Day: April 5, 2017

DESPERATE: Laughingstock Boss Doss Renames Failing ‘IMPROVE Act’ Gas Tax Increase to ‘Tax Cut Act of 2017’

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Tennessee Star

  Peals of laughter echoed through the House Finance sub-committee chamber Wednesday as Transportation Committee Chairman Rep Barry “Boss” Doss (R-Leoma) moved an amendment renaming the troubled legislation increasing fuel taxes known as the ‘IMPROVE Act’ to the ‘Tax Cut Act of 2017.’ Proponents of the bill have been claiming it is revenue neutral, despite the fact that they are using tax cuts passed in previous years to balance against the huge fuel tax increases contained in the legislation aimed at increasing road funding by approximately $300 million per year. Now, proponents are rebranding the legislation again as a “tax cut” despite the fact that the primary “cuts” flow only to a few dozen large manufacturing companies. Last month, Boss Doss blatantly broke House rules to ram Gov. Haslam’s gas tax proposal – then known as the IMPROVE Act – through the House Transportation Committee he chairs. On Monday State Rep. Jerry Sexton (R-Bean Station) and 16 other members of the House called on Speaker Beth Harwell to send the bill back to the House Transportation Subcommittee for a “fair and open debate.” On Tuesday Speaker Harwell’s office told The Tennessee Star she did not have the legal authority to…

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Commentary: Establishment Snakes on the Trump Train

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Tennessee Star

by Richard A. Viguerie, CHQ Chairman The recent Twitter attacks emanating from the White House against the conservative heroes of the House Freedom Caucus have baffled and alarmed conservatives. However, the tweets shouldn’t be a big surprise. Personnel is policy. So, these tweets are an entirely predictable result of President Trump’s failure to staff his White House, Cabinet and sub-cabinet posts, and his political operation with reliable limited government constitutional conservatives who believe in the Trump campaign agenda. What’s so alarming and frustrating to conservatives is that it has begun to appear that, while the President has many good instincts on our issues, he somehow expects to run the Trump administration without any actual Trump supporters being brought in to run the government on his behalf. We told CHQ readers about John Boehner confidant JohnDeStefano, now Assistant to the President and Director of Presidential Personnel. Johnny DeStafano’s job as Director of White House Personnel isn’t to hire Trump’s loyal outsiders or check the SAT scores of potential hires to make sure the top applicants get the jobs, it isn’t to vet them for their security clearances or potential conflicts of interest – it is to funnel Capitol Hill staffers loyal to…

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Tennessee Motorists Going Past School Bus Stop Arms Would Face Fines Under Proposed Legislation

Wendy Wilson
Tennessee Star

  A bill that would allow schools districts to install cameras on buses to nab drivers who go past school bus stop sign arms earned a narrow approval by the state Senate Education Committee on Tuesday. Five senators voted in favor of the bill and four passed on voting. Concerns raised by those who declined to vote centered around a general dislike of traffic enforcement cameras. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Mike Bell (R-Riceville). It allows those cited to pay a fine out of court without a penalty to their driver’s license. School districts opting to use cameras would be responsible for the costs of purchasing and maintaining them but costs would be offset with money paid in fines. Twenty percent of the proceeds from fines would go to local law enforcement to help compensate for the time and expense of reviewing images. Ray Robinson, a lieutenant with the Tennessee Highway Patrol who overseas student transportation, told the committee Tuesday that “there are a lot of close calls” and that some students have been hit over the past few years though no one has been killed. The matter is a growing issue across the U.S., with some districts choosing to mount…

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Southern Baptist ERLC Research Fellow Criticizes Mike Pence’s Approach To Honoring His Marriage

Wendy Wilson
Tennessee Star

A research fellow with the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) has written a piece for a liberal website criticizing Vice President Mike Pence for the boundaries he sets for his marriage. Karen Swallow Prior wrote in Vox that “virtue ethics is better than the Billy Graham rule.” Prior, an English professor at Liberty University, referenced the vice president’s longstanding rule to never eat alone with a woman other than his wife or attend events where alcohol is served unless his wife is with him. A recent Washington Post profile of Pence’s wife, Karen, mentioned how the vice president had spoken publicly about this commitment back in 2002. Such an approach to honoring marital fidelity is dubbed “the Billy Graham rule” by some evangelicals because the famed evangelist is known for teaching and practicing similar safeguards. But Prior said the focus on rules is misplaced and that what should be discussed is prudence. “Prudence, in fact, is what seems to be missing from the conversation about the vice president’s ‘rules.’ And I don’t mean prudence in the way that some supporters of the Billy Graham rule are using the term. Prudence as properly understood is a virtue, not a rule,” Prior wrote.…

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Tennessee Farm Bureau Supports Haslam’s Gas Tax Because They Don’t Have to Pay It

Chris Alto
Tennessee Star

  Since January 2008, Tennessee farmers have benefitted from expanded agricultural tax exemptions, including sales and use taxes on “gasoline or diesel fuel used for ‘agricultural purposes’ as defined in Tenn. Code Ann. Section 67-6-102.” Farmers in Tennessee who own or lease “agricultural land from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold during the year, including payments from government sources,” are exempt from paying tax on “off road” use of gasoline and diesel fuels. A full year before Governor Haslam released his “IMPROVE Act” that raises the tax on gas and diesel fuel, Tennessee Farm Bureau’s (TFB) president Jeff Aiken said: “We could support a fiscally responsible state fuel tax increase, if and only if the money that was taken out of the funds under the Bredesen administration were first returned to the fund, and as long as the monies collected would go toward building and maintenance of roads and bridges in the state and nothing else.” Despite Haslam explicitly admitting that that up to $70 million of the gas tax can be spent on mass transit by cities and counties, the TFB has not withdrawn their support for the proposed fuel tax increases. In fact, last…

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Modified Teacher Bill Of Rights Advances In State Legislature

Wendy Wilson

  The state Senate Education Committee on Tuesday passed a bill called the Teacher Bill of Rights that educators say would give teachers much-needed respect. However, the bill was amended to take out a provision prohibiting Tennessee public school teachers from being evaluated by professionals who do not have the same subject matter expertise or from being evaluated based on the performance of students the educator has not taught. The provision had earlier been removed from a companion bill in the House. Also stripped from the Senate bill Tuesday was a provision prohibiting schools from moving teachers to other schools based solely on test scores from state mandated assessments. The former had been deemed too unwieldy and costly, and bill sponsor Sen. Mark Green (R-Clarksville) told the committee Tuesday the latter provision wouldn’t give struggling schools the flexibility they need. “I’ve gotten to the point where I can accept that,” he said. The bill retained measures calling for teachers to be treated with civility and have their professional judgment respected. It also frees them from the burden of spending personal money to “appropriately equip a classroom.” It promises teachers a “safe classroom and school” and underscores their right to defend themselves if…

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