By Daniel Potter
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkno/local-wkno-916494.mp3
Nashville, TN – For elected officials, decisions over how to spend taxpayer money are especially perilous in the current economic climate. Three Republicans are grappling to secure their party's nomination for governor in tomorrow's primary. And when WPLN's Daniel Potter in Nashville asked each of them, What's the toughest call you've had to make in public office?' all three answers tied back to managing through the dour economy.
Zach Wamp says the hardest choice of his eight terms in Congress came about two years ago, when the stock market was plunging. That's when he voted against, and then for, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, better known as the bank bailout.
"We've had incredibly ominous decisions from impeachment to matters of war and peace, a lot of things that are gut-wrenching, but when you ask about what the hardest decision to make is, that second TARP vote when the stock market fell nearly 800 points and fear and pandemonium of whether people could get into their bank accounts, that was the most difficult decision," Wamp said.
But the bailout is now widely unpopular, and one of Wamp's rivals, state Senator Ron Ramsey, isn't letting him live it down. In July Ramsey used it to take a swing at Wamp during a televised debate.
"I wanna know how you justify taking our grandkids' money to bail out Wall Street barons," asked Ramsey.
"We were at the cliff. And frankly I became very concerned that the people I represent would not even be able to get their own money out of the bank the next morning," Wamp explained.
Not good enough, Ramsey argues, saying the bailout ended up helping the wrong people.
Ramsey's served in the state legislature for 18 years, and for the last four he's held a key position in shaping Tennessee's budget as Senate Speaker.
Plummeting tax revenues have made hashing out the budget an annual struggle, and Ramsey says his biggest challenge is steering the chamber through that process, and brokering compromises with fellow lawmakers.
"Everyone there has a constituency. And you think that This cut'll be easy,' and then someone comes out of the woodwork that says We've found out this was there for a reason,' and so making those tough cuts isn't easy," Ramsey said.
Balancing a lean budget in the face of falling revenues is familiar ground for another Republican candidate - Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam.
On the campaign trail Haslam touts his business acumen. Before taking public office, the millionaire was president of his family's Pilot truck-stop company for 13 years, and is still one of Pilot's private owners.
He says whether in business or as mayor, his hardest decisions have always centered on workers and their paychecks.
"We're going to have fewer employees in the city of Knoxville this year than any time in the last fifteen years - We're not going to lay anybody off, but we are eliminating some unfilled positions. And you're asking people to take on even more work and a bigger challenge. That's part of what leaders do," Haslam said.
Haslam says in Knoxville that meant some 15 hundred workers citywide received raises, while 17 directors were left out.
"They're actually going to get no raise when other people are getting a raise. I want to make certain that we don't just cut the line employees, but we're taking people out of the management structure of the city too."
Tomorrow's primary vote will thin a couple of Republicans from the list of candidates for governor. But the question of how to best manage tax dollars in a time of double-digit unemployment will persist well beyond the general election.
It will be years before Tennessee's tax revenues work back up to where they were before the recession. And the state's federal stimulus money is set to fade out about the same time a brand new governor begins tuning his first budget proposal, early next year.