March 7, 2007

Run Over

Nissan is cutting 255 jobs at its Nashville headquarters - about one in five jobs at the HQ, which Nissan moved here from Los Angeles last year in a cost-cutting move heavily subsidized by Tennessee taxpayers. How many millions of Tennessee taxpayers' dollars did the Bredesen administration give them, again? Oh, yeah. More than $200 million, all told, including $64 million via a tax provision the administration slipped through the legislature without admitting what it was for or how much it might cost taxpayers. And, until last week when Toyota chose to builds its new plant in Mississippi, the administration was poisted to hand more than $200 million to that automaker, too, even though it posted a $3.6 billion profit in the last quarter of 2006.

Meanwhile, the Bredesen administration says the state can't afford to give up the $39 million it would cost to cut the food tax half a penny. Gov. Bredesen seems mighty able to find nearly half a billion dollars to dangle before foreign automakers, but not even a half a penny to help the people of Tennessee.