During a time of unprecedented budget constraints, mass state employee layoffs and furloughs, and penny pinching on the part of Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen, our new Republican State Comptroller Justin Wilson has decided to give his office a personal stimulus check on the Tennessee taxpayers’ dime.
Luckily, Democrat Joe Haynes, who sits on the Fiscal Review Committee, caught the error and is calling Wilson out. WSMV has the story.
Rep. Joe Carr takes over $18,000 for bogus hotel expenses when he lives 30 miles from the state Capitol!
QUESTION: Who is the member of the Tennessee House of Representatives who has taken more per diems than any other legislator on Capitol Hill?
ANSWER: It’s none other than Rutherford County’s Republican freshman Rep. Joe Carr (R-48). Here’s part of the Tennessee Democratic Party press release last week:
“Mr. Carr seems to be talking out of both sides of his mouth on this issue,” Forrester said. “Back home he rants about taxes, but he sure comes to Nashville often to collect his per diem, which reimburses lawmakers for their expenses while doing official business.
“Speaker Kent Williams even sent a letter recently to House members encouraging them to limit use of expense money they collect from the state.”
It must be embarrassing for Rep. Carr to know voters pay attention to these things. For months, Rep. Carr ignored his own party’s leadership warning him and other free -loaders to stop using per diems as his personal unemployment check, but that’s exactly what he’s done.
What’s worse is Rep. Carr doesn’t feel he owes anyone an explanation.
Like many of his constituents, Rep. Carr has fallen on hard times in this 1 1/2 year long Bush recession. But instead of trying to help his district recover from the results of 8 years of failed conservative economic policy, Rep. Carr drafted legislation demanding Gov. Bredesen deny extended jobless benefits to the growing unemployed in Lascassas when they needed it the most. Rep. Carr told listeners on 1450 WGNS that extending their unemployment benefits “would cost too much of the tax payer’s money.”
Now we find out that Rep. Carr, who has no job himself, has been taking his own personal stimulus check directly from tax payers through bogus $171 a day per diem requests meant to pay for hotel and meals for out of town legislators. Rep. Joe Carr claimed more than $18,000 for hotels and meals, even though he lives 30 miles from Nashville. More than $7,000 of that was since July when nothing is going on at the Capitol!
Don’t take our word for it. You can view the public record posted for everyone to see right on the state legislature’s website.
Lascassas deserves an honest, hard working Representative who doesn’t spend as much tax money as Memphis legislators who actually need hotel rooms. The voters ought to ask Rep. Carr what on earth he did with their money.
The state legislature may be out of session but according to local media reports Rep. Joe Carr (R-48) has been spending a lot of summer days at the Capitol claiming per diems, a day’s pay for showing up. Rep. Carr was at the top of the list when it came to which Republican requested the most per diems after the session was already over.
It’s gotten so bad that Republican House Speaker Kent Williams issued a letter to all Representatives asking them to follow some basic guidelines to cut per diem requests. You can read the letter here.
Rep. Carr must not have gotten the memo because he kept requesting money all summer when he thought no one would be watching. Rep. Carr didn’t think twice about pushing his own bill in the last session demanding Gov. Bredesen not accept federal stimulus funds for extended jobless benefits for his district’s growing unemployed. Now that Rep. Carr needs a stimulus of his own, he’s off to collect his directly from the tax payers.
We’ll take a closer look at Rep. Carr’s summer per diem requests later, but first, let’s look at how much our county’s delegation is costing us.
What the list of our county delegation’s per diem requests for the entire session factually shows the voters of our county is a record of spending on the part of the Republican delegation. Rep. Donna Rowland (R-34) doesn’t look that bad on the surface, but then she’s got a lot of making up to do for being deemed the most expensive Republican in the entire House for filing resolutions honoring everything from campaign contributors to her new boyfriend.
The list below does not include per diem requests made after the session, which ought to put Rep. Carr over the top.
| Member
(R) Sen. Jim Tracy from Shelbyville |
Mileage
$ 2,039.04 |
Per Diem
$ 18,126.00 |
Total
$ 20,165.04 |
| (R) Rep. Joe Carr from Lascassas | $ 1,425.60 | $ 16,929.00 | $ 18,354.60 |
| (R) Sen. Bill Ketron from Murfreesboro | $ 1,306.42 | $ 15,048.00 | $ 16,354.42 |
| (R) Rep. Donna Rowland from Murfreesboro | $ 831.60 | $ 12,825.00 | $ 13,656.60 |
| (D) Rep. Kent Coleman from Murfreesboro | $ 756.00 | $ 12,825.00 | $ 13,581.00 |
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Murfreesboro’s Tea Party organizer Christian Hidalgo made Keith Olbermann’s ‘World’s Best Persons’ tonight for being what Keith called “another tax protester who’s actually just a tax dodger.”
