TFT Alert - July 7, 2009
In this alert:
Letters to the Editor Initiative
Tennessee's economic climate is facing a long-term financial drought. With months of Federal Stimulus dollars spent, and one year left to go, Tennessee legislators need to make some meaningful changes to Tennessee's tax system in order to generate an adequate revenue stream for the state; and they need to do it fast!
We are encouraging you, our members, to write letters to the editor (LTE) and share your voice with your community. We have provided 4 sample letters from which to choose from. You may use these letters as a guide to write your own LTE, or you may use any of the letters as is. If you are planning to send one of the sample letters as is to your news paper, please call or email us before hand to let us know to whom and which letter. We want to avoid redundancies.
We want to thank you in advance and we look forward to reading your letter in the paper!
Click on the links below or scroll down to see sample letters:
Letter 1 Now that the 2009 Tennessee legislative session has drawn to a close, it’s time for a review. There were lots of social measures of questionable merit, but the big failing of this year’s General Assembly had to do with the one measure they must pass every year – a balanced budget. As the year began, everyone knew we would be facing an unprecedented revenue shortfall. In a disappointing display of conventional thinking, the Governor and legislators agreed to respond to the revenue crisis with spending cuts. I commend them for closing the nonsensical Family-Owned, Non-Corporate Entity (FONCE) loophole, but that raised a paltry $22M in the face of a $1.4B shortfall. What we needed was a revenue enhancement to correct a revenue shortfall. If they had tried, they could have found a way to call on the top 20% of earners in the state to pay the same portion of their income in state and local taxes as the bottom 80%. That measure alone would have eliminated the revenue shortfall. | Letter 3 The legislature has recently recessed, having chosen to respond to the conflagration of recession in Tennessee by adding coals to the fire, shrinking critical public services, slating 750 state employees for lay off and freezing plans to fill another 700 vacant positions. (Tennessee's $29.6B Budget Passes, Tennessean, June 18, 2009.) It's the Herbert Hoover economic plan. The TFT Real Budget Deficit study reports that our $30B budget was already $3.4B short of merely bringing us up to middling standards in comparison with our sister Southern states in financing education and other critical public services. The state budget is an investment in Tennessee's future and a down payment on a better future for our children. Our legislators urgently need to roll back our regressive sales tax and begin a progressive income tax that will address both our systematic failure to invest enough in that future and our current Herbert Hoover approach to cutting public services when they are needed more than ever by Tennessee families. |
Letter 2 Tennessee’s unemployment rate for May was 10.7%. It will continue to rise as the 400 private sector layoffs announced this week are added to the others announced in June and the idling of the Spring Hill plant hits the stats. The state will be laying off another 700 employees in the near future. Tennessee’s leaders have followed the course that Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman warned against in his December 2008 column “Fifty Herbert Hoovers”. He advised the 50 governors to balance their budgets with additional revenue from wealthy taxpayers rather than by cutting state budgets. He warned that cutting budgets and laying off state employees would make the recession longer and deeper by further diminishing consumer spending. Taxing the rich would not reduce their spending – only their saving. The revenue would serve to retain state employees and programs and preserve consumer spending. There was a bill in the legislature this session that would have done just that. SB2054/HB2182 sponsored by Sen. Reginald Tate and Rep. Larry Turner. Let’s hope our representatives and the administration will give it serious consideration next year. | Letter 4 The Tennessee Legislature is to be commended for closing one of several loopholes in the state's revenue program, the FONCE (Family Owned Non Corporate Entity) program under which businesses run by members of the same family, under the old law, did not have to pay certain business taxes that everyone else has to pay. Happily, our Democratic Governor strongly backed this correction in the law. Although the correction will not generate a great deal of new revenue, it is the right thing to do and we are proud that our governor and legislature moved in the right direction. But there are other loopholes that need to be addressed as well. Modernization of our revenue system in the state is long overdue. It should include the closing of other loopholes in the present revenue system, abolishing the sales tax on groceries, reducing the sales tax on other items and establishing a tax on personal income with generous exemptions for lower income taxpayers. The present reliance on sales taxes no longer provides the state with necessary resources because more and more money is being spent on services and non-taxed items. Sales taxes are rarely collected on internet and mail purchases. Other states without an income tax rely mainly on special revenue sources that are not available in Tennessee, e.g. oil in Alaska, tourism in Florida, gambling in Nevada. Cutting state services such as education and aid to persons with disabilities is not the only way to balance the state budget. |
TFT is pleased to announce that the FONCE bill passed with the support of TFT and Gov. Bredesen. This bill, as you may know, will close large tax loopholes for wealthy landowners and raise an estimated $22 million for the state. For more information on FONCE please click here. For more information on closing other tax loopholes click here.
We Did It! Thanks to the Generous Support of Donors Across Tennessee, We Met the Babcock Challenge... Now What?
Last year, the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation gave TFT a challenge. They would match every dollar we raised from individuals over and above what we raised from individuals the previous year... up to a maximum of $25,000. In short, all new and increased donations are being matched dollar-for-dollar this year.
Since we raised $40,000 from individual donors during the last budget year (July '07 to June '08), we set a goal of raising $65,000 from individuals this year (July '08 to June '09) so we can get the full $25,000 challenge grant from Babcock. As of today, we have raised $66,256, beating the $65,000 goal with six days to spare! TFT extends our thanks to all the donors across the state who made this success possible.
So now what? The Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation is doing it again for our next budget year beginning July 1, 2009, but they are upping the ante. They will match dollar-for-dollar all new and increased gifts over the $65,000 goal from this year. That means, we'll be aiming to raise $90,000 in individual donations in the next budget year (July '09 to June '10) to leverage the full $25,000 matching grant from Babcock. This is the kind of growth TFT needs to take seriously so we can be prepared to face the challenges of the coming years, as the stimulus runs out and pressure for new revenue mounts.
If you are one of those who gave this year, your continued support will help us meet the Babcock Challenge in the coming year. If you did not give to TFT recently, your new or renewed support will go a long way toward helping TFT meet the Babcock challenge and build the kind of organization that can challenge political inertia and bring about real change.
More ways to be involved!
If you are interested in joining our lobby day efforts or attending one of our Local Organizing Chapter meetings please see our online events calendar for more information.
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