by Judson Phillips
2020 has been one hell of a year for Nashville. It started with a tornado, then the coronavirus, then mayor John Cooper and his insane lock down of the city, the 34% tax hike he and the metro council rammed through, and now he is single handedly trying to destroy the downtown Nashville tourist economy.
The only good news is, the murder hornets never made it to Nashville.
Nashville’s Metro Government is out of control. Not only is Cooper destroying businesses and livelihoods for no good reason, but now he’s throwing a temper tantrum when some of the citizens of Nashville want to repeal his obscene tax hike. Cooper’s reaction to the attempt to repeal the tax has been to say that he would slash police and fire and education.
Well the state legislature can’t do anything about tornadoes or the coronavirus, they can’t have to do something about Nashville’s out of control government. And it is time that they did.
Nashville’s government has been mismanaged for decades. A year ago, the state threatened to put the city into receivership because of its poor management. The city barely escaped receivership this time, but it is only a matter of time before Nashville’s economy implodes because of the horrendous management of the city by a succession of, to be charitable, are at best, incompetent leaders.
It is time for Tennessee state legislature to step in. Nashville is too big and too badly managed to continue as is. The only thing Nashville is doing right now is putting people out of work and destroying small businesses.
The first thing the state legislature should do next January, or maybe even before then, is to pass a bill that breaks Nashville up into at least a dozen small cities. A couple of the small cities will be as badly managed as Nashville, but at least the majority of them should be better managed. And the citizens who are in these new small cities will not have to suffer from the temper tantrum of a mayor who threatens to cut police and fire as a response to citizens who don’t want to be taxed further.
Article I, Section I of the Constitution of the State of Tennessee says, “That all power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their peace, safety, and happiness; for the advancement of those ends they have at all times, an unalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform, or abolish the government in such manner as they may think proper.”
The state constitution gives people the right to abolish the government, and it is well past time that the government of Nashville be abolished and reconstituted it into something else. The legislature needs to put a cap on the size of cities in the state. The cap should be 50,000 or maybe 100,000 at the most.
At some point sooner rather than later, Nashville is going to be insolvent. Memphis probably isn’t far behind. The legislature can either wait until this happens, or they can take proactive steps to keep it from happening.
A smaller government is more accountable to the people. And when government is accountable to the people, you don’t have the insanity of a mayor trying to destroy parts of the economy or trying to destroy businesses with a massive tax hike.
The city government of Nashville has proven time and time again it is in capable of leading and managing the people of the city of Nashville. It is time for the state legislature to step in, break up the city, and make what is now Davidson County great again.
– – –
Judson Phillips is a long time conservative pundit and founder of Tea Party Nation.
Photo “Nashville City Hall” by Nicolas Henderson. CC BY 2.0.
Very good idea Judson!