As the Republican Governor's Association voted on leadership, it proved once again that it has turned into a regional party.
From the Wall Street Journal:
The Republican Governors Association announced its new leadership lineup today after their annual meeting concluded Thursday in Miami.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was voted RGA chairman, taking over the top job from Texas Gov. Rick Perry who will now serve as finance chairman. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is vice-chairman, while Florida Gov. Charlie Crist will serve as chair for the annual RGA gala, and Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue will head up the recruitment effort.
Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle, Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will also sit on the RGA’s executive committee.
We've got them cornered, Kossacks.
If you really want to stick a fork in it, then we ought to focus on competing in the heart of Texas.
Update: apparently Gov. Perry has a chance to run again, and plans to. oops.
And the best strategy might be to push a libertarian gubernatorial candidate in Texas, while working in local elections to get Democrats elected.
The Southern Republicans are sick and tired of government waste and spending. Fiscal and social conservatives are fighting over the identity of the party, with fiscal conservatives often leaning more in the direction of libertarian philosophy while social conservatives push the politics of fear and wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage.
In Tennessee, we have Phil Bredesen retiring in 2010. It's slim pickins for truly progressive candidates here, unless someone like Al Gore runs (which would be cool, but probably not all that popular with Tennesseans). But Bredesen took the reins from a horribly ineffective governor (Don Sundquist) who nearly crashed the TennCare system and was MIA on education.
Perhaps the weirdest thing in the whole 2002 gubernatorial election was that we had a Republican governor proposing an income tax (currently, there is no state income tax in TN), leading to the Tennessee Tax Revolt protests that circled around downtown Nashville and on local talk radio.
Bredesen proposed a plan that would keep income taxes out of Tennessee, while still managing the budget effectively. As a successful healthcare company executive and popular governor of Nashville, Bredesen had the bona fides to beat his opponent, Van Hilleary. And despite support from a then-popular President Bush, Bredesen pulled out a narrow victory in 2002. After a successful first term characterized by bipartisanship and effective ethics reform, he was re-elected in 2006 in a landslide victory against State Senator Jim Bryson.
Bredesen has won a reputation as a problem-solver and a pragmatist. After creating a rainy day fund of $750 million, Bredesen says that he may tap into the fund to offset lost sales tax revenue, which is the primary source of income for the state treasury.
Economic spending downturns and home foreclosures hit states like California, Florida, and Tennessee even harder, because sales tax revenue is directly correlated with the ability of the government to spend on programs that effect change. And this hits especially hard in rural communities, as well as in the Memphis area. What's even harder for Tennessee is that population is concentrated at the borders (Memphis, Chattanooga, Tri-Cities/Bristol), which allows residents to easily go across the state borders to purchase cars, clothing, and other items at a lower sales tax rate.
Here are the state sales tax rates in Tennessee and surrounding states (this does not include local sales taxes):
Alabama: 4%
Mississippi: 7%
Arkansas: 6%
Georgia: 4%
North Carolina: 4.25%
Missouri: 4.225%
Virginia: 5%
Kentucky: 6%
With the Republicans taking over the state House by a narrow one-vote margin, the likely House Speaker is GOP House member Jason Mumpower, who hails from Bristol, TN (on the TN/VA border). Mumpower knows that the residents will gladly live in Tennessee, income-tax-free, and travel across the border for cheaper goods in Virginia.
It's the best of both worlds.
It's also playing the system. Perfectly legal, but this is a little bit of a NIMBY issue - it's ok to have a state income tax, but just not in my state. It's ok to have high sales tax, but just not in my state.
Those who struggle under the tax code in Tennessee are:
- Those who live in the center of the state, such as Rutherford and Williamson counties, two of the fastest growing counties in Tennessee.
- Those who do not have easy access to purchase items across the border due to lack of access to transportation. This would include older adults and the disabled.
- Parents with large families, who consume more goods.
- The unemployed or underemployed, who do not have an ability to save.
I'm not sure what's going on in other states, but that tells you a little bit about what's going on in Tennessee.