Haslam “Surprised” by Low Grade From Think-Tank

Governor Bill Haslam is defending his record as a fiscal conservative, after a libertarian think-tank gave his policies a grade of ‘D.’

Gov. Bill Haslam – WPLN / Daniel Potter

This week the Cato Institute (report here) took Haslam to task for things like a spike in the state hospital tax. Haslam notes the move came at the request of the industry, which didn’t want to give up matching federal money when the state budget was shrinking.

Haslam says at a time when many states were cutting spending, he was trying not to hurt education.

“My rationale there was we were, in per capita funding, we were about 46th or 47th at that point, and I didn’t think we could cut K-12 education, so if you look at most of the state-dollar increase, it went to education when other states were cutting it.”

Haslam argues Tennessee has relatively low overall tax rates and debt, saying he “thought that’s what conservative fiscal policy was.”