The budget process consisted of weeks of negotiations, mainly with Senate Republicans attempting to pass a responsible budget against the will of many House Democrat and Republican leaders.

After passing a conservative budget out of the Senate Finance Committee, Senate leaders were constrained by members of the State House in what spending they could cut to balance the budget…and negotiations with House leaders allowed numerous pork projects to be included into the budget, in addition to raiding Tennessee’s “Rainy Day” savings account by hundreds of millions of dollars.

“I applaud the Senate for attempting to pass a conservative budget during these hard economic times,” said Senator Beavers.  “However, due to certain House members’ wish lists when it came to pork projects that are not affordable during these times… in addition to spending hundreds of millions of dollars from our rainy day fund, I had to vote against this budget.  It’s a shame that House members would rather spend, spend, spend and borrow, borrow, borrow rather than operate within our means.  My family operates in a pay-as-you go fashion…and the state of Tennessee needs to do the same.”