Posted on 10/02/2002 6:23:05 AM PDT by GailA
Edited on 05/07/2004 9:20:08 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
KNOXVILLE
(Excerpt) Read more at tennessean.com ...
The income tax is NOT DEAD, just sleeping..if weasel phil gets in, and both houses remain in demwit control there will BE AN INCOME TAX. Boss Hogg..House Speaker jimmy naifeh has stated the IT is dead for JUST TWO YEARS. weasel phil is supported by ALL the usual pro-income tax supporters, state employee union, T-NEA, higher ed, and all the pro-income tax business/professionals.
Candidates face off in heated debate No love lost between governor hopefuls Bredesen, Hilleary
By Scott Barker, News-Sentinel staff writer October 2, 2002
U.S. Rep. Van Hilleary and former Nashville Mayor Phil Bredesen brought their increasingly bitter gubernatorial contest to Knoxville Tuesday in a televised debate that bristled with verbal barbs and unmasked animosity.
Each accused the other of distorting their records on a variety of issues. Even when they agreed - on the need to reform TennCare, for instance - the candidates drew blood with witty, sometimes even catty, remarks.
Bredesen, a Democrat, savaged his Republican opponent’s voting record on education issues, while Hilleary hammered Bredesen on the performance of Nashville schoolchildren on standardized tests.
The two candidates spent a fair portion of the hour-long debate dueling over which one opposes a state income tax more than the other.
Hilleary blasted Bredesen for acknowledging that an income tax may be needed in the future. That flexibility, countered Bredesen, "shows that I’m a mature businessman."
Off-camera, Bredesen called the income tax a dead issue.
"I think it’s too bad he can’t think of anything else to say," he said.
Hilleary called Bredesen a "tax-and-spend liberal" who raised Nashville’s property taxes more than 30 percent. Bredesen responded that during that same period of time Knoxville’s property tax went up at a higher rate.
In his follow-up talk with reporters, Hilleary said Bredesen was a "leopard who can’t change his spots" on the income tax issue.
The debate, sponsored by the News-Sentinel and WBIR-TV, had its lighter moments as well.
WBIR-TV co-anchor Ted Hall asked Hilleary to respond to critics’ charges that he’s not "intellectually savvy enough" to run the state.
"Would you please repeat that question, and go slower?" Hilleary quipped.
The slightly pro-Bredesen crowd of about 300 at Knoxville College interrupted the candidates with applause, boos and occasional catcalls, drawing repeated pleas from moderator Bill Williams for quiet.
To the delight of many in the audience, Bredesen vowed to restructure the Tennessee Department of Transportation.
TDOT is "an organization that has forgotten what its mission is, which is to serve communities with roads," Bredesen said. "It’s arrogant."
Hilleary vowed to revisit the controversial Knoxville bypass route through Hardin Valley, saying that road projects need to be approved based on their merits, cost and safety.
Both outlined their recipe for improving education and revamping TennCare.
Hilleary said he wants Tennessee teachers to be the highest paid in the Southeast within five years. He also proposed bonuses for effective principals and called for re-establishing discipline in schools.
Bredesen, who called education the most important issue of the campaign, said raising teacher salaries to make Tennessee more competitive with other nearby states and instituting programs to get students reading at grade-level would be his highest priorities.
Both said verifying TennCare rolls would be the first step toward reforming the state’s health care program. Bredesen said the state needs to do a better job regulating the insurance providers, while Hilleary said benefits need to be adjusted and the costs of prescription drugs need to be controlled.
Hilleary repeated his assertion that the wealthy Bredesen would violate state campaign finance laws by bankrolling his own campaign.
"That law was passed for a reason," he said. "The people of Tennessee don’t want very wealthy people buying these elections. They want the people to decide."
Bredesen countered that the state attorney general had written an opinion stating the law is unconstitutional and that the state Election Commission has said it won’t enforce it. He said Hilleary’s campaign was being financed by out-of-state contributors, and he vowed to "match it dollar for dollar."
Scott Barker may be reached at 865-342-6309 or barkers@knews.com.
Guess they all have the plague.
This of course is the old elitist Democrat garbage. I take offense at it because I am a native Southerner with a southern accent. I do not attend the soirees and galas in Belle Meade. One liberal criticized Van for pointing out the Bredesen looked at cue cards during the debate on Monday. I e-mailed the reply that is because Van has real principles and is consistent. Bredesen follows the Bill Clinton waffle mode and only reads what his handlers want him to say on that day. Liberal, well-to-do Democrats are simply snobs and are as prejudiced as any goup in the way they view people outside of their clique.
Democrats always pull this cheap attack. Super liberals like Al Gore or Phil Bredesen are great thinkers while conservatives like Ronald Reagan, George W Bush, and Van Hilleary are dismissed as simpletons. All I can say is that in my 38 years, it is the Harvard Ivy Leaguers who have failed in every aspect of government from local to federal. It has been the common conservative candidate of the people who comes in, applies common sense, and cleans up the mess that the great eggheads caused.
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