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posted by Underground at
8:42 PM
Tuesday, June 18, 2002
Monday, June 17, 2002
MORE NAVEL GAZING: Well, I thought I had said my piece about the state financial crisis, but then I read this article in the Knoxville News Sentinel, and somehow I felt the need to say more. According to the article:
"The no-new taxes budget would eliminate funding for 8,000 school personnel, eliminate TennCare coverage for at least 350,000 people, slash mental-health services, close state parks, curtail state regulation of activities ranging from insurance to water quality, eliminate dozens of criminal prosecutors and expose the state to numerous lawsuits because of the curtailing of federally mandated services."
This is bad. I don't know how else to say it. This is really, really, really bad. Bad. It should self-evidently bad, but it obviously isn't to some of our legislatures, who are busy drawing up plans to pass it:
"Legislative staffers are already working on the draft of a no-new-taxes budget - the "DOGS" budget - and on a separate bill to amend or repeal hundreds of state laws that mandate the services being cut in that budget. It's all being done in the expectation that state lawmakers will not be able to agree on raising taxes when they reconvene on Wednesday."
Now. South Knox Bubba thinks the DOGS budget is a conjured up bugaboo designed to scare people into supporting an income tax. I would like to believe he's right, but I don't. I think the DOGS budget is the result of a legislative game of chicken. Our ever astute representatives know that there are two truths about the vast majority of Tennesseans: they want their services funded, and they don't want their taxes raised. These two truths are currently on a crash course with each other, since you can't fund services without raising taxes. Representatives are desperately trying to decide which truth will raise the public's ire more if violated, and taxes being traditionally sacrosanct, a good many representatives are betting that Tennesseans would rather choke on toxic water, and not be able to send their kids to school, than fork out more money in taxes. Hence we have the DOGS budget, which manages to be both a singular affront to the public trust, and one of the better examples of the calumny and cowardice of elected officials, since a good many of those supporting it are doing so in the hopes that other DOGS supporters will blink, and take the fall and vote for an income tax. I therefore thoroughly agree with Bubba when he says:
"Maybe they should just come up with a POSSUM budget, where the state just rolls over and plays dead (something they seem to be pretty good at down in Nashville)."
Only, of course, in this case the state wouldn't be playing dead, it really would be dead. Perhaps, it would therefore be better to call it the SMASHED POSSUM ROAD KILL BUDGET. At least then people would know what they were getting.
posted by Underground at
8:12 PM
Sunday, June 16, 2002
TN INCOME TAX: I'm not a big believer in navel gazing, and I really didn't want my inaugural post to be one about my own state, and its incessant financial troubles. However. TN's financial crisis shows no signs of getting better, and every sign of getting worse, since it appears that our do-nothing legislature is about to abdicate all responsibility, and throw our state's future out the window with the wise words: "Wow. Look at the train. Watch it crash. Too bad we're on it."
Now I'm not stupid and I'm not naive, and I know that the current sorry state of affairs has a great deal to do with our state government's criminal mismanagement of state funds and resources. The state wasn't any richer under our former governor, Ned McWhorter, and in fact, if memory serves, it was considerably poorer. Under McWhorter, however, the budget was balanced, education was funded, social services increased, and there was no income tax; all of which leads one to the sinking suspicion that part of our current problem is that McWhorter was an excellent administrator, and Sundquist is not. Whether this is the result of incompetence or corruption is a matter for debate. I suspect it's a little of both. Sundquist has proven himself unable to articulate a strong vision for the state and to deal successfully with the legislature, both of which are qualities a good governor should possess. The only solution to the current problem he has advanced so far is an inarticulate call for an income tax, a call which places the blame fully on the state legislature, and denies his own personal responsibility for a situation he did a lot to create. When he first came into office, Sundquist sought to erode popular and financial support for education, particularly higher education, and social services, and he succeeded admirably. It is hard to feel any sympathy for a man who wrecks his own bed and then screams bloody murder when he has to lie in it. And when Sundquist talks now about the importance of - guess what - education and social services, and the need to fund them with an income tax, it rings more than a little false. A good governor would not have allowed the situation to deteriorate to this point, and he would certainly be able to get us out of a crisis such as the one we're in now. Sundquist has failed on both counts. One suspects he is not a terribly good governor.
