Reckless state budget cuts - Chattanooga Times Free Press Editorial

Fixing a state budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year that begins next month is hard enough in normal economic times. It’s admittedly harder in the grip of the worst recession in 70 years. But that doesn’t excuse the mind-boggling, slash-and-burn cuts that Republican state senators have proposed for the governor’s already minimalist budget. Something else is afoot here: It smells like an effort to inflate Lt. Gov. and Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey’s conservative credentials for the GOP gubernatorial primary race next year. And officials here, as elsewhere, are reasonably outraged that Republican senators would ax the long-term higher education capital bonds that would finance, among other needed projects, a new library for UTC.