Nashville Chamber Releases Public Schools Report Card

Progress made, but still a long way to go. And they seem to love Jesse Register.

Special Legislative Session on Education

The Tennessee State Legislature holds a special legislative session this week to figure out how to fund and fix our state's education system.

Nashville Public Television will broadcast it.

Water water everywhere

Much of it frozen.

Big mess.

My morning tea bag

With the Tea Party Convention less than a month away here in Nashville, I thought it's worth chiming in with my two cents worth.

For starters, I'm a fiscal conservative. I think we should pay our bills. I share the concerns of Blue Dog democrats that money doesn't grow on trees and that we should do all we can to use PAYGO rules and not spend money we don't have.

That being said, it's worth noting that the Reagan administration and both Bush administrations were responsible for the vast majority of the national debt. Reagan's "win the Cold War through huge deficit spending" strategy might have worked in the short term. But in the long term, we're really in worse shape because of it. (Not worse compared to other nations ... worse in terms of our own national balance sheet.)

Our national debt stands at over $12 TRILLION right now. (As you see from my link, you can actually follow the national debt tracker on Twitter.)

But as Bruce Bartlett (Reagan-era economic advisor) and others have noted repeatedly over the past 2-3 years, our biggest problem right now isn't spending. Actually, we're cutting spending and waste through contract reform and other important budget reforms under the leadership of Peter Orszag and the Obama Administration's Office of Management and Budget. Countless executive branch reforms have helped to curtail out of control spending (the worst waste is in military "emergency" spending ... and no, ACORN is not responsible.). But we still have a long way to go.

What I am NOT hearing from Republicans right now is a commitment to cut or eliminate Medicare. I'm not hearing a commitment to eliminate Social Security. I'm not hearing any commitment from Republicans to cut ANYTHING significant - other than taxes.

And more tax cuts are exactly what we DON'T need.

Well, let me rephrase that.

More tax cuts for the wealthy are what we don't need. As it turns out, the middle class received the largest tax cut in history from the dreaded and much-maligned (by Tea Party activists) Obama-Pelosi agenda. The $288 billion tax cut ($500 per family) was passed without any Republican support by the Democratic Party as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

And this is what really confuses me about the Tea Party movement.

They hate the Obama administration and the Democratic Party, but they want tax cuts - tax cuts that the Democrats gave them (in spite of the fact that this increases the deficit).

And this is where I get confused about the Tea Party and its identity.

Is the Tea Party movement interested in eliminating the national debt? Or are they interested in evading or avoiding the payment of income taxes?

Because this is one of those situations where you've gotta die to live. We need to make short-term sacrifices to get our financial house back in order. The short-term stimulus will spur economic growth (already has!) and this will bring more revenue back into the government coffers. But without raising taxes to collect on our national debt, we're going to continue falling into a deeper and deeper hole.

Again - tax cuts alone will not stimulate the economy. We need smart, sustainable policies for economic growth. And we need to eliminate our debt. Spending cuts alone will not solve the problem, and spending cuts with tax cuts will actually drive us further into recession.

Analyze Glenn Reynolds Body Language

This may be the best new blog since Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle.

Background here.

Seriously, Glenn. What the hell are you insinuating?

PS - You'll love my Facebook page.

Tennessee Congress - Fiscal Discipline?

Not so much.

Basic strategy?

1. Add pork project.
2. Rail against big government.
3. Vote against the bill, which passes anyway.
4. Pass the pork around.

(h/t Southern Beale)

A New Day

Liberadio(!) has a great summary of some year-end blogging that I must have missed while on self-imposed media blackout for the past couple weeks.

Suffice to say that if you live in Tennessee, or care about Democratic politics, you need to read this.