Governor Phil Bredesen presented his budget document to a joint convention of the Tennessee General Assembly last night and gave his final State of the State Address as our State's chief executive. It could have been a shorter speech than it was (and it was not long) but the Governor insisted on further explaining his recently passed education reforms, mostly with an emphasis on self-congratulations for the members for having passed the "Race to the Top" education package in such overwhelming and bipartisan numbers. Bredesen also spent no small part of the speech thanking Tennessee's military personnel who were stationed abroad, or who were about to be, and be made known the fact that Colonel John Mark Windle of the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, who is known in civilian life as Representative Windle (D-Livingston), was present for the speech and would soon be departing for Iraq.
Representative Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) pointed out on his blog that while Governor Bredesen complemented the Department of Children's Services on being newly accredited, some of the toughest cuts in the budget are are going to come at DCS, while driver's license fees will be raised (that amounts to a tax increase), cuts to many other programs are being prevented for another year because the budget proposal purports to prop them up with the money from the State reserves, also called the "rainy day" fund. That would place the responsibility for making the cuts needed to balance the budget on Bredesen's successor-exactly what Governor Bredesen told the General Assembly in the very same speech that he did not want to do. Instead of the necessary cuts being made last year, when they would not have been so drastic, or this year, when the State is working with a slight revenue increase, the next Governor will likely make one of the most draconian of budget proposals in Tennessee history because there may very well be no money left to pad next year's budget.
Even so, we should all give thanks. Yes, frequently in this space I am critical of the Governor, and I often wish that members of his administration would make wiser taxation and spending choices (see Farr, Reagan and the cigarette border tax fiasco), and I think the attitude of this administration toward the liberties of the people is nothing short of a complete disgrace. I also have to wonder, however, how much of these problems are really Bredesen's doing, and how much of the blame lies with the people around him. Unlike his two most recent predecessors (Democrat Ned McWherter and Republican Don Sundquist), Bredesen has never seriously threatened to impose an income tax and has accepted that it is not politically acceptable in Tennessee. Phil Bredesen will likely leave office with Tennessee's finances in better shape than many other States where the choices they will make in the months and years ahead are far more drastic than anything Tennesseans will probably have to deal with.
Phil Bredesen has been far from a perfect Governor, but let's be honest-we could have had it a lot worse.
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