Yet another local Tea Party organizer in Middle Tennessee is exposed for not paying taxes.
(MURFREESBORO, Tenn.) - Christian Hidaglo hates paying taxes. He hates them so much he organizes local Republicans to protest paying them in what they call Tea Parties. Now documents show the Tea Party organizer owes over $80,000 in state and federal tax liens stretching over a 10-year period.
For several years, Hidalgo has not paid portions of both state and federal taxes, forcing both the state and federal government to spend time and resources to issue several liens against his property and assets. Government authorities can seize property and assets of individuals with liens for unpaid taxes.
Where he intends to get the money he owes our government is anyone’s guess, but you can calculate below what your share of his slack will be if he decides to leave you and me on the hook:
Click ( page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4 ) to view the state and federal tax liens against Murfreesboro Tea Party Organizer Christian Hidalgo.
At Tea Party protests organized by Hidalgo, protesters are encouraged to demand the government give back tax money their own leader never bothered to pay in the first place. Hidalgo actually has the nerve to claim to support our troops in a time of war, while blatantly denying them his share that pays for their security and their health care. And his protest doesn’t end there.
Hidalgo readily admits on his Murfreesboro business’s website that he has “no formal business education.” What his clients don’t know is that their businesses help fund and share a server with a website run by Hidalgo that operates in violation of federal election law.
The website, DumpBartGordon.com, is registered to Christian Hidalgo and is hosted on the same Navigation Advertising server that some of his company’s clients share, exposing respected local companies to legal risk. Federal rules explicitly state guidelines for websites that target individual candidates for federal office, including rules for individual and corporate involvement.
Hidalgo is the second local Tea Party organizer to have been found not paying taxes. National Tea Party organizer and Williamson County Republican Michael Patrick Leahy was recently exposed as having over $100,000 in tax liens and court ordered judgements against him.
Last Friday was the fourth time Rutherford County’s anti-government Tea Party Republicans took to the streets to protest. Republicans oppose federal stimulus spending aimed at turning around the Bush recession that started in December 2007.
But this time, Tea Party Republicans were out numbered 10 to 1 by Rutherford County voters supporting health care reform.
Rutherford County Republican Tea Party organizer Christian Hidalgo of Navigation Advertising told protesters to show up in front of Rep. Bart Gordon’s (D-6) office last week, but then never bothered to show up himself.
It takes a lot of courage to stand on the street and publicly protest paying your taxes, reforming healthcare, enhanced healthcare for Rutherford County’s veterans, Nissan’s $1.6 billion government loan creating 1,000 new jobs of the future and the millions of dollars now being spent in our schools, roads, and extended unemployment benefits. It’s not surprising that Hidalgo hid in his office the entire time.
When voters reflect on how our nation addressed the deep Bush recession, they will see one party who acted swiftly with change that works and one party that protested every effort and yearned for four more years of the same failed policies.
Republican County Mayor Ernest Burgess continues to refuse to release documents related to a secret land deal he tried to hide from Rutherford County tax payers.
Mayor Burgess confirmed to a persistent DNJ today that he spent $100,000 of tax payer money for land in Rockvale that the county valued at $31,300. Mayor Burgess continues to dodge growing public demands for full transparency on his secret land deal that was part of a lawsuit settlement with the county.
Mayor Burgess had an opportunity to do the right thing when no one was paying attention, and when he thought no one was watching, Mayor Burgess chose to break the law and enter an ill-advised secret land deal using tax payer money.
Mayor Burgess had another choice when confronted with his illegal behavior and again chose to violate the public trust, hide behind lawyers and lay the blame that created this mess on the entire County Commission. Rutherford County deserves a mayor who respects the law and whose faith guides them to serve the people with honesty, even when he thinks they aren’t paying attention.
Every day Mayor Burgess refuses to release public documents on this land deal is another day Mayor Burgess is blatantly breaking state law, violating his oath of office and making a mockery of the leadership our county deserves. Every day Mayor Burgess feels he can withhold public records is another day we’ll be here to remind him of his duty to the people and his oath to uphold the law.
red-faced and red-handed County Mayor Ernest Burgess
Republican County Major Ernest Burgess told the DNJ he doesn’t have to tell tax payers how much of their money he spent on a secret land deal made as part of a settlement with a Rockvale land owner.
Mayor Burgess is the latest in a growing list of local Republican politicians who have been caught breaking the law to serve their own private interests while using tax money.
Mayor Burgess can either uphold the law and come clean with the people he was hired to serve, or he can do it the hard way.
The county has apparently agreed to buy 1.7 acres in the Rockvale community to settle a lawsuit filed by a couple whose rezoning request was rejected by the county a few years ago. According to Burgess, the settlement terms are confidential, meaning taxpayers are left in the dark about how much money they paid for this piece of property.
