I hate my home state

[kellinator]

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/07/01/tennessee.budget.ap/index.html

The people affected include several of my friends who attend Tennessee colleges, high-school classmates who were laid off from their teaching jobs this past spring, and my mother, a secretary for the Department of Children's Service, who has been laid off this week.

I am so livid. Tennesseans in general are too fucking stupid to understand that they're paying one of the highest sales taxes in the nation, sales taxes are hardest on lower-income people, and an income tax, with a resulting reduction in the income tax, would probably save 90% of the rock-throwing horn-honking protesters outside the state capitol money. I was especially infuriated to hear they were screaming at college students demonstrating in favor of the income tax to "go get a job." Indicative of Tennessee's general attitude -- why work to improve yourself when you can drop out of high school, get a shitty job, and drink beer and watch UT thugball on the weekends?

Even worse, they're talking about booting the sales tax up to 9.25% (including food)until November, when voters will apparently vote on an income tax. Look, I believe in democracy, but it's obvious the voters are living in a never-never-land and don't understand what is necessary or even fair. Sometimes what's the best thing to do isn't the popular thing. Should we have had a referendum in the '60s to let the voters decide on integration? I think fucking not.

But then again, what do you expect from a state that spends millions to attract pro sports teams but next to nothing on education?

It's no fucking wonder Tennessee's such a joke -- and well on track to replacing Mississippi and Arkansas as the national laughingstock.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Sundquist is a paper tiger--he's had a long time to fix this, as TN has been slowly going bankrupt for a while. TN has a *spending problem*, with TennCare being the main culprit (This should serve as an illustration of how disasterous a HilaryCare plan would have been).

What the protesters are objecting to is the gov't coming back to the trough and saying "give us more, more, more" instead of reigning in inefficient programs and bloated beuracracy.

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

Most Tennesseans would actually save money under most of the programs Sundquist has proposed. I'm no fan of Sundquist, but he has tried to take action. The legislature is more to blame as far as I'm concerned.

And as for those protesters -- forget it. They're not intelligent enough to take that position; they haven't even followed the issue. They're just sheep who do whatever the talk-radio hosts tell them to, anyway.

Who the hell are you?

The Laubster's day off.

[laubster.livejournal.com]

Hey batabatabatabata swing bata!
They furlowed me at Tenncare. The new TENNCARE waiver doesn't look so bad it cuts down on a lot of services that are Tennessee specific.
Anyway this gave me time to clean my "love shack".

hey

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not the source of the anonymous post above, but I thought I would share some info with you. TN has what is called "the Hall tax", which means about 6% of investment gains on stocks and bonds go to the state, something that hits the rich much harder than the poor, clearly.

To date, all of the proposals to introduce an income tax include a quiet repeal of Hall tax. This is why disgraceful Sunquist and many rich favor an income tax. If the Hall tax goes away, burden will be shifted heavily to the middle class, which is what the legislature is protecting against when they keep prevent the income tax from passing. An income tax might be more fair in theory, but none that have been proposed fit that description because they involve repealing Hall.

Besides, states always promise to reduce sales tax if people accept an income tax. They know you're comfortable paying 6% sales tax, so they reduce it to 3% for a while so you'll swallow the income tax. Then, they slowly notch sales tax back up to where it was. People have fallen for this trick in about 40 states so far.

-Alan

Re: hey

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

Why the hell isn't the media talking about this, then? Oh yeah -- Tennessee media is shitty too!!

GRRRR

[dawneywawney.livejournal.com]

What makes me so damn mad about it all is that the first thing they want to cut is TennCare. My infant daughter relies on TennCare. If it weren't for the State of Tennessee, she'd be without insurance. So, all you damned Republicans need to look her in the face and tell her that you want her to be without a safety net. Oh yes, we also rely on WIC for much of the food she eats each month. Tell me that we aren't contributing to society - My husband lost his job in February. I'm about to complete a degree in Computer Science and my husband is studying to become a college professor. So FUCK YOU.

Whew.

You know, we HAVE to have revenue. Yes, every opponent of the income tax harps on the fact that we need to cut spending. I can think of a good place to start... Let's get rid of the Titans, Predators, Nashville Super Speedway UT Football (we can keep Vandy athletics, because obviously they don't spend much on them, rofl.) You think that the State doesn't contribute heavily to these organizations??? WRRRRROOOONNNGGGG!

Then, lets cut out pork barrel, like the nice new high speed road running to Don Sundquist's summer home. Bet a couple of schools could stay open longer with that money.

Did you know that the State of Tennessee has the same economic rating that Enron had right before they filed bankruptcy? I agree that we need better spending, but FUCK! You've GOT to have money, folks! It's not rocket science.

This subject really riles me up, especially since I live in one of the poorest counties in Tennessee, yet somehow a heavily Republican one. These people live and die for the GOP, but whine and groan because our schools suck eggs. JEEBUS.

Re: GRRRR

[noctifer.livejournal.com]

Ok, first off two disclaimers - I am not a Republican and I don't live in Tennessee. So take anything I post with a grain of salt, its just an opinion and I have no power to affect this either way.

Oh, and I hate football. That said, though some money Is put in athletics in most states, athletics charge (and receive a large sum of money) for tickets. Translation, they are also a source of income for a state/school. Add advertisement rights, all the cheap things that get sold at huge price spikes do to some stupid logo, etc... I wouldn't blame athletics for all your troubles, not until you have some numbers to back it up.

