June 4, 2003 - Something strange is happening in Alabama. The new Republican Governor, Bob Riley, campaigned by reminding the voters that in his three Congressional terms he never once voted for a tax increase. During his time in the U.S. House he was named its most conservative member. Now he is Governor of Alabama and he has come up face to face with the facts. As Governor he has to cope with the fact that his state is faced with a financial crisis brought on by the national economic downturn coupled with the Bush Administrations tax-cut strategy. That is not unusual; it is a problem that he shares with state Governors and legislators across the nation. What is unusual is the solution that he proposes to deal with Alabama’s financial crisis. He is proposing to increase Alabama’s taxes and move the state to a more progressive tax structure. He proposes nothing less than a New Deal for Alabama, bringing his state’s tax system into the 20th Century. His State Republican Chairman admits to being confused. On the one hand he gets talking points from the Bush Administration to explain why we have to cut taxes. On the other hand he gets talking points from the Riley Administration explaining why Alabama has to increase taxes.

There is an explanation for this strange turn of events Governor Riley seems to be recognizing that he and the Alabama Republican party have taken unchallenged control of its government and they are now with out question accountable for the results of their stewardship. His is a realism that seems to elude the Republican aristocracy in Washington. His campaign for his tax program sounds familiar. If the Riley tax program doesn’t pass, he warns, seniors may lose their state funded prescription drug program; teachers will be laid off; and State Troopers will be taken off the highways. When national Democrats point to similar results flowing from the Bush economic plan they are accused of engaging in scare tactics and class warfare.

George Bush, Tom DeLay, and Bill Frist don’t get the lesson that Bob Riley has learned. Theirs is a regime one step removed from retail government. They seem to believe that they can pander to their core constituencies and let responsibility for the results roll downhill to the statehouses across the nation. For them the buck doesn’t stop on either end of Pennsylvania Avenue. For them it just rolls to a stop at the bottom of the hill – where Bob Riley lives and works.

The American public experiences government at the retail level. The consequences of sharp turns in the direction of government are felt in the schools, on the streets and highways, in the police and fire departments of the nation. Fewer teachers, less police protection, strained emergency service and a failing health care system is what the public sees and feels as the Congress and the Presidency think great thoughts and spout slick slogans. It is in the Governor’s Mansions and Statehouses that retail government must cope with those realities. That is what Gov. Bob Riley has learned.