"Mean-Spirited"
The Governor is mean-spirited for believing that disciplined State employees
should not get a raise:
In the private sector this would be considered an occasional wage or salary increase, and most of those are conditional on the employee maintaining a good work record. That means that up to now, most State employees have just gotten a raise whenever the Legislature voted that one should be given across the board. Ordinary citizens might be interested to know that the condition of good conduct was never imposed on the raises State employees received in the past. In the private employment world, there are words for Governor Haslam's "mean-spirited" raise policy-very lenient.
Labels: Conservatism, Democrats, Duh, Elections, Local politics, Tennessee politics
The Debt Limit and the State Purse
As the federal government runs out of money,
Tennessee officials had best guard the purse:
How could this impact Tennessee government? At some point, the feds will begin to lack the ability to pay their obligations even if the debt limit is increased. Such may happen soon or it may occur some years down the road, but when Washington looks to find the money that it does not have and which the rest of the world will no longer give it, it may look to the treasuries of those few States which are in more sound financial condition to help find its largesse. Tennesseans should be prepared to resist federal encroachment upon our fiscal house by all political means necessary.
Labels: Conservatism, Federal politics, Local politics, Tennessee politics
Horror of Horrors...
The
horror, Representative Julia Hurley
carved her initials into her desk!:
In the United States Senate, Republican Leaders-whether in the majority or minority-have usually sat at a certain desk on the Senate floor. Traditionally, when a Leader prepares to retire from the Senate or stand aside as Leader, they mark their time as Leader by-guess what-carving their names into the desk. Names of great Senators like Henry Cabot Lodge, Robert Taft, Howard Baker, and Bob Dole appear etched somewhere in the desk. Most people don't even know about this custom, but former U.S. Senator and Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) talked about how it felt to carve his name into the Leader's desk along with names like Howard Baker and Robert Taft in one of his farewell speeches on leaving the Senate. What a horrible defacer of public property Bill Frist is, isn't he?
Labels: Conservatism, Elections, Local politics, Tennessee politics
One Big Shot
Will Tennessee Republicans use their opportunity to draw Democrats
out of power for decades?:
In discussing the redrawing the representative constituency lines in accordance with the 2010 federal census as part of our last column, we talked about some of the speculated changes in East Tennessee Congressional Districts. Perhaps the biggest power the Republican majority in the Tennessee General Assembly will have where they are concerned is to redraw the lines for the very districts they represent, and Republicans could equally use the redistricting pen to do as their Democratic predecessors did-draw the other party out of the possibility of legislative power for decades, if not generations on end.
Labels: Congress, Conservatism, Democrats, Duh, Elections, Local politics, Presidential Election, Tennessee politics
Redistricting
The question of redistricting
is beginning to rear its head:
The Tennessean's Chas Sisk takes a long, hard look today at the legislative and Congressional redistricting process, and how it could impact the way constituencies for both Houses of the Tennessee General Assembly and for Congress are drawn. In keeping with the geographic base of the paper he works for, Sisk deals with how the new districts will impact the politics of Middle Tennessee. However, plenty of questions remain about what East Tennessee political boundaries will look like when the new constituencies are finally made public.
Labels: Conservatism, Democrats, Elections, Republican Party, Tennessee politics
