tax impasse, does not believe the DOGS budget has enough votes to pass.

"I don't know what else we can do, though," says Cooper, a Morrison Democrat. "I'm as frustrated as anybody. That budget would devastate the state."

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On the Net: Tennessee General Assembly: Click Here

[GailA]

The Kingsport Times, nearly 6 weeks ago had this quote by Rep David Davis. Rep David Davis, with the agreement of Crowe and Patton, said a shortfall in the current budget of upwards of $350 million is a "real deficit,'' while past budgets "artificially" inflated expenditures to produce a deficit.

You keep saying we need MORE revenue, that we need MORE taxes up there in the General Assembly.

Well I go and read your budgets YOU DON'T NEED MORE TAXES!

IT'S THE SPENDING STUPID!

There were lots of items that could be cut instead of education or tenncare. Tenncare is the BIGGEST State boondoggle in history. Can't even get the DEAD people off it, much less the ineligibles.

YOU HAVE NOT CANCELED OR CUT The $15M performing arts center, the $1.5M for wild flowers in the medians to honor veterans (BETTER TO SPEND THAT MONEY ON THE VETERANS SERVICES instead of a stinking flower that blooms for two weeks a year), the $400,000 black enterprise conference, the $4.3M TN arts commission, the holocaust commission, the civil rights commission, the indian commission, there are dozens of commissions in all that could be cut or trimmed heavily as they serve NO real useful function except as high paid jobs for legislators wives/husbands family members or friends, the 2.5, 3.5 and 5% pay raises (private enterprises ARE NOT giving these kinds of raises), the $20M in compensation for certain State workers (to compete with private enterprise) and the $25M for the grizzly's arena.

It is totally assinine to fund a stupid arena when you CUT K-12!

Have you canceled all those 20 or more "in honor of road signs", those signs cost $500 for the pair. Or those speciality license plates that take the State TWO years to realize a profit from?

SEE I FOUND LOTS TO CUT WITHOUT TOUCHING K-12.

Today's Tennessean Ashe noted that a 1-cent increase in the state gasoline tax would produce $29 million a year.

He said $3 million could be used to open closed state parks and the remaining $26 million could go for education.

INSTEAD OF RAISING THE GAS TAX SHIFT 5 cents over to education and parks to solve this "supposed" funding problem..but no gutless wonders in Nashville don't have the cahones to touch this sacred cow.

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our selection between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat in our drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labors and in our amusements, for our callings and our creeds...our people.. must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live.. We have not time to think, no means of calling the mis-managers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow suffers. Our landholders, too...retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs, but held really in trust for the treasury, must...be contented with penury, obscurity and exile.. private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance.

This is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering... And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in it's train wretchedness and oppression." Thomas Jefferson

Mr. Jefferson was so very correct. Even President John Kennedy said you CAN'T tax your way out of a recession. Nor can you tax your way out of ever increasing spending. The State budget has grown OVER 40% in the past SEVEN years. A billion dollars a year, with a purposed 12% INCREASE in this years budget.

NAY SAYING NINNY, HORN HONKING NEANDERTHAL, BLED DRY TAX SERF

[GailA]

April 1, 2002
The Oak Ridger
Another View: Cost-cutting by state helping people in India

The Mountain City Press (Sevierville), March 23

Tennessee is frustrating people on food stamps by giving jobs that could be theirs to people across the globe.

When one of the state's half-million food stamps users calls the program's toll free help line, they are connected with a representative working out of New Delhi, India.

Jobs that might be able to get a few people off of state assistance are being handed out on the other side of the world because the labor is cheaper.

The Department of Human Services argues that the program is too large to handle internally, and from an economic perspective, New Delhi is the best solution.

Sounds like they need to readdress the question.

If so many people are on food stamps that it becomes necessary for the state to move operations out of the country, perhaps the department isn't doing enough to get people off food stamps.

The department claims the Indian workers merely answer questions about the debit-card system and do not handle other issues like eligibility.

Has the number of people dependent on food stamps really reached the point where the state can't afford to hire Tennesseans to handle the number of calls from people with questions about the debit-card system?

Or is the state looking for ways to cut costs at the expense of the people they are allegedly trying to help?

Granted, the state isn't hiring Indians directly.

Tennessee contracts through an Arizona-based company named eFunds, who use the people of New Delhi as cheap labor.

But, Tennessee legislators are sanctioning the use of foreign workers by continuing to stay with the company.

It's time to rework the system to help more people stand on their own feet, or at least take care of the people who need jobs here at home.

[Lazamataz]

The left is making inroads into the great state of Tennessee.

[Ingtar]

Under the budget, the biggest loser is K-12 education, with a $400 million cut.

Is the Sundquist's $380 million increase in Education? Or is it really a cut?

[GailA]

Hmmm...could be a combo of old and new making it look like DEEP cuts. These are the ones I've found so far in the budget.

$10.04M reading coaches (NEW PROGRAM)
$40.3M Early childhood education (NEW PROGRAM)
$11.1M catch up for 7th & 8th graders (mostly inner city) for the gateway test (NEW PROGRAM)
$40,700,000 2.5% pay raise
$5.6M teaching resources class room materials (NEW PROGRAM
$2.96M Teaching Resources-faculity teaching

EQUALS $110.69M

Higher ED

TN Board of Regents goes from $324,500,700-$354,382,100
$41,350M 3.5% pay raise
Student assistance corp increase $30,766,000 to $55,577,600
TN Higher Ed Commission $1,582,300 to $2,041,500
$10M faculity retention (this is yearly)
$15M performing arts center for U of Memphis(third try for this one)
Other improvements (unspecified) $47,6M
We spend over $30M on maintenance for those CRUMBLING higher ed facilities.

