Tennessee Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey seems to be holding fast on the issueof whether $16 million for a fish hatchery in Carter County will make it into the Tennessee State budget as the 106th General Assembly attempts to wind up its need for existence:
Republican Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey says his gubernatorial aspirations aren't a factor in his insistence on ridding the state budget of local projects that he calls pork barrel spending.
And yet in explaining his opposition to spending $16 million on a fish hatchery in Carter County or $5 million on the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Ramsey draws back to a campaign refrain that promises to "give Washington the boot."
"This is a symbol of running things the Tennessee way, and not the Washington way," Ramsey, a Blountville auctioneer, told reporters at the Capitol last week amid the budget impasse.
"We balance our budget, a foreign concept to members of Congress," Ramsey said at a tea party convention in Gatlinburg last month.
While the Lieutenant Governor's zeal over spending is both laudable and desirable in both a Senate leader and a Governor, Ron Ramsey needs to be extremely careful that he does not overstep himself on the question of this particular budget. Unless Ramsey is willing to go to the mat not only on the issue of the fish hatchery, but also on the sheer amount of money going into Memphis for things which are not necessities, he could be seen as contributing to the long-standing problem of Middle and West Tennessee getting all of the bread and butter, while East Tennesseans just pay taxes for that sustenance. I don't for a second believe that this is Ramsey's personal position, but in politics appearance is often everything.
Ron Ramsey also must be very careful that the lock-down over this budget does not drag on incessantly deep into the month of June. Tennesseans are but 46 days away from the beginning of early voting in the August State primaries. At this point, every hour that Ramsey spends haggling over the final details of the budget is one less hour he could spend campaigning, and if he is to have a chance at victory, every second is one of value. Ramsey must ask, as must House and Senate leadership in both parties, what is most important both for them and for Tennessee.
Comments