February 6, 2002

The Devil's in the Details: Key numbers from Gov. Sundquist's State of the State speech

"Since I've been in office, we've cut over $400 million from the budget." - Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist, who took office under a $13 billion state budget (including federal dollars) and is starting his final years as governor by proposing a $20 billion-plus budget.

As the legislature debates the details of Gov. Sundquist's proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year, it's important we take a look at the numbers in his State of the State speech, which you can find online at Tax Free Tennessee

I don't mean the budget numbers. I mean numbers like these:

Sundquist mentioned "child" or "children" 37 times, and "baby" or "babies" 5 times, almost always as justification for more spending.

He used the word "spending" only 2 times - and only once was it used as a reference to government spending.

He mentioned taxpayers only once - and that was as part of the name of his budget, the "State Taxpayers' Budget, which is of course completely misnamed. The taxpayers' budget is what taxpayers have left to live on after the government takes its slice.

He used the word "tax" or "taxes" only twice. "Revenue" is also mentioned twice - always in the context of him not having enough of it to spend. He only acknowledged one time that each tax dollar the state gets is from a hardworking Tennessean who "earned" it.

He used the words "invest," "investing" or "investment" twelve times, 10 of them as a euphemism for government spending.

He used the word "cut" only six times, and at least one of them was in the following complete lie: "Since I've been in office, we've cut over $400 million from the budget." When Gov. Sundquist took office 8 years ago, the total state budget including federal dollars was $13 billion. The proposed budget will top $20 billion.

He used the word "reform" twice, but never the phrase "tax reform," a now-discredited smoke screen for the income tax. He did not use the word "income" or "income tax" at all.

The income tax's constitutionality was never discussed. In fact, except for welcoming the state's Constitutional Officers in his opening remarks, the governor's speech did not acknowledge, mention or refer to the state Constitution in any way.