As for the health care plan, I really do feel bad for you. But let me get this straight - you are arguing that people should pay more so that your child is safe while both you and your husband attend school so that You can get a higher income at the end while they remain in their jobs? Is it not possible that either you or your husband could settle for a smaller job for a while, and then switch off when one of you has earned a degree rather than demanding others cover? I'm sorry, I don't know the situation and I'm normally for government health care, your argument just seems a bit one-sided. Sounds like the standard 'CUT SPENDING SO YOU HAVE MONEY FOR WHAT I WANT! er.. but not from me.' No offense, my mom was a single parent and she worked three jobs to help me through school, cover my medical problems, etc. You want to help education? Then be willing to help everyone's. God I hate playing devil's advocate on these things. :(

Re: GRRRR

[dawneywawney.livejournal.com]

My husband works 2 jobs and goes to school full time. I work, go to school, and take care of the baby. We still can't afford the insurance for ourselves. I only posted about us going to school to better ourselves because so many people want to cut us down thinking the only people that take government assistance are the people sitting on their asses. And we most certainly are not. I don't have a problem funding everyone's education - it's just that they're not wanting to fund ANY education. My classes are shut down effective Tuesday night.



Nope, you didn't know the whole situation.

Re: GRRRR

[noctifer.livejournal.com]

Ah, you're right, I appologise. You and your husband are very impressive in what you are doing, I wish you the best of luck - hopefully your state will try to support you through this (though that is very doubtful). :)

Re: GRRRR

[ariedana.livejournal.com]

You can't tell me that the massive funding that the state has given to building a football stadium and an arena in Nashville hasn't contributed to some of the money problems. And last I heard Bud Adams is suing the state for MORE money that was supposedly promised. Please. The only athletics that truly pay for themselves are the ones like UT football (which do make money back from the state because they get revenue from licensing fees.) The pro teams get state governments to pay for their new facilities and then keep almost all of their revenue for themselves. All that the cities can hope to make money on is sales taxes, and that's actually gone DOWN in Nashville since the two teams came to town.

Not to mention the fact that the state and the city of Nashville GAVE Dell prime land and no taxes for 10 years so that they would build there and bring jobs in. Yeah right. Ask Dawn about that one. They used the economy downturn to as an excuse to layoff the permanent employees to bring in temps to work for no benefits and less pay. So now the State is footing the bill for Dell's infrastructure AND unemployment benefits for thousands of laid-off workers.

As far as "financing" insurance for students, these same students will later be earning a lot more money and giving it back in taxes than they ever would if they just "got a job" and forgot college. Not to mention many of these people are the ones who eventually become the teachers for the kids, doctors for the TennCare programs and the legislators who provide sensible governing for the state. It makes a helluva lot more sense to be proactive and help people become educated while raising a family than to tell them to "do it yourself" where they definitely could end up becoming a drain on the state. Dawn and her family have a helluva lot better chance to bring revenue to the state in the future than if they gave up their educations now. And you really shouldn't make judgements on what they should do unless you know. I'm her sister, have two jobs, insurance is a distant memory, and am probably not going to go to college this year because another state decided to make more money by raising my tuition 20%. Tell me what in the fuck I can do to fix that.

Re: GRRRR

[ariedana.livejournal.com]

I might also add that I don't know a single person who goes to school and doesn't also work in some way (even if it's full-time in the summer and breaks to save up.) The days of going to school and "enjoying yourself" are way gone. So telling us to "go get a job" is a huge insult.

Re: GRRRR

[noctifer.livejournal.com]

My full reply is rather long (I don't know how to type short messages, sorry :( ) and I don't really want to bore anyone with it. I apologise if I have offended you or your sister.

I believe some of your facts may be in error, and if you would like to check my thoughts on it I have responded to your points here (http://www.geocities.com/noctifer3/Reply.html). (I made it into html because txt was unreadable and its not safe to download doc files from stranger's replies ;) ) Otherwise please just accept my appologies.

Re: GRRRR

[ariedana.livejournal.com]

I'm not quite sure why you felt the need to nitpick my entire post. For one thing, I was responding to all of the debates that have been made on this subject and to the horrible spending choices that have been made by the state government in general, not just to your point about the pro teams. So that's why the Dell thing was in there - not to make a point about your post, but a general statement. Same with the postscript about the "get a job" statement. That was a response to what the CNN post said, and had nothing to do with you.

Also, I was not "lashing out" at you. I was responding to the statement that you had made earlier regarding Dawn getting government assistance while addressing other points that had been made in other posts at the same time. Notice I did not go through and analyze every line you wrote like you felt like you needed to do with me. I think that instead of breaking down my post into pieces that you can pick apart with your argument you should take what I said to be what it is, MY OPINON, and it has not changed, despite your explanation. Does that make it gospel truth? No. But it's really not necessary to go do research on my home state to attempt to prove me wrong. The only reason that I said anything directly to you is because I do think it was very unfair for you to sit in judgement of Dawn and tell her what she should do when you didn't know anything about her. I saw that you apologized for that, and I'm glad. I also wanted to make the statement that it is difficult in the state of the economy today for anyone to do it all without some help, not to mention someone with a family like Dawn has.

I'm sorry if you felt my post was a personal attack at you. It was not at all. And please don't pick this reply apart too, or at least do it in private email. I'm not in a pissing match. The fact is - the system is fucked up and hurting innocent people in the process. I think we could at least agree on that.

I apologize for starting a ruckus in your journal, Kelly.