It's safe to say Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam had concerns about each of the three new laws that took effect Friday, one with his signature and two without it.
The one he signed, the phasing out of the Hall Income Tax, is one he has long supported in theory. The two he didn't, one which directs the state to sue the Obama administration over its federal refugee resettlement program and the other which defunds the University of Tennessee at Knoxville's diversity office for a year, became law without his signature.
* The Hall Tax punishes people who have sacrificed and saved and is levied most heavily on retired people. As such, it can both discourage retirees from staying in Tennessee and discourage others from relocating here for their later years.
For the better part of two decades, conservatives have sought to reduce it, revise it or eliminate it.
The problem stems from the 1931 and 1937 updates of the 1929 law, which allocated part of the revenue to local governments - three-eighths of the 6 percent tax on interest and dividend income. Now those municipalities have been enjoying, and relying upon, that revenue stream for the better part of a century. They'll lose about $14 million next year, and the state will see a reduction in the neighborhood of $28 million.
In six short years, the Hall Tax, declining 1 percent per year, will be gone completely.
Haslam worries rightly that the state won't always have banner years in revenue as it has enjoyed in the last few fiscal seasons. A total slightly less than 2 percent of the state's revenue doesn't seem like much now, but it might in leaner years. At that point, will the General Assembly be just as quick to support his - and future governors'- attempts to economize as it was to eliminate the tax, Haslam wonders.
Further, gradually stripped of a big revenue stream, municipalities will have to find a way to replenish their funds. That way is likely to be a property tax increase, which will spread the burden to all homeowners but is hardly a palatable sell at any juncture.
What might have been wiser is a 1 percent reduction for fiscal 2017, a committed effort to look at another 1 percent every five years and a longer timetable for towns to consider and enact new revenue streams.
* Haslam, like most Tennesseans, likely has reservations about an influx of refugees, some of whom could be radicalized, from Middle East countries. Although the refugees allegedly would be vetted and checked before being sent here, a mass resettlement of any population group is complicated and tedious. The radical possibility makes it akin to dancing on razor wire.
Obviously, that was on the minds of General Assembly members when they passed the law.
However, Haslam has concerns about the legislative branch ordering the executive branch what to do, about whether the law constitutionally dismantles the Refugee Act of 1980 and whether the legislative branch has the authority to hire outside counsel to represent the state in such a lawsuit against the Obama administration.
In turn, he has asked Attorney General Herbert Slatery for a legal opinion. So, while the non-signature doesn't prevent the resolution from becoming law, it does buy the governor some time for a more refined set of options once he has a opinion from the state's top lawyer.
* Like the legislative branch ordering the executive branch how to proceed with the refugees suit, Haslam rightly believes the legislature should not be dictating to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville how to do its business. On the other hand, he can probably understand the legislature being incensed - since UT is a state school - over the diversity office's suggestion of the use of gender-neutral pronouns for transgender students and for attempting to wipe out the word "Christmas" and any religious themes surrounding holiday parties. In the past, the legislature also has been vexed over the office's tawdry annual "Sex Week" activities.
In the end, the legislative response was both a slap on the hand - being only a one-year defunding - and will have a positive effect in diverting the money ($436,000) - thanks to an amendment by original sponsor Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga - to engineering scholarships for minority students.
The Chattanooga lawmaker said the amendment was intended to be "constructive" and not permanently "destructive." But he left open the possibility of further action "if UT doesn't straighten up its act."
With the volatility attached to each bill, then, Haslam is not wrong to have his concerns. Because, in one way or another, the state is likely to have to deal with the ramifications of all three in the future.