May 1, 2008

Phil's Baggage

The Tennessean reports that Gov. Phil Bredesen won't tap the state's record-level "rainy day" reserves to prevent or at least delay layoffs of large numbers of state employees as the state's revenue deficit balloons (and the folly of his $1.5 billion annual spending increases becomes clear).

So, apparently, workers are just "baggage" to be thrown overboard, to use Bredesen's own description.

It occurs to me that Bredesen is reacting to this (self-inflicted) fiscal crisis the way you would expect an old HMO executive to do: He's cutting people to protect profits.