[upchuck]

A few comments:

First off, I live in KY, not TN. In KY we have a 6% sales tax, an income tax, property tax, intangible tax, etc., etc. We are taxed A LOT.

My thanks to GailA for always posting these articles. I watch with great interest the goings on in TN because I feel it's just a matter of time before we go through something similar in KY.

From the article: Department after department uses "devastating" when describing its potential effects.
This is written as if this reaction is unexpected. HELLO - these are state bureaucrats. They will have you believe cuts will result in the end of the world as we know it.

From the article: Rep. Matt Kisber and Sen. Jim Kyle put together different versions of the bill, but both with the same aim -- to show what will happen to state government if no new taxes pass. They say it's not a scare tactic.... Under the budget, the biggest loser is K-12 education, with a $400 million cut.
Not a scare tactic, huh? Seems to me they attacked the 'chilren' specifically to scare a bunch of folks. If they didn't want to scare folks, they would have proposed cuts like GailA did in her post #1 above.

From the article: If taxes weren't raised by any local government, 8,352 teachers would lose their jobs across the state, including 887 teachers in Memphis city schools; 428 in Davidson County; 379 in Knox County; 342 in Shelby County; and 254 in Hamilton County.
I can't speak specifically about the school systems mentioned, but here in KY, specifically in Jefferson County (Louisville) where I live, you could cut hundreds of jobs from the county school system and it would make no difference whatsoever! Because you wouldn't cut teachers, you'd cut the folks right above teachers and the folks right above them. In industry this would be called first line and middle management.
I'm not a teacher (thank God!), but I have done a bunch of volunteer work in schools and I have many friends who are teachers. The waste, mismanagement and sloth I see is amazing.

From the article: About 500,000 people who now get their health care coverage through TennCare, the state's health care program for the poor and uninsured, would lose benefits.Both budgets revert TennCare to the Medicaid program. TennCare was created a decade ago to replace the Medicaid system so more people who need medical care would get it, such as those who can't get insurance because of pre-existing medical conditions or have lost jobs and have no access to health insurance.
Medicaid is another of the many income redistribution schemes. Sounds like the folks in TN decided to take it to the next level with TennCare. Maybe it's time for TennCare to go away? OH MY GOD, NO - think of the 'chilren'. Yeah, well, Medicaid is a state administered plan. Maybe the TN bureaucrats should take some clues from how other states are coping.

GailA, thanks and GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DOGS!!!!

[Theodore R.]

Liberals often propose "scare" budgets to show "devastation" while leaving most of their pet programs and projects unscathed. This sounds like what the latest TN budget proposal entails. The question is: will the people of TN believe the scare tactics? Answer: Probably. In time most people will accept tax hikes to preserve the status quo even though the cuts threatened will in the long run benefit the state. Often they turn out not to be "cuts" at all, for the useless state agencies continue to operate. If TN becomes known for its low cost of living and small government, many new industries will come into the state.

[Theodore R.]

TN could save by turning over the tourism budget to the counties and the chambers of commerce to promote the state's highlights. Mostly though, it has to cut the health care program, which is subsidizing people in AL, NC, GA, KY, VA, AR, and MS as well as TN.

[GailA]

IF they don't increase the number of teachers and lower class size the many of the $$ in the $19M for the No Child Left Behind stays in DC. Yet these bozos can't bring themselves to cut one program. Notice Higher Ed only gets cut some $90M, while K-12 gets cut $400M. IF K-12 were funded at LAST year's level, no pay raise no new programs there wouldn't be a need for cuts. The teachers got a 3% pay raise last year from the State and more from the counties. It's not as if they didn't just get a pay raise.

There is $1M for an electronic library, other building projects (THEY'VE HID THE CAPITOL BUILDINGS BUDGET can't find hide nor hair of it, which means they've got a lot of useless items in it like the $247,000 golf cart crossing, lights for athletic fields, college bldgs etc.)

[GailA]

I'd like to remind anyone who has some inside knowledge of TN government waste that Rep. Donna Rowland has a website where you can report, and she will make public, any waste in Tennessee government. The site is www.government-waste.com. Click Here

[Lancey Howard]

Some lawmakers say passing it would throw the state's future to the dogs. Nobody likes it.

I like it.

[Lancey Howard]

When one of the state's half-million food stamps users calls the program's toll free help line, they are connected with a representative working out of New Delhi, India.

LMBO !!! Hahahahaha....!

[Lancey Howard]

"The State budget has grown OVER 40% in the past SEVEN years. A billion dollars a year, with a proposed 12% INCREASE in this year's budget."

That says pretty much all that anybody really needs to know about Scumquist and the rest of his scumbag ilk in Tennessee. GailA, please keep posting on the goings on in Tennessee. I have enjoyed your posts for a couple of years now and truly appreciate your relentless fight against the forces of income-tax evil. You must win. If you can outlast Scumquist's term of office, I think you got it beat.

[GailA]

Thanks for the kind words. Now if I could just land Hubby another job (he's laid off, nextel is being allowed to buy up many of the two way companies out there and the techs in the bought out companies are being laid off as a result. Which leaves them few places to go to work. nextel is not a nice company to work for, hubby did for a short while several years ago, said it is the ONLY company he developed a fear of.)