Welcome to November. The temperatures are dropping like autumn leaves, Mariah Carey is singing to department store shoppers, and many Memphians will be heading indoors for the gatherings that make up the holiday season. So it makes sense that the Tennessee General Assembly, in another special session, last weekend voted to roll back a number of Covid restrictions across the state. The state usurping the power of local government seems like a textbook example of “government overreach” to me, but I don’t want to get hung up on pointing out instances of hypocrisy. I have my word count to think of.
To appease businesses like Ford Motor Co., after spending $728,000 on a special legislative session to debate an incentive package for Ford (a stunning display of fiscal responsibility), the bill has a number of exemptions. So what was a relatively clear-cut way of dealing with matters of public health is now a convoluted method rife with exemptions and special caveats. Time will tell what happens when the anti-mandate mandate goes up against the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate.
State Senator Jeff Yarbro said, “We’re putting every business in Tennessee in the middle of a fight where they have to choose between violating federal law or state law.” Setting aside the rampant hypocrisy on display, this is hardly a practical choice.
According to a 2021 study by WalletHub, Tennessee is the 14th-most dependent state on federal aid. That’s down a few notches from 2020, when the conservative news site The Center Square reported, “Federal grants-in-aid to Tennessee comprise 37.7 percent of the state’s general fund budget, the 11th-highest rate among the 50 states, according to a new study from the Tax Foundation.”
Maybe we should cool it on the “we don’t need no stinkin’ Feds” rhetoric. How long can we thumb our collective nose at the federal government before they cut off much-needed funds to our state? It’s as though our elected leaders are pushing for a soft secession, testing the waters before they declare the Volunteer State a sovereign entity. But aren’t these the same folks who think it’s base tyranny to have to show a vaccine record card to attend a concert? How will they react when they have to flash their passport just to cross a border and go fishing in Arkansas?
Look, these are not serious people. The Republican supermajority is out of touch with reality, pandering to a radical minority who have decided empathy is a weakness and minority rule is a healthy system of government. Consider this — last week’s Covid-edition special session was all about the freedom to not do anything. It wasn’t a special session about reducing gun violence, funding the healthcare system, or anything else people on both sides of the aisle can agree we so desperately need. So, yes, I think I’m being generous when I say they’re frivolous people, obsessed with hanging onto power and privilege. How else can I describe them?
They’re like a band on a reunion tour playing the greatest hits. When you shell out the big bucks to see The Rolling Stones, you expect to get some satisfaction. You want to hear “Paint It Black” and “Honky Tonk Women.” With these Tennessee Republicans, the hits are “Small Government (State Trumps Local Somehow),” “Gimme Tax Breaks,” “Sympathy for the White Man,” “Can’t You Hear Me Reloading (Permitless Carry),” and “Jumpin’ Caravan at the Border.”
It’s the same old set list, year after year, and nothing ever gets done. But that’s the point — they don’t need to deliver on any promises because they’ve set themselves up as the last bastion protecting simple, God-fearing Tennesseans from lawlessness, sex-crazed liberals, and science. They conjure nonexistent bogeymen to frighten voters, and smugly pat themselves on the back when they succeed in keeping these imaginary monsters at bay. At re-election time, they play the hits, ask if you still have your job (not how well it pays, though, of course), if you still have your guns or if they were confiscated by a globalist.
I don’t want to secede from the United States, nor do I want some chucklehead who represents Sweet Lips, Tennessee, to have more power over my life than, say, the Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission. I would wager that few of my fellow Tennesseans disagree with me on these points.
So let’s raise our expectations and ask a little more from our public servants.
