Defeated Legislators Explain Why The Voters Were Stupid
In a pair of stories, the small Greeneville Sun newspaper in Greeneville, Tenn., lets two defeated state legislators run on and on about how smart they were and how dumb the voters were and how lucky the state of Tennessee was to have them in the legislature. Somebody needs to tell the paper's reporter, Tom Yancey, that one-source stories in which the source is the subject of the profile are, well, extremely amateurish journalism.

State Rep. Zane Whitson blames his defeat on his vote for income tax.

Whitson said his “biggest disappointment” during 24 years in the legislature came last year when “we didn’t pass a flat (income) tax under which every person would pay less tax.” But wait. The flat tax plan would have increased overall revenue by about $850 million. So how would "every person" have paid "less tax"?

Whitson also waxes ineloquent about talk radio, Gov. Don Sundqust and the alleged (but unproven) impact of Internet retail on sales tax revenue.

Meanwhile, state Rep. Ronnie Davis doesn't blame his defeat directly on his support for the income tax. But, then, he's under a 12-count federal felony indictment for alleged extortion, influence peddling, bank fraud and money laundering.

Davis decries fellow Republicans who opposed the income tax: “The irony is, the public got mad because we (legislators) stayed down there too long and then passed an increase in the sales tax, but they didn’t get mad at the (legislators) that were willing to do nothing at all. They got mad at those of us who were willing to do something,” Davis said, to keep the state’s budget “from going down the drain.”

He also says TennCare isn't the cause of the state's budget problems.

And thus does another dull knife leave the drawer.