We believe this is a clear violation of the state’s open records laws, and even if it isn’t, as a matter of principle, it flies against this nation’s bedrock concept of transparent and accountable government. Simply put, taxpayers have a right to know how government is spending their money.
Besides, Rick Hollow, legal counsel for the Tennessee Press Association and a noted authority on state open records law, told The DNJ that a Tennessee Attorney General determined in the 1990s that a confidential agreement is void if it pertains to withholding public records.
“The expenditure of public funds is public business,” Hollow said. “An agreement to withhold information from the public is unenforceable.”
Over the past few months several job creation announcements for working families of Rutherford County have given us a glimmer of hope in a recovering economic recession that began in the first part of 2008.
Thanks to a $1.6 billion federal government loan to Nissan, 1,000 workers will be hired and help position Tennessee as a leader in a green auto revolution. Thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, construction firms are bidding on three shovel-ready road projects, and millions more is being spent to retrain workers for these jobs of the future.
The latest is an announcement from Washington-based NCS Power that 2,000 green energy jobs will soon come to Rutherford County from their factories in China. It’s news worth celebrating, but some people aren’t happy.
Rutherford County’s Tea Party Republicans have taken to the streets 3 times in the last 3 months protesting the tax revenues spent creating these new jobs. They also protested the very incentives being provided companies to relocate manufacturing jobs here in the United States.
What’s worse are Republicans like Sen. Bill Ketron (R-13), Sen. Jim Tracy (R-16) and Rep. Joe Carr (R-48) gleefully taking credit for those jobs.
“We’re going to relight Middle Tennessee,” said Ketron, who was involved with some of the discussions involving the LED business partnerships. “Tennessee is poised to be the alternative energy capital of the world.”
Ketron attended the press conference along with state Sen. Jim Tracy, R-Shelbyville, state Rep. Joe Carr, R-Lascassas, and Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey.
Companies like NCS Power had strong economic incentives to ship jobs to China throughout President Bush’s 8 years in office. Now months into the Obama Administration those incentives are changing, and NCS Power now sees strong incentives to move 2,000 jobs back to Murfreesboro, TN.
The fact is county Republicans have gone out of their way to oppose changes that help working families. Rep. Carr authored a bill this year demanding Gov. Phil Bredesen reject stimulus funds that extended unemployment benefits for our county’s growing unemployed as well as funds to retrain workers for these new jobs of the future.
Senators Ketron, Tracy and other county Republicans wanted four more years of Bush’s failed economic policy and years more of the results from which we’re slowly recovering.
When Nissan begins hiring 1,000 Rutherford County residents due to the massive government backed auto loan they protested, expect Sen. Ketron, Sen. Tracy and Rep. Carr to pray to God that you’ve forgotten their vocal opposition to those jobs as they gleefully take credit for the hard work it took to bring them here.
WASHINGTON – This week the U.S. House will take an important step towards reducing federal spending by passing H.R. 2920, the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act (“PAYGO”). This legislation re-establishes the principle responsible for budget surpluses at the end of the 1990s, which required that any new spending by Congress be offset with a reduction in existing spending.
“Our federal spending patterns can’t continue,” said Congressman Bart Gordon who is a long-time supporter of PAYGO. “We have been borrowing money from China, as well as other countries, since 2002 to pay for federal programs and initiatives. This bill draws a firm line in the sand – moving forward, if we are going to spend a dollar, we must find a U.S. dollar to pay for it.”
The first PAYGO rule was included in the Budget Enforcement Act, which was signed into law with Gordon’s strong support in 1990. Over the next decade, PAYGO resulted in a gradual reduction of the federal deficit, and in 1998, the federal government saw its first budget surplus since 1969. Unfortunately, despite Gordon’s objections, PAYGO was not reauthorized in 2002. Since then, the federal deficit has skyrocketed.
“As our economy continues to recover from the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression, we must focus on creating jobs and making the U.S. dollar strong again. Reducing federal spending will help on both fronts,” added Gordon. “This legislation expresses our long-term commitment to balanced budgets and financial solvency.”
The PAYGO legislation to be considered in the House this week will require all new spending policies passed by Congress be offset over five and ten years. It will force a serious examination of wasteful spending programs in the budget and tax loopholes that can be eliminated to offset more worthwhile programs.
Rutherford County Tea Party Chairwoman Lou Ann Zelenick defends tax increases.
Tea Party organizer and Rutherford County Republican Chairwoman Lou Ann Zelenick launched her party’s message for the 2010 elections today.
Lou Ann is quoted in today’s Daily News Journal on behalf of Republican candidates saying tax increases by county Republicans this year were the “right decision.”
