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Location: Nashville, Tennessee, United States

7/31/2002

The Logical Choice
With State Sen. Marsha Blackburn poised to move on to the U.S. Congress, the logical choice to succeed Blackburn in the state Senate is Williamson County businessman Jim Bryson, who co-authored the Williamson County GOP's resolution denouncing the proposed income tax in 1999.

"Jimmy Naifeh and Bob Rochelle have refused to acknowledge that we have a spending, not a revenue problem," Bryson said in press release from his campaign after the legislature rejected an income tax but passed a billion-dollar tax increase. "If my business or family household does not have the money, then we do not spend it. Our government needs to have similar spending restraints. As state senator I will lead the fight in making sure the government lives within its monetary means."

You can read TaxFreeTennessee.com's interview with Bryson by clicking here.

"I was chairman of the Williamson County Republican Party Policy Committee when we drafted and sent to the Governor the first County Resolution against a state income tax back in 1999," Bryson remarks in that interview, adding that the income tax "was a bad idea then and it's a bad idea now."

Bryson says Tennessee has a spending problem, not a revenue problem, and correctly notes that Tennessee "has not obeyed its own laws in the budgeting process," including failing to follow state law requiring a zero-based budgeting process.