This does not, however, absolve our cowardly, ineffectual, and corrupt legislature of responsibility. A good legislature also would not allow the situation to reach this point, and would be able to find a solution to it, if it did. I would say that part of the reason our legislature has failed us is that a great many of our representatives are gorging themselves at the public trough. I have no direct evidence for this, but I'm also from Knoxville, the roadwork capital of the country. The roadwork done in Knoxville is massive and on-going. It is one of the few constants of life here, the one thing you can always count on to still be around in an uncertain and changing future. The roadwork is constant, but rarely completed, and if it is completed, the completed work is immediately revised. The overpass was not such a great idea after all; what we really need is an underpass. This represents tens of millions of dollars; there is no need for so much road work, and the fact that it is always around carries with it the crisp, invigorating smell of flowing cash. Someone's getting rich off our roads, and that someone is not just the construction companies. Tennesseans may be forgiven therefore, for believing that we have slop in the legislature and a pig in the governor's mansion, and for, thus, not wanting to provide yet another trough.
Yet, there is another culprit in this: the citizens of the state. We have pigs and slop in Nashville, because we put them there, and because we have not demanded better. Exercising our civic duties would do much to improve the situation in our state, and it is our state. Not funding its government will ruin us all, and I'll give you one example as to why. The University of Tennessee has been one of the great victims of the budget crisis. Many of its faculty have left; the quality of new faculty has declined; courses have disappeared; tuition spirals upward; whole departments have been consolidated, to name but a few of the changes which have taken place since I was a student there. The DOG budget will at best necessitate a hiring freeze, at worst a massive lay off of faculty and staff; an elimination of courses, and even of whole departments. Now ask yourself this. Would you want to attend a university like that? A university where it would take you on average six years to graduate, because you couldn't get the courses you needed? A university where you would be subjected to crowded classes, where your major could be eliminated at any moment, where the cutting edge, upper division classes were not offered, where foreign languages like Arabic and Russian were not taught? Would you want your child to go there? I would answer "no" to both questions, as would many bright and academically oriented students. If I were a high school senior with a choice between UT and a quality out of state school, I would choose to go out of state. And this is bad, because it means many of our most talented people will leave the state, and in a technology driven society, you have two choices: you can be America or the Third World; the place where companies, ideas, and innovations are created, or the place which assembles products for a tiny fraction of the profit they will bring their creators. If we kill our university, we will do a lot to kill our state and its economy; both because we will create the conditions for a brain drain, and because the people who stay will be poorly educated in comparison with people from other states, and therefore largely incapable not only of competing in a highly skilled and technical job market, but also of attracting companies which demand such workers to the state in the first place. Education is the future, and it is ours.
Just like the state parks are ours; health insurance is ours; k-12 education is ours; the environment is ours. Just like all of it is ours, because it is our state. We live here. If the state's government goes crash, we go crash. Maybe we shouldn't have a permanent income tax. Maybe we should only have one of limited duration; a year, maybe two. One thing is certain, though. Tennessee is a sinking ship. If some day far in the future - i.e.. next week - the ship should sink, the obituaries of the unfortunate drowning victims will be ours. People have a duty to ensure the quality of their own future, and to make certain sacrifices to do so. We have a duty to demand better government in this state, but we also have a duty to protect our state from fiscal ruin, and to ensure that its institutions - like the university - survive intact.. Destroying ourselves, our institutions, our government, and our children will not solve the problem; it will simply pack the hand basket with Tennesseans, and send it straight to Hell. And that to me is not a positive step. A friend of mine said that passing the DOG budget will be a salutary experience for TN, because the state will die like a phoenix, and then rise from the ashes. That may be, but personally, I'd rather not go up in smoke.
Now I'm not stupid and I'm not naive, and I know that the current sorry state of affairs has a great deal to do with our state government's criminal mismanagement of state funds and resources. The state wasn't any richer under our former governor, Ned McWhorter, and in fact, if memory serves, it was considerably poorer. Under McWhorter, however, the budget was balanced, education was funded, social services increased, and there was no income tax; all of which leads one to the sinking suspicion that part of our current problem is that McWhorter was an excellent administrator, and Sundquist is not. Whether this is the result of incompetence or corruption is a matter for debate. I suspect it's a little of both. Sundquist has proven himself unable to articulate a strong vision for the state and to deal successfully with the legislature, both of which are qualities a good governor should possess. The only solution to the current problem he has advanced so far is an inarticulate call for an income tax, a call which places the blame fully on the state legislature, and denies his own personal responsibility for a situation he did a lot to create. When he first came into office, Sundquist sought to erode popular and financial support for education, particularly higher education, and social services, and he succeeded admirably. It is hard to feel any sympathy for a man who wrecks his own bed and then screams bloody murder when he has to lie in it. And when Sundquist talks now about the importance of - guess what - education and social services, and the need to fund them with an income tax, it rings more than a little false. A good governor would not have allowed the situation to deteriorate to this point, and he would certainly be able to get us out of a crisis such as the one we're in now. Sundquist has failed on both counts. One suspects he is not a terribly good governor.