We don’t recall Lou Ann defending tax increases to the Tea Party wing of the Rutherford County Republican Party, but it’s no surprise to hear just days after Lou Ann was photographed above screaming into a microphone in protest of politicians who raise them.
Lou Ann defended one of the largest property tax increases in Rutherford County passed under current Republican County Mayor Ernest Burgess. Lou Ann went on to say she “can’t wait” for other Republicans to announce their campaigns for the 2010 elections. With a message like that, neither can we!
“The citizens of Rutherford County are fortunate we have an honest, hard-working leader in Mayor Ernest Burgess,” she said. “He puts in 24/7 for the citizens of Rutherford County with dignity and honor.”
Republican County Mayor Burgess campaigned in 2006 on cutting county government spending 10% across the board and promised no property tax increases. Mayor Burgess has failed to live up to his promise, and every Rutherford County tax payer can now expect the bill and thank the Rutherford County Republican Party.
red-faced and red-handed County Mayor Ernest Burgess
Oh, we almost forgot. The Rutherford County Republican Party (RCRP) held another anti-government “Tea Party” on Friday.
Republicans protested their taxes being spent on things like creating 1,000 + jobs at Nissan in Smyrna with $1.6 billion in government loans, local construction companies who bid on three stimulus-funded road projects in the county, and millions in stimulus funds for the county’s schools and extended benefits for the county’s growing unemployed.
Republican protesters even had the nerve to tell our county’s veterans that they don’t deserve the enhanced health care benefits provided them by the federal government’s stimulus funds. Presumably they’d like four more years of the cuts to veteran care that occurred over the past eight years under Republican control of the White House and U.S. Congress. In 2008, Democrats said it’s time the American people honor our heroes who deserve better. American agreed and put Democrats in power to deliver, and that’s just what we did.
The well fed, lawn-chaired crowd of Republicans protested paying taxes, yet the only taxes a majority of the crowd will see increase this year are local property taxes.
County Mayor Ernest Burgess just pushed through one of the largest property tax increases in Rutherford County history. Burgess campaigned in 2006 on cutting county government spending 10% across the board and promised no property tax increases. Mayor Burgess has failed to live up to his promise, and every Tea Party protester will get the bill.
When Republicans take tothe streets in protest, you don’t hear anything about real tax increases Rutherford County voters will soon pay. If Tea Partiers focused on Tax & Spend Republicans like County Mayor Ernest Burgess, they just might be relevant.
Republican election commissioners voted to spend Rutherford County tax payer money on lawyers from Chattanooga to defend themselves in a federal lawsuit. The lawsuit filed in District Court yesterday against Republican Election Commission Chair Tom Walker and seven other Republicans across the state alleges violations of the United States Constitution for partisan selections of County Election Administrators.
Republicans gained a 3-2 majority on county election commissions across the state of Tennessee when Republicans took control of the House and Senate. The plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit (view the lawsuit here) will argue in District Court that Republican defendants violated federal law by making hiring decisions for non-policy making positions based on party affiliation. This is the third time within a month that Republican Election Commissioner Walker has had a run-in with the law.
Apparently Republican election commissioners don’t feel there is a single attorney in Rutherford County capable or willing to defend their actions in a District Court. The bill to defend Rutherford County Republicans could cost Rutherford County tax payers hundreds of thousands of dollars, all of which will now line the pockets of Chattanooga lawyers.
Here is the story from the Daily News Journal.
The Rutherford County Election Commission voted 3-2, along party lines this evening to hire two Chattanooga attorneys to represent the three Republican members of the commission named in a federal lawsuit Wednesday.
A civil lawsuit was filed in federal court late Wednesday on behalf of eight administrators of elections who were allegedly terminated or have been threatened with termination on the sole basis of their perceived or actual political party affiliation.
The Election Commission also voted unanimously, due to the federal litigation, to defer action on the 90 applications for administrator of elections until its Aug. 3 meeting.
Just as a growing number of Rutherford County families are feeling the brunt of significant job loses, Rutherford County Republicans are very busy planning yet another “tea party” to protest the help we need from the federal government.
County Republicans will take to the streets July 10 in Murfreesboro to protest an extension of unemployment benefits for the county’s 10.3% unemployed residents. The federal help is provided in President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
It’s worth reminding the voters of Rutherford County of Rep. Joe Carr’s (R-48) role in drafting legislation demanding Gov. Bredesen deny the extended unemployment benefits.
On July 10, Rutherford County Republicans will also loudly protest $1.6 billion in government loans to Nissan, $13.9 million for Rutherford County schools, enhanced health care for Rutherford County’s veterans, funding for three road projects in our county, and $30 million to retrain dislocated and low-income workers.
Learn more about the funded projects in Tennessee that Rutherford County Republicans will be protesting July 10.
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