State Senator Frank Nicely just voted against Insure Tennessee, which was a plan negotiated by Republican Governor Bill Haslam with the Obama administration to expand health care coverage in Tennessee to approximately 280,000 who currently lack health insurance. State Senator Nicely, along with five of the other six lawmakers that voted to kill Insure Tennessee in the Senate Health Committee, of course don't have to worry about purchasing health insurance coverage for themselves because they already have health insurance coverage paid for by the State. However, apparently Senator Frank Nicely's hypocrisy doesn't just end there. This fine State Senator, who could care not less about the 280,000 people who are currently uninsured in Tennessee that would have benefited from the passage of Insure Tennessee, is now very concerned about residents not being able to afford guns and ammunition. So he is proposing a plan for the State of Tennessee to subsidize the purchase of firearms, ammunition, and other hunting equipment!
The proposal by Senator Nicely, SB 206, is modeled after similar legislation in Mississippi and Louisiana. It would declare that firearms, archery equipment and “hunting supplies” can be purchased without state or local sales taxes on the first weekend in September of each year, starting in 2015. “Hunting supplies” is defined to include “archery equipment, firearm and archery cases, firearm and archery accessories, hearing protection, holsters, belts and slings” but not animals or vehicles. Senator Nicely states that the bill's purpose is to “give hunters a little bit of a break” at a time when ammunition prices “have gone up outrageously.” It would be nice if the Senator had the same level of concern for constituents of his that can not afford health insurance due to Tennessee's refusal to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
The State of Tennessee's Department of Revenue has not stated how much the tax holiday would cost of the State of Tennessee in lost revenue. But Senator Nicely believes that the tax holiday would "stimulate sales and would actually bring in more money.”
The priorities of this State Senator, and the Tennessee State Legislature as whole are completely out of whack. Tennessee has one of the highest sales tax rates on groceries in the nation, and we have hundreds of thousands of persons who need health insurance that could have been given that opportunity at no cost to the State but for persons like Senator Frank Nicely, who apparently oppose any form of governmental assistance unless it involves making guns more affordable. Making guns more affordable is apparently a higher priority than making food or health care affordable in this state. What will it take for the people of this State to wake up?