No one does it better than Tom Humphrey. This, my friends, is what this week in Nashville is going to be about.
Perhaps the most interesting pieces of the current Tennessee budget puzzle, which our fair state’s best and brightest legislators
seemed utterly unable to assemble last week, involve the $341 million contingency question.
There is, you see, a good possibility that the federal government will send an extra $341 million down to the state that has not been factored into the budget-balancing equation in these very lean times for state revenue.
It’s not certain. As explained in various presentations to legislative committees, both chambers of Congress have approved the proposal that would result in the windfall, but the House has one version in one bill and the Senate has a slightly different version in another bill. So, probably, the Democratic majorities of the two chambers will get their act together and the money will descend like manna from federal heaven.
If you want to see what’s going on this week, be sure to follow Humphrey who is always on the front lines in the legislature.