June 7, 2004

Sounding the Warning

Tennessean columnist Tim Chavez has written what may be the first honest story on the Tennessee state budget ever published by a major newspaper in the state. It was published last Wednesday - my birthday, as it turns out - but I didn't see it until today. The headline: So you thought Bredesen and the bunch on the Hill were keeping spending down.

Read the whole thing. Here's an excerpt...

Based on Copeland Amendment restrictions, the limit on the spending of state revenue for the current fiscal year of '03-04 should have been set at $9.448 billion. That fiscal year ends this month. What lawmakers actually allowed to sneak through this session was $9.673 billion. That pushed the revised growth rate in the budget to 6.08%, which required a vote to bust the Copeland cap. ... Who would believe that the amount of state spending approved in an official budget seven to eight months earlier could still dramatically go up? But that's what happens almost each session in Tennessee. The state's checkbook remains open for the ongoing budget year, even though that budget year was supposed to have been settled last May.

And while we're focusing on the upcoming budget year when lawmakers return in the new session, the cost keeps going higher for the current budgetary one. It's a scheme worthy of all those high-fee check cashers.

Chavez has another great column today reporting on the under-reported efforts of U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn to pass legislation making state sales taxes deductible from federal taxes, which would remove one of the biggest points of argument used by those who want to "reform" Tennessee's tax code by adding an income tax to it.