TN taxpayers buy sports memorabilia


If you've ever followed Tennessee politics, you'll know that Tennessee has no state income tax. This drives the legislature nuts, and every year they try to get an income tax pushed through. They've tried meeting in the dead of night or behind closed doors, and on several occasions have nearly gotten away with it. Last fall, I even wrote about Steve Gill, a Nashville radio host that organized an impromptu protest on the capital steps when he got word that the legislature was planning a vote on the issue behind closed doors.

With local economies in a slump, and the socialized Tennessee health care system sucking up more and more state money, it's not surprising that proponents of the tax have been using the bad news to further their agenda. Just last year, the poor economy was used as an excuse to pass a sales tax increase, giving Tennessee one of the highest sales taxes in the nation.

For everything that you've heard about 'liberal media', however, it is almost surprising that the Tennessee media seems to be a pretty big ally of income tax opponents. Last week, News Channel 5 featured a story about government waste of highway safety money. Money that was supposed to be spent on promoting seat belt use or on a drinking and driving campaign went instead to provide bobblehead dolls and other sports trinkets to hockey fans; and the trinkets and giveaways didn't even have their message emblazoned on them. In this case, as with others, the media is actually looking out for the public's interests, rather than their own.

UPDATE: Libertarians and Republicans often come off as mean spirited or uncaring when they look for ways to cut government programs. Still, nobody is going to be able to convince me that money should be seized from taxpayers with the threat of lethal force, so that the government can buy hockey fans some bobble head dolls.



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Comments

Indeed, we do have a bunch of morons in the state govt. Mostly I blame the democrats in the house, and our former shitty governor Sunquidst. He screwed us over more than the Democrats have. We are pretty anti-income tax here in Tennessee, but we do pay about $.08 on the dollar in taxes, which I understand is pretty high. But I would rather have a higher sales tax than any income tax at all. Taxes suck my ass and to have the bobble head buying morons our redneck citizens elect have my money is frightening. We do good in picking State representation, but golley, those idiots running our state need to be slapped with a big fat baseball bat. Our media rarely covers anything about state politics, and we only hear a little something when they are threatening to increase our taxes. Hopefully our current governor (D-Bredeson) will pull us out of the gutter without imposing an imcome tax. Hopefully.

Posted by: John Mays at April 28, 2003 9:58 AM

You know, I find that startling. I guess I haven't looked at prices lately. Is it really cheaper to just buy a pre-made system these days?

Posted by: Dean Esmay at April 28, 2003 12:07 PM

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