7/31/2005 08:29:00 AM|||Nathan Moore|||

Blogging for Bryant adds political fuel to the hyperbolic fire over the cover story in The Pulse down in Chattanooga.

Matthew White is right, that the cover to the latest Pulse is demeaning. Though I do separate with my fellow baseball loving friend on the significance of the points that the Pulse article make.

Complaining that your opponent is raising money from your opponents is disingenuous. In a nutshell, the complaint is that Bob Corker is too electable to be chosen as the Republican nominee for the United States Senate. I'm not sure there's anything deeper to be said to this. There are many steadfast conservatives on the Metro Council here in Nashville, who I know personally and who vote conservatively on practically all issues that come before them. They were swimming in educator and fire fighter union money before 2003's election.

Kudos to them and Republicans like them - they're taking funds from organizations to which they are ideologically opposed, and then voting against them. Personally, I'd like to learn how to do it myself.

The tax increase attack on Corker in Chattanooga misses two things - the ability to shift the political cost of votes when a legislator, and the decisions one has to make as an executive. Legislators have the ability to defer political costs on votes when it's known that their votes won't matter in the final tally. That's what whips are for. Executives can't do that.

No one likes tax increases. No one wants them. On the municipal level, some degree of taxation is necessary to maintain essential public services. We're not talking about a bloated bureaucracy (like I would argue we have in Nashville), but simple things like road maintenance, water purification, and the like.

The property tax rate in Chattanooga is 2.516 per $100 of assessed value. The tax rate in Knoxville is $3.05 per $100 assessed. The tax rate in Nashville, in the Urban Service District, is 4.69 per $100 of assessed value. Memphis is simply absurd, with a combined county and city rate of 7.2704 per $100 of assessed value. Among the largest five cities in Tennessee, notice which is the lowest.

Let's say the property taxes in Chattanooga stay the same, which they have - if I'm correct in my recollection, the commission has voted against two efforts to increase taxes further. Let's also say (because it's true) that convention and event bookings in Chattanooga increase because of the new capabilities that the city can offer. Good convention facilities are gold mines for any city, including my own - it would be nice to stop throwing money down the drain in Nashville and reinvesting in the city's economic infrastructure.

But the idea that Bob Corker raised taxes to an oppressive level is absolutely silly. Even Ronald Reagan, the father of the modern Republican Party, and personal hero of yours truly, had to raise taxes at times. Ronald Reagan also had this nifty little 11th Commandment that seems to have already been forgotten by many in this primary. Further on Reagan as California governor

Yet I don’t think his legacy will be judged by his unwavering ideological purity. After all, as a realist he once raised taxes and signed liberal abortion legislation in California, as well as pre-selected as his Vice-President running-mate a liberal Governor Schweiker in 1976 to appeal to Republican moderate delegates.

and further

Usually, Reagan pondered a problem, then made a decision, reducing a dilemma seemingly to an easy choice between principle and expediency.

This was not written by someone lukewarm to Reagan and his legacy, but by Victor Davis Hanson, a staunch conservative and regular contributor to National Review Online.

What his opponents are saying is that Ronald Reagan is not conservative enough for Tennessee, a state he carried with 57.8 % of the vote in 1984 (which is a bit more than the 56.8 % George W. Bush got last year).

Apparently, Bob Corker is too Reaganesque for those opposing him.

|||112282051435280305|||Attacks on Corker8/01/2005 09:34:00 AM|||Anonymous|||Aren't you using the same argument Don Sundquist used when he advocated for an income tax? He often talked about TN being one of the lowest taxed states in the nation, but that didn't mean implementing an income tax was sound policy. The same holds true for Corker. Chattanooga having a lower property tax rate than Nashville, Knoxville and Memphis isn't an excuse for him to raise taxes.