ervice, one cent goes toward business and economic,fourty-two cents goes toward education, three cents goes toward resources andregulation, eight cents is spent toward cities and counties, nine cents goes towardtransportation, ten cents is also spent toward law, safety, and correction, and last threecents is spent on general government. Where does the state get all this tax moneyfrom? The state gets fifty-five cents from sales tax, three cents from motor vehicles,ten cents from gasoline taxes, three-cents from income and inheritance, four cents fromgross receipts and privilege, fourteen cents from franchise and excise tax, four centsfrom insurance and banking tax, two cents from tabacco, beer, and alcoholicbeverages, and five cents from all other taxes. This is where all taxes are spent, andfrom who they are collected.The problem with the state budget all boils down to, the state does not haveenough money to fund state programs. The state of Tennessee doesn’t seem to knowwhere to get the money. Why is Tennessee needing to reform their tax system? There are many examples why they need to reform. First of all, there are more andmore state programs that must be funded by court order (1999, paragraph 26). Anexample of this is that the courts have ruled that Tennessee earlier school fundingmethod was unconstitutional (1999, paragraph 26). Therefore, Tennessee had to comeup with a new way to fund schools, which cost them more money. Another example ofthis would be TennCare. The federal government provides two-thirds of the funding,and the state of Tennessee has to provide the other one-third (1999, paragraph 30). Costs to run the TennCare program are going up rapidly. Second, inflation alone hasadded $55 million dollars a year to Tennessee’s K-12 education budget (1999,paragraph 31). This is only to allow the state to keep doing what they are doing now. IfTennessee wanted to see any improvements, that would require ...
