NASHVILLE – A decade after the people of Tennessee forced the Democrat-controlled legislature to abandon its three-year quest to impose a new state income tax, Tennessee Democrats are once again showing their true colors on that issue.

Prominent Democrat lawmakers in the state Senate and state House have filed legislation to create a new state income tax. This comes less than 40 days after the Tennessee Democrat Party selected as its new chairman a pro-income tax liberal activist who was once at the forefront of the effort in his party’s state executive committee to pass a resolution which not only endorsed a state income tax but also proposed one with specific details.

“It is unthinkable that Democrats in DC and Nashville want to raise taxes during a recession, and all the more unthinkable that Tennessee Democrats are proposing to create a new and unconstitutional state income tax at a time when thousands of Tennesseans are losing their jobs,” said Robin Smith, Chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party.

“The Tennessee Democrat Party must feel emboldened to follow their leaders in Washington D.C. who are pushing for huge tax increases and mammoth increases in government spending and the national debt,” Smith said.

“Not satisfied with a pork-laden ‘emergency’ bill that will add more than $1 trillion to the national debt, President Barack Obama is now proposing $1 trillion in new taxes and $1.75 trillion in deficit spending that will have to be repaid with higher taxes in the future. And Democrats in Congress – including Tennessee’s John Tanner, Bart Gordon, Jim Cooper, Steve Cohen and Lincoln Davis – are all going along for the ride.”