About the only thing I remember as gospel from the lips of President Gerald Ford is this gem:

“One of the enduring truths of the nation’s capital is that bureaucrats survive.”

Which Tennesseans remember the tale that was told by Governor Bill Haslam in 2017 in his selling the “Improve Act” that was going to have out of staters fund an ambitious road building plan by adding a $.10 tax increase to every gallon of gasoline purchased in the state?

Have our roads improved, or are we as citizens shelling out more of our property to fund that supposed, pie in the sky promise that has failed to materialize.

I spend a lot of time in Cordell Hull, and watch the “Departments” come before the committees to sell their needs for increased funding, always with their hands out; DOT, DOS, DCS. The faces of the legislators hearing their please change from year to year, but those of the Departments somehow remain the same.

The little people who struggle with crippling inflation are not asked what they think the budgets should be; the state has increased by over 59% the number of dollars taken in taxation by the state in just the last 6 years of total Republican control, House Senate and Governor.

Tennessee is now a Nanny State, taking taxpayer money to fund private entities; sports teams, car manufacturers and private education concerns, picking winners and losers at the whim of the powers that be, our elected employees who swear an oath that binds them to the promise that they “will not propose or assent to any bill, vote or resolution, which shall appear to me injurious to the people, or consent to any act or thing, whatever, that shall have a tendency to lessen or abridge their rights and privileges, as declared by the Constitution of this State.”

David Crockett, that esteemed redneck champion of the backwoods unwashed said in his famous “Not Yours to Give” speech standing on his hind legs on the floor of the House of Representatives:

“I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress, we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money…The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.”

Imagine that…a fiscally responsible member of the legislature; and as such of course, he was short lived in that position, run out of office by the Establishment, the “big Man” as he phrased it…

I asked my state Representative about a road project on Hwy. 412 (at the intersection of Old Bells Road) that is taking 16 forevers to get finished. I also checked with my Sheriff about the danger it poses and the only answer I got was from the state Rep., “TDOT does not get in a hurry.” That is insightful…Does the GA not hold the purse strings for that Department?

DOS has done nothing to move the barrels that block the view of oncoming traffic with a couple of big foldup signs left for months sitting in the median, obstructing the view of oncoming traffic and more barrels block the use of a perfectly good new turn lane adding to the congestion even after TDOT used our tax money to build it, it is ready but kept from the People’ ability to drive on it, for what reason I cannot fathom, except they can.

I remember the DOS Legislative Director stating in a committee hearing what her job description was:

Keep us safe, I think not…with servants like this…