Tennessee Budget Grows Yet Cuts Necessary

March 12, 2003

After Governor Bredesen’s budget address to the state, the cards are on the table.   Now it’s just a matter of sifting through and deciphering what these cards mean.   No small task, mind you.

At first blush, it’s hard to understand how a budget can grow from $20.6 billion to $21.4 billion and still require cuts.   Are these actual cuts or are they bureaucratic cuts?   Bureaucratic cuts are, in reality, reductions in what government wanted to spend in addition to last year’s spending as opposed to what they actually got.   I must say that the Bredesen budget appears to actually cut, in other words, reduce spending in many areas.

How can that be when the budget is getting larger?   Having not yet been privy to the minutiae inside the budget, I suspect that a large part of the increase has come from federal mandates like TennCare.   As the federal spending increases it requires additional state money resulting in trimming in other areas to keep up.

I must say that I found it a bit odd that the governor announced there would be “no sacred cows” in one breath, then announced increased spending in K-12 education in the next.   I’m all “for the children” and everything but if we’re serious about fixing our spending problems we have to look in every department and the education department is the largest in the state.   Right now, 50 percent of our state money goes to education, including higher education.   To be sure there’s some waste that could be trimmed from K-12 without doing damage to the education of our children.

There are still many questions for which I hope to have answers as I wade through this budget.   Primarily, how is it that our revenue is up around 13 percent since our massive tax increase last summer yet we still manage to be in the hole?   Part of the answer lies in bad projections.   Naifeh and the brain trusts running the show got their hands on a whole heap more money and projected it to be even larger than it was.   It’s pure insanity that our state legislature would increase spending over 13 percent, especially in light of the economic problems we’ve found ourselves in over the past few years because of overspending.   That’s absolutely irresponsible and these people should be held personally accountable.

Seeing as how this proposed budget from Governor Bredesen is 10 percent greater than two years ago and revenue this year alone is already up 13 percent, where is all that money from the tax increase?   Don’t get me wrong.   I’m not accusing Bredesen of anything.   I suspect any budget shenanigans are taking place inside the legislature and that remains the wild card in this whole budget process.

They stood and applauded when the governor announced across-the-board belt tightening.   It will be very interesting to see what they actually do when it comes to their own pet projects.   If history is any indication, there will be a lot of back scratching going on once the process begins.   Politics as usual will begin to erode these cuts.   Hopefully, we won’t find ourselves back in the blazing sun on Legislative Plaza wearing out our horns.