State Senator Reginald Tate (D-Memphis) called for a continued, sustained effort to attract jobs to Tennessee and bring down the state's unemployment rate. Just a few days after automaker Mitsubishi announced it was bringing jobs to the community, Tate demonstrated leadership in an editorial published in the Tri-State Defender:
I believe that government should help make people’s lives better, and that means giving people a chance at regaining the dignity and self-sufficiency that a well-paying job provides.
That's as much a statement of the value-add of government as it is a statement of the need around our nation.
It's been a tough week for Tennessee Senate Democrats, who lost a party-line Education Committee vote 6-3 on an education bill that would eliminate collective bargaining rights for teachers in the state. (The Tennessee Education Association is currently the only collective bargaining organization in the state's government.) The Memphis area is also embroiled in a battle over consolidation of the county's schools, where the Memphis City School system is presently segregated from the wealthier, whiter county schools. The Metro Nashville Education Association is fighting back with a campaign to block Republican-sponsored legislation that would undermine the ability of school workers to organize and negotiate with school boards.
This happens at a time when "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" is still a statement that strikes fear in the hearts of Tennesseans racked by massive flooding, high unemployment, housing market weakness, and 24/7 hate talk on TV and radio [cough-Foxnews-cough]. Tennesseans are being conditioned to believe that government is fundamentally corrupt ("Republicans are as bad as Democrats," "They're all the same," etc.), that the Obama administration is dangerously deceptive ("Chicago politician," "union mob boss," "Socialism," "He wasn't even born here), and that reliance on community support is a sign of moral weakness. The message of Jeremiah Wright is echoing in the sanctuaries of white Evangelical churches like Cornerstone Church, where (convicted murderer) Rev. Maury Davis is telling his Assemblies of God church members that they should avoid doing business with the city government because of its stance protecting the LGBT community from employment discrimination.
The fundamental question in Tennessee, and across the South, is this: Is the role of government to support equal opportunity and promote job growth among the most vulnerable members of our community? Or is the role of government to get out of the way and let the private sector maximize its profits?
Gov. Bill Haslam (R-TN), the son of Pilot Oil Centers founder Jim Haslam, is siding with the "get out of the way" crowd, favoring property owners and the forces of globalization over policies that promote job creation and care for those who have nothing. Economic injustice continues to be the unfinished business in Memphis and across the country.