July 19, 2007

Tennessee MSM Continues to Ignore Bredesen Administration's Flagrant Violation of Key State Constitution Budget Provision

As I reported Wednesday afternoon, state Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mt. Juliet, has requested Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper to issue an opinion as to the constitutionality of the method by which the state currently calculates how much it may increase the state budget each year under the Tennessee constitution's provision known as the "Copeland Cap."

Except for a mention this morning by WKRN political blogger A.C. Kleinheider on VolunteerVoters.com, and some other mentions on his blog previously, the state's mainstream media has ignored the story for more than a month.

I first reported on June 13 that state Treasurer Dale Sims had admitted under questioning by Rep. Lynn on the House floor during the final days of the legislative session that the administration of Gov. Phil Bredesen had calculated the 2007-08 budget's Copeland Cap number using the previous budget year's total state tax revenue as the baseline, rather than on the appropriations from state tax revenue, as both the state constitution and relevant state laws clearly require.

Sims even admitted the administration has been doing this for years. (See video.) Potential cost to taxpayers over the years is in the billions of dollars, but the Tennessee news media remains silent. Perhaps they realize that reporting the story will reveal, embarrassingly, that they failed miserably for years to properly and accurately cover the budget process.