Friday, June 12, 2009
Legislature / Politics / Woods Bredesen Talks About His Hissy Fit and Why He's Fleeing the State
Posted by Jeff Woods on Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 5:07 AM
Gov. Phil Bredesen talked to reporters yesterday about his trip to Europe next week, why it's OK to leave Tennessee during a budget crisis, Republican political games, and the tirade he threw at a meeting with legislative leaders. Here's the Q&A:
Q: From your trip to Europe, do you hope to bring any job announcements back with you?
Bredesen: I don't know if I can bring more announcements back with me. We were asked by Wacker, which has made over a $1 billion commitment to the state. We have a number of other meetings lined up, I don't want to say who for obvious reasons, both on the subject of clean energy and possible use of the Haywood County megasite. I'm sorry the legislature is not out yet. This trip had been planned three or four months ago at time when we were sure it would be over with. But at this point I think it makes sense to go ahead and try to get these things moving forward. If we wait we'll be in the fall again and there may be some opportunities that have slipped by.
Q: Governor, what is your reaction to the Senate Republican budget plan? We were told today that you called elements of it stupid.
Bredesen: What goes on at the breakfast meeting stays in the room. Outside of that meeting if you ask me about the plan, I think elements of it were stupid. Look, it wasn't a budget plan. It was a political document. People are trying to sort of claim some position of being more conservative than even I was about bonding or something like that. But you know, the Haywood County thing is a huge potential development in one of the poorest counties in our state. We have the money identified two years ago to move forward for that particular project. I'm on the eve of leaving to talk to some serious people who might be interested in it. And it's suddenly visibly pulled out of the budget without anybody even mentioning it to us. I just think that's political posturing. That's not good budgeting. What certainly I've asked people to do on this is say, look, I don't think there's ever a time for really stupid politics. But this is a time when we have got to focus on this budget. We have got to get through with a reasonable budget here. This is not the time for political posturing, and c'mon guys stop this stuff and let's get a budget passed that we can agree is a good central point, that does what we need to do in terms of cutting expenses but doesn't short-circuit everything the state is trying to do in terms of moving forward at the same time.
Q: The Republicans contend their budget is predicated on your revenue estimates and there'll be no problem if your revenue estimates are sound.
Bredesen: That's just wrong. Some of the speeding up which is done of the cuts was tied to hitting the revenue estimates. But we're $140 million under the revenue estimates. We're not going to make those up in the next 20 days. I just think that's just hogwash. ... It was not carefully thought through. I had urged them when they were doing any budget changes to talk to the budget office to make sure they weren't getting crossways with the requirements we have in the stimulus package, which are very complex. And they have apparently in the last 24 hours had one conversation, but that's it. I just think it was a political document. They were just trying to carve out some position saying 'we're really, really, really conservative fiscally on these things. We're going to hold the governor's feet to the fire.' It's just posturing. I was upset about it. It's not what I expected out of people who come here to Nashville to represent people and get us through a very, very difficult budget year.
Q: What about your solar projects?
Bredesen: The budget as it came out of the Senate basically completely eliminated all that stuff. ... Speaker Williams has told me he doesn't agree with those things. I feel like the House will probably take a much closer look at those things. I hope the Senate will take another look. I just think they got into a bad place and the wrong place for political reasons and they need to stop and think about what they're doing.
Q: Did you threaten vetoes and special sessions and various things?
Bredesen: There were things that were in that budget which were very difficult from what I'd been told privately within the last 48 hours were going to be there, and I was pretty upset about that. I just said we're deep in veto territory here and you need to make some changes in this thing and get it back in the middle of the road to something reasonable or we're going to be here a long time.
Q: What about what they're doing to pre-K. Is that veto territory?
Bredesen: I think moving pre-K entirely to non-recurring expenditures in the way that it was done, I would be very unhappy about. You're always going to look at this in terms of the totality of the way it was done. That was one of those things I had received some assurances was not on the table in this kind of way, and so I was surprised to hear on the news last night that it was. That's something they're doing that's just a precursor to trying to get rid of it entirely, and I'm not going to let that happen. That's certainly would be something that I would consider.
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