Nashville News Blog

Gov. Phil Bredesen is firing back at Republican critics of his plan to issue $350 million in bonds to fix a couple hundred unsafe bridges in Tennessee. In Chattanooga, the governor said:

"They don't like the idea. I understand that. They may like the idea better when they actually focus on the fact there's lots of bridges in their districts."

Bredesen made the comment yesterday just after Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey threw down on the bonding idea. "We don't need to go into debt," Ramsey told reporters. "We're acting like the federal government instead of the state government."

Ramsey and his Senate Republicans are siding with the all-powerful Tennessee road builders who dearly love the state's traditional "pay-as-you-go" philosophy on transportation projects. They're deathly afraid that, if the state tries to do too much work too fast, some of it might have to go to out-of-state contractors. So what if a bridge collapses while we're paying as we go?

Based on Bredesen's response to Ramsey, Pith suspects we might find the governor holding little media events at unsafe bridges in certain Republican districts in the very near future.

In other news from Bredesen's Chattanooga adventure, he explained why he's sitting on the sidelines as the legislature passes a slew of wacky gun bills. He says he has more important items on his agenda.

"I'll deal with them if they get to me," he said of the gun bills. "In the meantime ... I need to get this stuff done. I probably need the help and support of some people who are for and against guns in state parts to get it done. My job is not to open five fronts in a war that I think I'll be successful if I'm in one."

The governor said his opposition to the pro-union Federal Employee Free Choice Act was one reason the president wouldn't let him serve on his Cabinet.

Bredesen revealed he got a call from the White House when he joined Republican wingnuts questioning whether to take federal stimulus money for jobless benefits. "The fact I wanted to read the fine print got my picture next to those guys in The New York Times and a call from the White House, wondering what I was doing. That's perfectly fine."

The governor thinks it's "really a good idea" to start a public education campaign for bicycle safety.

Listen to Bredesen's meeting with the Chattanooga Times Free Press editorial board.