This does not, however, absolve our cowardly, ineffectual, and corrupt legislature of responsibility. A good legislature also would not allow the situation to reach this point, and would be able to find a solution to it, if it did. I would say that part of the reason our legislature has failed us is that a great many of our representatives are gorging themselves at the public trough. I have no direct evidence for this, but I'm also from Knoxville, the roadwork capital of the country. The roadwork done in Knoxville is massive and on-going. It is one of the few constants of life here, the one thing you can always count on to still be around in an uncertain and changing future. The roadwork is constant, but rarely completed, and if it is completed, the completed work is immediately revised. The overpass was not such a great idea after all; what we really need is an underpass. This represents tens of millions of dollars; there is no need for so much road work, and the fact that it is always around carries with it the crisp, invigorating smell of flowing cash. Someone's getting rich off our roads, and that someone is not just the construction companies. Tennesseans may be forgiven therefore, for believing that we have slop in the legislature and a pig in the governor's mansion, and for, thus, not wanting to provide yet another trough.
Yet, there is another culprit in this: the citizens of the state. We have pigs and slop in Nashville, because we put them there, and because we have not demanded better. Exercising our civic duties would do much to improve the situation in our state, and it is our state. Not funding its government will ruin us all, and I'll give you one example as to why. The University of Tennessee has been one of the great victims of the budget crisis. Many of its faculty have left; the quality of new faculty has declined; courses have disappeared; tuition spirals upward; whole departments have been consolidated, to name but a few of the changes which have taken place since I was a student there. The DOG budget will at best necessitate a hiring freeze, at worst a massive lay off of faculty and staff; an elimination of courses, and even of whole departments. Now ask yourself this. Would you want to attend a university like that? A university where it would take you on average six years to graduate, because you couldn't get the courses you needed? A university where you would be subjected to crowded classes, where your major could be eliminated at any moment, where the cutting edge, upper division classes were not offered, where foreign languages like Arabic and Russian were not taught? Would you want your child to go there? I would answer "no" to both questions, as would many bright and academically oriented students. If I were a high school senior with a choice between UT and a quality out of state school, I would choose to go out of state. And this is bad, because it means many of our most talented people will leave the state, and in a technology driven society, you have two choices: you can be America or the Third World; the place where companies, ideas, and innovations are created, or the place which assembles products for a tiny fraction of the profit they will bring their creators. If we kill our university, we will do a lot to kill our state and its economy; both because we will create the conditions for a brain drain, and because the people who stay will be poorly educated in comparison with people from other states, and therefore largely incapable not only of competing in a highly skilled and technical job market, but also of attracting companies which demand such workers to the state in the first place. Education is the future, and it is ours.
Just like the state parks are ours; health insurance is ours; k-12 education is ours; the environment is ours. Just like all of it is ours, because it is our state. We live here. If the state's government goes crash, we go crash. Maybe we shouldn't have a permanent income tax. Maybe we should only have one of limited duration; a year, maybe two. One thing is certain, though. Tennessee is a sinking ship. If some day far in the future - i.e.. next week - the ship should sink, the obituaries of the unfortunate drowning victims will be ours. People have a duty to ensure the quality of their own future, and to make certain sacrifices to do so. We have a duty to demand better government in this state, but we also have a duty to protect our state from fiscal ruin, and to ensure that its institutions - like the university - survive intact.. Destroying ourselves, our institutions, our government, and our children will not solve the problem; it will simply pack the hand basket with Tennesseans, and send it straight to Hell. And that to me is not a positive step. A friend of mine said that passing the DOG budget will be a salutary experience for TN, because the state will die like a phoenix, and then rise from the ashes. That may be, but personally, I'd rather not go up in smoke.
posted by Underground at
11:42 PM
