From TimesFreePress.com:

Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, the Senate speaker, said “obviously it’s a tough time in state government, but at the same time I think we’re doing what we need to be doing and living within our budget like the people living within the real world are having to do.”

He expressed admiration for the governor for offering buyout incentives to state employees, the details of which have not been finalized.

Rep. Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga, an Education Committee member, said of the cuts that “we’re making some tough choices that we’ve got to make. This is no time to raise taxes to pay for more programs, and I think they’re doing the right thing in cutting back as much as they can.”

He said eliminating the BEP 2.0 funding will be difficult for local school systems that were expecting the money.

But while Rep. McCormick was concerned about K-12, he said the effect on higher education “could be ugly. I hate to see that. I hope we wait until last to cut higher ed. It’s obvious we’re going to have tuition going up in a down economy, and that just makes it tougher on the kids and the kids’ parents.”

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