Bias Watch: Tennessean Repeats Misleading Revenue Spin
An editorial in today's Tennessean wails about the lower-than-expected tax revenue in August. But the paper is being intellectually dishonest in the way it reports the facts. The paper chooses to focus on the amount of the revenue shortfall - $3.6 million - but chooses not put it in context. Why? Because the shortfall is miniscule. Revenue came in just 0.6 percent under the budgeted estimate. That's a tiny shortfall, one certainly within the acceptable margin of error. To use such a minor discrepancy between the budgeted estimate and the actual revenue to stump again for the income tax would make the paper's editorialists look ridiculous, so they don't report the whole truth.

If revenue falls 0.6 percent short every month, would it be a crisis? Would we need an income tax to "solve" the problem? Of course not. It would add up to a total shortfall for the fiscal year of less than $50 million compared to the budgeted estimates. Over the last few years the state's various departments and agencies have ended each fiscal year with approximately $100 million in excess unspent funds. The Tennessean doesn't tell you that, either.