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Post by CoffeeShooter on Jan 11, 2012 9:26:22 GMT -5
timesfreepress.com/news/2012/jan/11/haslam-wants-to-lower-food-inheritance-taxes/Haslam wants to lower food, inheritance taxesNASHVILLE — Gov. Bill Haslam announced Tuesday that his legislative package of bills includes plans to begin reducing Tennessee's sales tax on food and raising the exemption on the state's inheritance tax.... ok, that sounds like a fair deal for the general public and I've never thought an inheritance tax was a good thing. BUT, what about this? He said he also wants to make it easier to hire and fire state employees and offer merit pay to higher-performing workers. And he is recommending money be set aside to study state workers' overall pay.
Tennessee State Employees Association officials already are critical about some parts of the plan, warning it could return Tennessee to the days of political "patronage" when governors could act with impunity.
"We like the pay study," said Robert O'Connell, executive director of the Tennessee State Employees Association, but the group wants to study the changes to hiring and firing practices.
"We fought long and hard quite a while ago to win those civil service rights to protect all Tennesseans from the scourge of patronage and cronyism, which is what comes when you eliminate those civil service protections in hiring ... and eventually firing," he said.
.... something smells fishy in Nashville.
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Post by Fredo on Jan 11, 2012 14:25:34 GMT -5
Sounds like we're stuck in the middle, as usual. What's better for the state, political patronage or lifetime employment for state workers?
Shall we shoot ourselves in the right foot or the left?
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