After several weeks of non-action, the Tennessee State Legislature is returning to the issue that repeatedly has brought the state’s budget crisis into the national eye: taxes.
Last year’s debacle resulted in the longest legislative session in state history and climaxed with a series of near-violent face-offs between anti-tax protesters and Capitol Hill police. Returning in January, the legislators and Republican Gov. Don Sundquist appeared to be more in step, but rather than the spirit of cooperation that marked the opening of this session, the mounting budget deficit now has nearly everyone at each other’s throats.
Sundquist, facing his last year in office, has come out in favor of initiatives that are anathema to the anti-tax crowd. Hawking both a flat-rate income tax and a sales tax increase, Sundquist has laid the blame for the ongoing budget disaster at the feet of the legislators. Speaking to an east Tennessee audience recently, Sundquist advised his listeners to “throw them all out” if the legislators fail to raise taxes to balance the budget.
Tennessee currently has no income tax.
Even House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, a Democrat, isn’t holding back in his evaluation of his colleagues, telling reporters, “I need more work horses and fewer show horses.” But, according to WTVF-TV in Nashville, the legislators have seemed more interested in the deadline for candidates to withdraw from this summer’s primary election than in resolving the state’s money problems. Legislators, says a recent report, have withheld consideration of any controversial proposals until they determine whether they’ll have opposition in their respective races, an example of the ultimate in political cynicism, according to the report.
House Democratic Caucus Chair Randy Rinks takes issue with that analysis, telling WND that legislators traditionally wait until they receive their April revenue and expense reports before moving on budget issues.
Rinks, who enjoys a reputation as a consensus-builder, acknowledges that the withdrawal deadline causes problems. “To me, ” Rinks told WND, “it actually makes things harder, if that is possible.”
Naifeh and Rinks are busy counting heads in both the House and state Senate to determine if they have the votes to push through a solution. Sporadic attempts during this session have resulted in nothing but failure. Privately, legislative leaders are anticipating a simple increase in the state sales tax. But, in a big election year, with the governor’s chair, one of the U.S. Senate seats and three congressional seats as open territory, the final outcome is anyone’s guess. Republican gubernatorial frontrunner Van Hilleary, who’s abandoning his congressional seat for a shot at the governor’s mansion, has called the state’s budget crisis “non-existent,” claiming that an overhaul of the Hillary Clinton-inspired TennCare system would eliminate the entire problem. Recently, however, even Hilleary has hinted that new sources of revenue must be found.
Nashville radio personality Phil Valentine, a harsh critic of the legislature’s abortive efforts to solve the budget crisis, isn’t optimistic about this year’s round.
“No matter what new revenue you place in front of them,” Valentine told WND, “the general assembly will wolf it down and bark for more. Last year, it was the tobacco money. Next year, it might very well be the lottery. Any new source of revenue is only temporarily satisfying, and it keeps the lawmakers from doing what they ultimately have to do to solve the budget problem, and that is learn to live with what they have. We have to do it with our own family budgets; why shouldn’t they? Instead, they’d rather extract more cash from us, forcing us to tighten our belts while they unbuckle theirs another notch and pat their big belly.”
The one thing for certain is that Tennesseans and the rest of the nation will be treated to another marathon legislative session, more demonstrations and, according to one state senator, the prospect of shutting down all of the state’s parks. Anti-tax activists are armed for bear this year as sales tax increases, a flat rate income tax and property tax hikes are all very much on the table.
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Tennessee governor to twist arms on taxes?
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