May 15, 2007

Taxpayer Ignorance is Legislators' Bli$$, 2

I had an interesting email exchange Monday afternoon with Knoxville News Sentinel political reporter Tom Humphrey regarding the subject of this post, which asked why Tennessee's news media regularly fails to inform its readers and viewers regarding the provision in the state constitution called the Copeland Cap, which limits how much more money the legislature can spend each year. It's especially relevant information at a time of huge revenue surpluses - most of which can not be spent without breaking the constitutional spending cap - but the media doesn't mention Copeland in its budget coverage.

I emailed Humphrey to praise his Sunday column on the budget and the rush by the governor and many legislators to spend the surplus, but also suggested he mention the Copeland Cap in future coverage. I wrote:

I wonder, why don't the media more regularly mention the Copeland Cap in budget stories?

After all, the FY 2006-07 budget was $100,000 under the Copeland Cap, so to spend any of the surplus they have to first pass legislation to break the Copeland Cap. Now, you and I know they do this as a routine formality and it doesn't take a super-majority to do it, but the people of Tennessee voted for the Copeland Cap nearly 30 years ago precisely to keep from being soaked [when] revenue is at high tide.

It doesn't work anymore in part because it doesn't take a super-majority to break the cap but also because today's public doesn't seem to understand that there IS a cap and that it is routinely broken. They don't understand it because most newspaper stories don't mention the cap, and the broadcast news never does.

Here is Humphrey's email response, verbatim and in total:

Bill,

Thanks, kind sir.

As for the Cope cap, it's sorta same as "why don't you mention that bredesen inherited a $1 billion tax increase in 2002?' (a frequent inquiry). The short answer is that it's been reported, time and again. and will be again, i'm sure, as things go along this session.

My editors' only gripe with me these days is writing too long... adding too much information. (once upon a time, they used to call and ask questions, urge someone else be included in comments, etc.) the column is 700 words, period. so, if you talk copeland, what do you leave out?

tom

The story's lead practically writes itself:

NASHVILLE - The Tennessee General Assembly will have to vote to break the state constitution's cap on the annual growth of state spending in order to be allowed to spend most of the state's ballooning revenue surplus, but there's little doubt it will happen as the legislature has done it 12 times in the last 22 years under a succession of Republican and Democratic governors.

Perhaps Humphrey doesn't think the Copeland cap angle is news. Or maybe he's seen it happen so many times that he thinks everyone knows about it. But few people outside of Legislative Plaza do.

That's not the biggest problem with Humphrey's response. This is: Humphrey's claim that the Copeland Cap angle has "been reported, time and again" by the state's news media simply isn't true.

When I read his email I thought, well, maybe Humphrey's right and the media has already reported on the Copeland angle and I just missed it, so I ran a Google News search for "Copeland Cap" or "Copeland amendment," and found that, sure enough, it has been mentioned twice in a Tennessee newspaper in recent weeks.

One mention was on the Knoxville News Sentinel website - but not in a news article or editorial. Instead, it was mentioned in an exceprt from a blog post that KNS blogger Michael Silence included on his KNS blog, No Silence Here.

The other mention was in The Tennessean. Pay dirt, right? Not really. It wasn't in a news story or a staff-written commentary, but in an op-ed by Ben Cunningham of Tennessee Tax Revolt.

According to the Google News search, there have been zero mentions of the Copeland Cap in any news story or or staff-written editorial or commentary column in Tennessee in recent weeks.

The people of Tennessee approved the Copeland amendment in order to prevent runaway government spending because they understood that too-rapid growth of the state budget will lead to higher taxes. The amendment had a loophole, though, and since 1985 the legislature and a succession of governors have exploited it to spend billions of extra dollars. Tax increases have come parallel to the serial breaking of the Copeland limit.

Soon, the legislature will again vote to break the cap, to spend hundreds of millions of surplus tax revenue. That's a news story although as of yet and quite inexplicably it is a news story that Tennessee's mainstream media is failing to provide its readers and viewers.