by Joe Sullivan
As many times as my hopes had been dashed before, I'd begun to let to them rise again that the state could be on the verge of some sort of solution to its horrific fiscal bind.
Up until a week ago, Gov. Don Sundquist and legislative leaders of both parties were convened in what was called a "budget summit." House and Senate leaders, Democrat and Republican alike, agreed on the need for $1.2 billion in new revenue to fund Sundquist's recommended budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Income tax, sales tax, services tax, automobile tax, sin tax and other options were all on the table. But on Thursday the summit talks collapsed without any agreement on any new source of revenue or any plan to reconvene.
Some media have portrayed the breakdown as a split between the House and Senate. The House, by these reports, remains more prone toward tax reform that includes an income tax and averse to any sales tax increase, whereas the Senate is supposedly more disposed toward a combination of sales and automobile tax increases while unable to muster a majority for an income tax. However, according to one pivotal participant in the summit talks, Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Bill Clabough of Maryville, it's worse than that.
"I don't see 17 votes in the [33 member] Senate for anything," laments the progressive Clabough.
Ask UT's astute political science professor and pollster Bill Lyons what it's going to take to break the deadlock, and he reckons that it has to start with a new governor. "If somebody could come out of the gubernatorial campaign in a position not to be hamstrung then, even if it's not seen as a mandate, that governor could start that coalition-building for tax reform which I think we desperately need," Lyons opines. "Short of that, it's just a classic gridlock right now, and nobody's in a position to pull it together."
As for public recognition of the need, Lyons points to a survey he conducted last fall for the state's two E.W. Scripps daily newspapers (the News-Sentinel and the Memphis Commercial Appeal). The survey concludes that "at first glance it appears as if the public's preference is for a no-tax approach. A plurality favors that over either tax alternative [an income tax coupled with sales tax reduction or an increase in the sales tax and/or vehicle taxes]. However, a slight majority of registered voters now favor the General Assembly's raising revenues. Of the two revenue-raising alternatives before the lawmakers, the strong preference is for an income tax."
Clabough, with his good political instincts, concurs. "I think a majority of Tennesseans are aware of the challenges we face and are willing to pay more to move the state forward rather than fall backward."
Yet the front-runners for both the Democrat and Republican gubernatorial nominations seem hell-bent to hamstring themselves so as to undermine any coalition-building role on their part. In appearances on WATE-TV's Sunday panel show, both Phil Bredesen and Van Hilleary regurgitated their vows to oppose an income tax, and Bredesen went even further when he said, "What I think people expect us to do is to learn to live within the revenues we have....You can run the state on any level of revenues you want."
Both Bredesen and Hilleary blamed the recession for the $900 million hole in which the state now finds itself (before taking into account the $300 million in increased funding, foremostly for education, that Sundquist has recommended). While that's part of the picture, it's far from the whole truth. Even when the good times were rolling, the Legislature was resorting to gimmickry to balance the budget. Some $400 million in non-recurring revenue went into this year's budget, and now it's got to be made up from some other source, along with this year's huge revenue shortfall. Yet both Bredesen and Hilleary are disingenuously dismissive of the problem as a one-time recessionary phenomenon.
The only hope for filling Lyons' prescription lies with the decided underdogs who are challenging Bredesen and Hilleary in the August primaries.
On WBIR-TV's counterpart to the WATE show, Republican Jim Henry pulled no punches when he said, "The State is in dire fiscal straits and has got to have some new revenue." But the former GOP legislative leader and state party chairman, who's now a successful businessman, stopped short of endorsing any specific revenue plan. "I believe we need a constitutional convention where anyone with ideas for fixing the problem can present them and then let the people decide in a referendum, as with the state lottery," he said. This arguably sounds like a punt, but it sure beats a stonewall. And it's clear where Henry's heart lies, "We've never fully funded the BEP [the state's basic education plan, which Henry helped enact under former Gov. Ned McWherter], and we're allowing higher education to fall farther behind," Henry laments.
On the Democrat side, former commissioner of education and chancellor of the Board of Regents Charles Smith derided Bredesen and Hilleary before the Tennessee Press Association as "the tweedledee and tweedledum of this campaign...Both men are so consumed with their desire to win that they have separated themselves from reality. One says the state doesn't have a problem; the other says it is all a figment of someone's imagination."
The only candidate to forthrightly support tax reform that includes an income tax is Democrat Randy Nichols. The Knox County Attorney General recently told a WBIR-TV viewer audience, "I don't want to pay more taxes, but I am willing to make an investment to make the state a better place for all of us to live...This campaign is an opportunity for people who're seeking this office to stand up and say, 'This is what I believe in.' Then, if the people elect you, you're taking a mandate there that I believe the people in the General Assembly will fall in behind. That's what a governor is. There's got to be that level of leadership." Some may view Nichols' candidacy as quixotic, but that's how he was perceived in many quarters when he launched his successful crusade to prevent construction of a new jail in downtown Knoxville.
Anyone who wants to see Tennessee extricated from the bog in which it's now mired should get behind one of these three underdogs and do so right away. Bredesen has already raised over $3 million and Hilleary over $2 million, giving them a huge head start over their challengers. Henry claims he will have $1 million committed by March 1, but he's going to need a whole lot more as will Bredesen's Democrat rivals. Another worthy Democrat, former state Sen. Andy Womack, dropped out of the race last week for lack of funds.
To learn more about these candidates and how to help them, please visit their respective web sites:
Jimhenryforgovernor.org
Nicholsforgovernor.com
Smithforgovernor.org
February 21, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 8
© 2002 Metro Pulse
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