HobbsOnline

Steaming hot commentary on journalism, Tennessee, politics, economics, the war and more...

Name:
Location: Nashville, Tennessee, United States

8/08/2002

Praise for the Governor
Writing in the Knoxville New-Sentinel, George Korda comments Don Sundquist was right about something regarding the income tax, at least in one respect.

"In a Chamber of Commerce luncheon speech in Knoxville six months ago, the governor said if legislators showed political guts voters would reward them on election day. Darned if he wasn’t right," Korda says, recalling that Sundquist told legislators in the audience of legislators to "find the political courage to do the right thing and the voters will reward you at the polls."

Knoxville area state representatives Jamie Hagood and Steve Buttry heard Sundquist that day and they did the right thing. They honored their word given to voters during their campaigns and voted against the income tax. "Sure enough, they were rewarded at the polls," Korda says. They won.

Hagood and Buttry didn't cave in and flip-flop, despite immense pressure to do so. "They were under enough pressure to turn coal into diamonds," Korda says. "Throughout the legislative session Hagood, Buttry and a number of other like-minded legislators were tabbed as being members of a 'do-nothing caucus.' To do nothing in this case meant to not support an income tax."

They were also called "obstructionist," says Korda, "obstructionist in the sense that they weren't going to vote for an income tax. Tiresome is the best word to use to describe the repeated 'obstructionist' denunciations aimed at legislators who would not back an income tax. Presumably they could have avoided being obstructionist if they cast aside their convictions and their promises and double-crossed their constituents.

"Interestingly, the 'obstructionist' label was not applied to income tax supporters. This despite their unwillingness to budge from their goal of impressing upon the state a revenue program the people of Tennessee did not want, and continue not to want."