Newly elected governor Bill Haslam addresses the media after a press conference announcing plans for Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey to join Haslam’s administration.Tennessee’s new governor leads GOP majority
The Knoxville mayor will give up his city job to be sworn in as Tennessee’s 49th governor on Jan. 15 in Nashville. The 52-year-old former president of the Pilot Corp., which was founded by his father, promises to shrink the size of Tennessee’s state government while working to sustain money for education.
The economic recovery has boosted sales tax revenues last year over the previous year, but government spending may still have to be trimmed as federal stimulus dollars run out and unemployment remains historically high.
“We have to address a budget that is a billion dollars upside down,” Haslam said during his nearly two-year campaign to win the state’s top elected post. “We’re going to have to make some really hard decisions and really shrink the size of state government.”
Republicans will control the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly for the first time since Reconstruction following the Civil War.