Tight Budget Costs 2,000 Jobs, But Ballroom Project Continues

NASHVILLE, TN - The image of Nero fiddling while Rome burned has a new and modern update today: Gov. Phil Bredesen, announcing he will slash more than 2,000 people from the state payroll even as his administration continues to spend $12 million to build a lavish underground party hall at the governor’s mansion.

“This governor refused to stop the ballroom project months ago, as he was urged to do, even though the economy and revenue were already slowing,” said Bill Hobbs, communications director for the Tennessee Republican Party, “We feel for the thousands of state employees who will lose their jobs even as the ballroom will be completed.”

“Stopping the ballroom wouldn’t have saved all of those jobs, but it is symbolic of this Democrat administration’s elitist tone that it insisted on going ahead with the ballroom project,” Hobbs said. “The people of Tennessee have to wonder why the wealthiest governor in Tennessee history and the party he leads believe that a new ballroom for the elites in politics and business is vital even as thousands of state employees’ jobs are being eliminated.”

State documents show conclusively that funding for the governor’s ballroom was made possible by an infusion of approximately $8 million in tax dollars into the mansion project, which was originally supposed to be funded mostly with private donations. Cancelling the ballroom project before blasting began could have reduced taxpayers’ overall cost for the mansion renovation by at least $8 million.

Even before blasting began, the Democratic administration cut spending on mental health services for the state’s more than 6,000 mentally disabled children.

Now, Bredesen is announcing cuts to a variety of state programs - but the ballroom will be completed.

Higher education is going to take a $55 million hit - but the ballroom will be completed.

The Democratic governor refuses to consider tapping the state’s $1.6 billion in reserve funds, except to pay state workers to retire - but the ballroom will be completed.

And Bredesen announced today that no previous pay raises or capital projects face cuts - not even the fat-cat pay raises he gave to his top political appointees last year.

“Upper management making out like bandits and getting lavish party facilities while the rank-and-file stand to lose everything. Gov. Bredesen promised voters he’d run Tennessee like a business. We didn’t know he meant Enron,” said Hobbs.