By TESA NAUMAN
Tennessee Correspondent

BURNS, Tenn. — The state of the economy in Tennessee and across the nation has residents worried, but they should keep a positive attitude, according to Gov. Phil Bredesen.

“We’re in a very tough period right now. This is the worst economic situation of my adult life, and we will get through it,” he said. “The first two months of this year, we’re about $140 million below in collections from where we thought we’d be, as late as May. We’re struggling right now.

“But, I want people to know that we’re going to react to it. We’re going to be running our expenditures down and keeping them in line with the money that’s coming in. We’re not going to ask for tax increases. This is the worst time in the world to ask for more money from people. We’re going to manage our way through this.”

Bredesen made the comments Friday to members of the media after attending the Pioneer Century Farms luncheon, held during the Tennessee Farmers Legacy conference at Montgomery Bell State Park Inn and Conference Center, about a half-hour outside Nashville. He said it’s especially important in the current economic climate that the state seek out new economic avenues for farmers.
“One of the things (the state) is trying to do is to expand its reach a little so that it’s not only about the production of goods, but we’re also trying to get agribusiness going, for example,” he said.

The governor credits the state’s reserves for being able to help get Tennessee through these economic hard times. “The fact that we’ve built up some good cash reserves these past few years makes it a lot easier to do and a lot safer for the state,” he said.
Bredesen is confident the state and the nation will survive this trend of economic chaos, but sees things getting worse before they get better.

“I’m not fooling anybody here. I think there should be some pain associated with this. Anytime you have that kind of falloff in revenue, there are good things that are going to have to go by the wayside for a year or two,” he said.

Also feeling pain will be people laid off from their jobs because of the economic downturn. Bredesen said he can’t predict if there will be many more layoffs, but promised he will do what he can to prevent as many as he can.

“I want to work especially hard trying to preserve jobs,” he said. “If times were better, I wouldn’t feel so bad about it because people have other places they can go. But right now, it would be tough to be laid off, and there’s going to be a bunch of them happening across our state.

“If I can find other ways in the state to match our expenditures – including just keeping positions open where someone has left voluntarily – I would much prefer to do that. I would like to prevent laying anybody off involuntarily.”

Bredesen advised that the best thing to do is to not panic and to continue spending to help the economy recover.

“Keep spending money. Match what’s going out with what’s coming in. If we do that, we’ll be just fine,” he said.