Thursday, April 23, 2009
Legislature / Politics / The Economy Danger: Tennessee House Republicans Forced to Think
Posted by Pete Kotz on Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 5:34 AM
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It was one of those rare moments when government worked the way they talk about in middle school civics class. The state unemployment trust fund was going broke. So Governor Phil Bredesen, Senate Republicans and merchant groups got together and fashioned a solution: They would raise business unemployment taxes by $110 per worker annually.
Nobody really wanted to do it, especially during a depression. But it was a smart, bipartisan response to a problem that wasn't going away. So the adults in the room stepped up to the table. Can we get an "amen," brothers and sisters?
Unfortunately, their agreement must now be approved by the children. Those would be Tennessee House Republicans, whose amorous desires for the Second Amendment leave little time for thinking of anything else. They're obviously not big on raising taxes, so they're resisting the plan. But they don't have an alternative of their own.
Now, with Tennessee's unemployment rate snuggling up to 10 percent, the adults are left to wait for the children to either get out of the way, or come up with -- gasp! -- an idea. If the kids insist on the latter, consider the fund as good as broke.
