Bredesen promises vetoes

Proposals for more funds for DOT, TennCare won't fly

By TOM HUMPHREY, KnoxNews.com
April 20, 2006


NASHVILLE - Gov. Phil Bredesen said Wednesday that Republican-led legislative efforts to increase funding for road-building and TennCare are politically motivated and would "plunge this state back into crisis."

"My hope and expectation is that cool heads will prevail - that we will put aside election-year jockeying and do what's best for the state," Bredesen told members of the Tennessee Business Roundtable, urging that they contact legislators and call for defeat of the proposals.

Bredesen told reporters afterwards that, should either proposal be enacted, he would veto it.

Targets of the gubernatorial wrath are:

An amendment to his state budget proposal approved by the Senate Transportation Committee that would spend an extra $44 million next year on road construction projects. The move would restore construction funding to the level it held prior to a 2003 budget cut imposed on the Department of Transportation.

Bredesen characterized the effort as "an election-year scramble to cater to" the Tennessee Road Builders Association. Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Mark Norris, R-Collierville, said it would be irresponsible not to restore full funding to road construction now that the state's budget "pinch" of three years ago has ended.

Legislation that would allow 68,000 people classified as "uninsurable" and cut from the TennCare program - generally those with higher income levels but suffering from significant medical problems - to have coverage again.

Bredesen said the proposal is "downright frightening" and "turns back the clock on many of the reforms to TennCare that we have won with great difficulty" with a cost "in the $200 million range if we are lucky."

If unlucky, he said, the federal government would refuse to provide its share of funding and the cost would reach $600 million.

Sen. Jim Bryson, R-Franklin, who is seeking the Republican gubernatorial nomination to run against Bredesen this fall, introduced the bill in the Senate. He turned over sponsorship of the bill Tuesday to Sen. Diane Black, R-Gallatin.

"I'm supportive of the concept because we've got a lot of people out there who are hurting," said Bryson, who also added he thinks Bredesen may have exaggerated the cost since a similar proposal last year had an estimated price tag of $100 million.

Rep. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald, House sponsor of the bill also disputed the governor's cost estimate.

"The governor is just wrong," said Hensley. "He is the one who is trying to scare people here."

The Bredesen attack comes with his own proposal for changes in health-care laws, called "Cover Tennessee," still in legislative committees.

On Wednesday, Bryson was one of six Republicans on the Senate Government Operations Committee who refused to vote for the main Bredesen bill. All abstained while five Democrats on the panel voted for it.

In other committees, that vote would have translated into defeat of the bill. Under Senate rules, however, the Government Operations Committee cannot kill such legislation and it now goes on to the Commerce Committee, a GOP-majority panel that could kill the measure.

"I say his Cover Tennessee is election year scrambling," said Hensley in commenting on Bredesen's criticism.

Bredesen said he does not believe the TennCare proposal specifically involves "gubernatorial politics" but is instead general "D versus R politics in an election year."

Hensley and Norris both said their proposals have backing from Democrats as well as Republicans.

The Transportation Committee approved the amendment adding $44 million to DOT's budget for road projects on March 29 by a vote of 7-1. Two Democrats, Sens. Rosalind Kurita and Jerry Cooper, joined the five Republicans in the vote while the sole no was cast by Sen. Ward Crutchfield, D-Chattanooga.

Tony Garr, head of the Tennessee Health Care Campaign, also said several Democrats are backing the Hensley-Black bill. He said Bryson abandoned sponsorship of the bill to "try and take politics out of a bipartisan effort to restore insurance to the uninsurables."

Bredesen's speech to the Business Roundtable was interrupted only once by applause. That came after the following statement:

"What's most ironic to me is that the same people who are pushing massive overexpenditures in places like the highway fund and TennCare are the very same people who spend the rest of their time preaching fiscal restraint. The reality is: This isn't Washington, D.C. This is Tennessee.

"We can't print money. We have to live in the real world with balanced budgets."

In a question and answer session after the speech, Ray Bell, who heads a highway construction company that has won multiple state contracts, told Bredesen "there have been a lot of hard feelings in the last few years" over the cuts and other policies at DOT.