Thursday, June 11, 2009
Legislature / Politics / Woods Governor Calls GOP Budget 'Stupid' and Democrats Bash It As Job Killer
Posted by Jeff Woods on Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 8:58 AM
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Gov. Phil Bredesen bluntly disparaged the Senate Republican budget proposal as "stupid" at a breakfast meeting with legislative leaders today, and Senate Democrats then trooped en masse into the press room here to heap more scorn on it.
"The governor's characterization is very fair," Sen. Lowe Finney said. "I heard him say that," Sen. Jim Kyle said. "I agree with the governor."
"This is putting politics above people," Kyle said. "This is putting politics above jobs for people. We're going to stand with the governor and we're going to work as hard and we can today and tomorrow to resist these matters. I suggest you buy yourself an extra notepad because we're going to be up there a while."
Highlights from the Democrats' comments:
More Kyle: "We think it is the wrong thing to do at the wrong time. The governor has tried to govern us through a very difficult economic situation. But you can't stop what you're doing in government. You can't quit educating people. You can't quit trying to create jobs. We've got a governor going to Germany trying to sell the West Tennessee megasite, and we have members of the Republican caucus trying to pull that out of the government. That is just not the way government should work. We're standing firm. We're drawing a line in the sand. We're going to fight each and every item in that amendment."
Sen. Roy Herron: "The most egregious of the cuts are the cuts that would destroy jobs and prevent the creation of jobs. The West Tennessee megasite, the solar farm and solar institute ... It's a no jobs budget amendment. It's a cost jobs budget amendment. That's why we're opposed to it."
More Herron: "With the solar issue, we're talking about throwing away $20 million in federal money and saying we don't want the investment in Tennessee. Tennessee has just been recognized as one of the top three states in the country in alternative energy development. The governor's proposal on solar energy just puts us literally in the top three states in the country on that. They would turn back the progress on that and turn Tennessee away from being a national leader. That's the wrong thing to do."
Kyle again: "We're going to fight the solar farm cuts. We're going to fight these cuts that take away jobs from Tennessee. In an economic downturn, you can't just stop what you're doing. We're going to fight for higher education. We're going to fight for these higher education buildings. These buildings will not be built anytime in the near future if we don't fund them in the next 20 days. This is about jobs in thbe future and jobs now."
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