April 28, 2008

Democrat Math

The image above is a scan of a letter-to-the-editor published in today's Tennessean, questioning why Gov. Bredesen would rather cut spending on Pre-K education than cut the millions going to build a fancy underground ballroom at the governor's mansion.

Defenders of the administration will claim that the letter writer is wrong, that no state dollars are building the underground ballroom at the governor's mansion. Indeed, Public Disinformation Officer Lola Potter at the state Department of Finance & Administration made that claim in a recent news article last week. And, thanks to clever financing shell game, it's a claim she and the administration can make with a straight face, even though it is highly misleading.

Here's the truth: The Bredesen administration can claim the ballroom is privately funded only because it engaged in a well-documented shell game in which private dollars given for the renovation of the existing mansion - and already spent on the mansion renovation, which is nearly complete - were, on paper, shifted to the ballroom addition project, with tax dollars being allocated to the mansion renovation account to cover the difference.

If the ballroom project had been cancelled, the private money would have stayed with the renovation project, negating the need for millions of dollars in tax money to pay for the renovation that, in the beginning was promised by the administration would be funded mostly with private donations.

And that's the core truth that the defenders of the ballroom do not want you to understand: If the ballroom addition was not built, the total cost to taxpayers for the overall project would be millions of dollars lower.

Bottom line: the total cost to taxpayers for the overall mansion project is at least $8 million higher than it would have been if the ballroom was not built. And the Bredesen administration - and almost every single elected Democrat in the state legislature - would rather defend the project and continue the construction of the ballroom than cancel the project, fill the hole back in, and shift millions of dollars to pre-K education or to restore funding recently slashed from services for the state's more than 6,000 mentally disabled children.

Remember that when you go to vote later this year.