Black Women Deserve Better Than a Busted State Budget
It's budget season in Tennessee, which is my time to ✨ shine ✨ . We're getting gaslit about federal funding cuts while GOP leadership funds $101,330 worth of security officers... for themselves.
Last year, I made my way to Atlanta to attend the State Innovation Exchange’s conference, where progressive legislators gather to scheme and strategize. My favorite session was… yes, you guessed it… TAX POLICY! I heard from the brightest policy minds about what state budgets should and could look like, and learned about a framework called "Black Women Best."
The framework states that if Black women can thrive in the economy, the economy will finally work for everyone. When you build policies that lift up Black women—who are hit first and worst by systemic inequities—you’re building an economy that works for all of us. Stable incomes, fair taxes, safe housing, affordable and accessible healthcare/childcare: when those are in place for Black women, they’re in place for every Tennessean.
You won’t be shocked to hear that Tennessee’s budget falls short of this framework.
Our state is literally busting at the seams. Our roads and bridges are crumbling, our schools are falling apart, and local governments are begging the state for help just to keep basic services running. But instead of addressing these urgent needs, the budget is full of the same cynical priorities: corporate welfare, private school vouchers, and even more personal security details for Republican leadership. Evidently, there’s no money to fix potholes or fund classrooms, but plenty to protect themselves from the public they’ve chosen to ignore. 😃
Governor Lee’s $59.5 billion budget is the same old song: headline-grabbing, one-time funding patches for long-term problems, while they quietly gut recurring funding streams. The goal is obvious: keep agency heads, community organizations, and legislators groveling, on their knees, year after year, forced to fight over scraps instead of building sustainable solutions.
And here’s the kicker: our revenue base is shrinking while costs rise and inflation climbs higher than anything this budget accounts for. They eliminated the Hall Tax and inheritance tax, eroded the corporate tax base, and continue to rely almost entirely on sales taxes that hammer working families, especially low-income Black women.
And bold, fair revenue policies? HAHAHA. They shot down proposals like our Pot for Potholes bill and the End the Grocery Tax bill, which could’ve provided real, sustainable funding for our state. Instead, they handed out $1.6 billion in franchise tax refunds to big business.
So here we are, with a budget that is busted by design. It is structurally rigged, economically reckless, and engineered to keep working people locked in a cycle of scarcity while the wealthy and well-connected cash out. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Our budget could…
Shift economic development away from corporate subsidies and into community wealth-building—investing in worker cooperatives, small businesses, public infrastructure, and local food systems instead of giving billion-dollar handouts to corporations that exploit our labor and extract our wealth
Invest in the care economy by treating caregiving as the backbone of our economy—guaranteeing universal access to childcare, elder care, paid family and medical leave, and ensuring care workers are paid living wages with benefits and protections.
Power a just, green transition by investing in renewable energy infrastructure, transit systems, and sustainable agriculture—while creating unionized, high-road jobs and centering frontline communities in climate adaptation plans.
Now let’s discuss the federal funding cuts… If you ask my colleagues, they’d respond with: “WHAT CUTS? WE’RE ENTERING A GOLDEN AGE OF PROSPERITY!”
Meanwhile, in East Tennessee, Second Harvest Food Bank has announced the cancellation of 21 tractor-trailer loads of food—valued at more than $722,000—due to a federal pause in funding from the USDA Commodities Credit Corporation. That’s 377,000 pounds of food, which would have supported over 31,000 Tennesseans monthly across 18 counties.
This is one example of many… YOU SHOULD BE CONCERNED. Roughly $24.5 billion of Tennessee’s budget—41.9%—comes from federal funding. Our hospitals, schools, nutrition programs, housing supports, and community clinics depend on these dollars to function. And yet, not a single member of the supermajority can seem to give us a straight answer about what happens next. No contingency plans, no transparency, no real sense of urgency.
You’re probably asking yourself, Aftyn, how do you stay sane? I have to admit, it’s been challenging most days to pull myself out of bed. The road ahead feels so daunting, especially when it comes to reimagining a budget that works for all of us.
Tennessee’s budget tells a story of deliberate exclusion and entrenched inequality. But it doesn’t have to be the final chapter. Budgets should be tools of redistribution—closing the gap between rich and poor, not widening it. They should treat poverty not as inevitable but as a policy choice we can and must undo. Most importantly, they should recognize public goods as not luxuries but fundamental human rights.
Our goal should always be to organize toward a state budget that invests in the people who keep Tennessee running—especially Black women, who are the backbone of our economy and democracy.
See you on the other side of budget season,
Aftyn
P.P.S. See below for details regarding a Wednesday in-person Budget 101 presentation in Nashville.
Wednesday: Budget Basics 101 Presentation
Live in Nashville? Join us for a Tennessee Budget Basics presentation this Wednesday from 3-4 PM CT in Room 8A in Cordell Hull. E-mail rep.aftyn.behn@capitol.tn.gov with any questions you might have! NO RSVP REQUIRED.
