Predictable Claptrap
Today's Tennessean editorial says the middle-ground CATS budget is a better alternative than the no-new-taxes budget, but is still urging passage of House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh's unconstitutional income tax instead.

The editorial is filled with contradictions. It rails against the state's "obscenely high" sales tax, but ignores its own role in creating that high sales tax by pushing a decade ago for passage of the "Better Education Program," which required a half-cent sales tax increase. The BEP has produced no measureable improvement in the quality of education in the state, despite its multi-billion-dollar cost to taxpayers, but the paper doesn't urge making BEP work before we shovel a few billion more dollars into it.

And though the paper believes people pay "obscenely high" taxes, it editorializes in favor of raising taxes by $1.2 billion dollars via an income tax (coupled with a temporary and small decrease in the sales tax for a very limited number of items).

The editorial asks: "If lawmakers are willing to raise revenue by $807 million, as Buck and Jackson say their bill would for a one-year fix, why not go the extra mile with Naifeh's plan, which represents a long-term solution?

The answer is this: Because the Naifeh plan is illegal. It violates the state constitution and three different unanimous state Supreme Court rulings.

The paper also declares: "Taxpayers are sick of the mess and the uncertainty it has meant for every state program."

Actually, no. Taxpayers are sick of the budget mess alright, but poll after poll shows taxpayers' main priority is preventing a state income tax, not protecting the fiscal health of "state programs." If only The Tennessean cared as much about the financial well-being of the average hard-working person in Tennessee as it does about adding a billions to the bureaucracy's bloated budget. And they're sick of liberal newspapers that constantly urge government to raise taxes on ordinary people, and tax their incomes, but will fight any attempt to extend the sales tax to the sale of advertising that provides The Tennessean its income.