Posted on 05/26/2002 5:57:12 AM PDT by GailA
Edited on 05/07/2004 9:20:01 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Five may be the magic number of votes House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh needs to pass a proposed income tax plan, but interviews with lawmakers who are considered swing votes indicate the Democrat leader faces a difficult task.
Naifeh says he is convinced the 45 House members who voted for the plan last week will stick with him. His Finance Committee chairman agrees.
(Excerpt) Read more at tennessean.com ...
http://www.gomemphis.com/mca/todays_editorial/article/0,1426,MCA_537_1166834,00.html torial 5/26: Where is naysayers' better budget plan? May 26, 2002
OK, HEROES, what's next?
The Tennessee House of Representatives last week had its best - and perhaps final - opportunity to enact meaningful tax reform since the state's slow-motion fiscal train wreck began nearly four years ago. House members could have adopted legislation that would distribute the state's tax burden far more fairly, and equip the state's tax structure to pay for vital services far more adequately, while keeping Tennessee one of the nation's lowest-taxed states.
And they flinched.
More precisely, the 54 House mem bers - most of them Republicans, some of them from Shelby County - who voted against the tax measure or simply didn't vote flinched. They evidently couldn't abide the notion of a broad-based, flat rate state income tax as the basis of tax reform, despite GOP Gov. Don Sundquist's support for the idea. The 45 lawmakers who voted for the plan deserve commendation for trying to do right by this state.
It strains credulity to think House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh (D-Covington), the sponsor of the tax plan, would have called for a formal vote on such a controversial measure - especially in an election year - unless he was confident he had lined up a majority in its favor. The inescapable implication: Several lawmakers of both parties lied to Naifeh about their intentions. Although he insists he hasn't given up on his plan, nor should he, his leadership seems critically compromised.
Now that most House members have made clear what they're against, voters and taxpayers have a right to ask them: What are you for? A new fiscal year begins in five weeks; how do you intend to do your duty under the state Constitution to balance the budget?
How do you plan to erase the $480 million deficit in this year's budget, and close a projected revenue gap of as much as $1.4 billion in next year's budget? Your bag of Enron-style accounting tricks is as empty as the cookie jars you have raided to stave off fiscal disaster until now. So what is your plan?
Assuming it's even possible now, do you plan to cut state spending enough to balance the budget? Where? How much more do you want to force state universities and colleges to raise tuition rates? How many teachers do you want the school systems in your districts to lay off?
How many poor and sick people do you want to kick off TennCare, so they can jam the emergency rooms of hospitals in your districts? How much do you want county and local governments to hike property taxes to make up for the revenue you'll take away from them? How many state parks would you close?
Do you plan to raise the state's permanent sales tax rate even more, making one of the most regressive, inefficient, unstable tax systems in the nation even worse? Do you want to try to extend the sales tax to cover a broad array of services, even though it would be bad policy and even though no other state that has attempted to do that could make it work?
Do you want to raise "sin" taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, as you should, even though you know that won't raise enough money to begin to solve the problem?
These questions also should be directed at state senators, who have been even more reluctant than their House colleagues to address the state's budget crisis honestly. What will they do?
The same goes for the Siamese twins who are running for governor, Democrat Phil Bredesen and Republican Van Hilleary. After doing their best to sabotage the tax reform debate on Capitol Hill to burnish their own credentials as political front-runners - in more ways than one - the candidates now counsel lawmakers to "move on" to other options.
What options? They won't say. It's not their job. If that default reflects the definition of leadership the candidates share, voters have little reason for optimism that the November election will create a climate for positive change, unless their main opponents in the August primary can articulate a clear and persuasive choice.
Time will not stand still while the General Assembly refuses to act, as much as lawmakers and candidates wish it would. On this critical issue, not to decide is to decide - and to decide disastrously. Horn honkers and talk radio can get away with a vocabulary limited to "no." Leaders can't.
If Naifeh can yet find the five House votes he needs to salvage his proposal, the tax reform measure still represents the best available solution to the state's budget problems. But if he can't, it's incumbent on those lawmakers who think they have a better idea to let the rest of us in on it. And if they have no ideas, let them make that clear, too.
Contact info:
800-449-8366 or 615-741-3011 or
Folks to target:
Ralph Cole (R)
Ron Davis (R)
Stancil Ford (R)
Steve McDaniels (R-chair of House GOP)
Raymond Walker (R)
Zane Whitson (R) co-sponsor of benedict naifeh's IT
Keith Westmoreland(R)
Chris Newton (R) co sponsor of expand sales tax to services
Frank Buck (D)
George Farley (D)
John Tidwell(D)
John Mark Windle(D)
They DO have a better idea. They want to cut spending however the Democrat leadership of the General Assembly will not even allow committee DISCUSSION, in detail, of spending cuts.
That is the essence of the massive lie being perpetrated by Democrats and the turncoat governor of Tennessee.
Mike Turner has it right about what we think about them.
>>He does not like Gov. Don Sundquist's plan to spend new money on an early education program.
''I don't think 4-year-olds ought to be in schools,'' Tidwell said. ''My constituents can't afford to build schools to house them. My schools don't want another reading teacher walking the halls coaching teachers who are already there.''<<
It sounds like John Tidwell understands what part of the problem is. Remove this and all the assorted sports related "pork" from Sundquist's budget, and that will go a long way towards cleaning up the shortfall.
Treat Sundquist like the outgoing Governor that he is and don't leave it to the next to clean up the mess.
My heart!!
Hold fast. Demonstrate. Honk Horns and scream.
If there is OTHER necessary action, take it.
Up here in Wisconsin we have a budget problem--fortunately, 2 of the three bases are covered by solid "no tax increase" types.
However, those two bases are held by Party of Government types--who also cannot BEAR to cut back.
Well, they damn well better.
It's you folks in TN who are keeping a lot of the "Tax and Spend" folks in hiding. THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!!!
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