Les Jones

East Tennessee > T for Taxes, and T for Tennessee

Via Nashville is Talking comes this post at the Nashville Scene's blog, Pith in the Wind, criticizing Jim Bryson's opposed amendment to the Tennessee constitution (a PDF of which can be found here.

So what do you do when your state can brag about stellar numbers like these?:

50th in home and community based care
49th in total education spending per capita
48th in public high school graduation rates
42nd in state aid per pupil
50th in library holdings per capita
44th in high tech jobs
47th in business start-ups
42nd in environmental spending per capita
48th in state spending for the arts
46th in the "Most Livable State" index
43rd in the "Condition of Children" index
(See TFT for sources.)

You amend the state constitution to help defund rather than improve vital state services! A no brainer! Sen. Jim Bryson's (R-Franklin) measure before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, akin to Colorado's ill-fated "TABOR" approach, prevents state revenue collected in excess of a constitutional cap from being used to invest in public services without two-thirds support in the legislature for doing so.

No doubt Tennessee has some problems, but notice how mixed-up the data is.

In some cases the rank is based on performance. That's a legitimate criticism. We should be concerned that Tennessee is 48th in high school graduation rates.

In some cases the rank is based on per-capita or per-student spending. Now it's true that I think it's bad that Tennessee ranks dead last in per-capita library holdings. But some of the other numbers aren't necesarily a legitimate criticism - Philly and D.C. spend lots of money per student on education and get very poor results all the same. In fact, Tennessee is 42nd on per student spending but is 48th in graduation rate. If money bought success, wouldn't we be 42nd in the nation for high school graduation rates? That we're not suggests that Tennessee taxpayers may not be getting their money's worth, and spending more money the same way may not help our children.

(And that, I think, is a major criticism of these numbers. The person who compiled them believes or wants you to believe that if more taxes were collected the tax money would be spent responsibly on these very things and these metrics would necessarily improve. You'll be forgiven if you're as skeptical as I am of the idea that politicians will spend the money they collect responsibly. If they had spent it responsibly in the past Tennessee wouldn't be in such bad shape in some of these areas.)

In some cases the metrics aren't based on a per capita number, but on an absolute number, such as the total number of startups. For all we know Tennessee could be doing well in startups per capita. It's sort of the reverse of what some car commercials do. "The Ford beat the Chevy in braking, the Chrysler in zero to 60 acceleration, and the Toyota in the quarter mile." What that commercial doesn't tell you is that on each score the Ford beat one vehicle and lost to the other two.

Finally, Pith in the Wind leaves off one line from their source at Yourtax.org: "49th in state and local taxes per capita!" Yep, and that's a good thing for people who don't like to hand any more of their paycheck over to the government than they have to. If you do, mail your checks to Tennessee Department of Treasury, Nashville, TN.

The fact that Yourtax.org considers low taxes a bad thing undermines their later claim that they just want a fairer, less regressive tax. I'd like a less regressive tax, too, and in particular I don't think food and medicine should be taxed, but I don't want the total tax bill to increase much, if any. I think it's fair to say that Yourtax.org does want Tennesseean's tax bill to increase.