State Income Tax - December 11, 2017

BLACKBURN: In ’99, our governor proposed a state income tax trying to pay for this test case for Hillarycare which was called TennCare: too expensive to afford, quadruples in cost, all of a sudden five years into the program they're trying to figure out how they're going to pay for this thing. I felt it was important to keep a commitment that I had made to my constituents when I ran for the state Senate. I had made a promise not to ever support a state income tax because people here didn't want it. Around me rallied thousands of Tennesseans, and they would come to the state capitol, if they didn't have time to get out of their cars, they would circle the Capitol and honk their horns to send a message if they did not want this state income tax. After four years of fighting this, finally the people of the state won, and on July 4th at 4 o'clock in the afternoon in 2002, we lowered the gavel and ended the legislative session and with it the push for a state income tax came to an end.