Be sure you're sitting down before you read this: Bredesen gave Volkswagen $577 million in tax breaks for the damn Chattanooga auto plant

WSMV Channel 4 reports that Gov. Phil Bredesen gave corporate giant Volkswagen $577 million in tax breaks to bring 2,000 jobs to Tennessee.

That was more than one-third above the booty offered by the next highest bidder, the state of Alabama. Its officials offered a paltry $380 million in freebies, WKRN's Dennis Ferrier adeptly reported.

Ultimately, you as a Tennessee taxpayer are paying $68,000 in tax breaks annually for each job that won't even pay that much in salary.

Incredible. Shameful. Very Bredesen-like. The governor is the aristocratic Will Rogers. He never met a corporation and mega-millionaire he didn't like to give your money away to.

I thought the Dell deal Bredesen negotiated as mayor of Nashville was bad. The Volkswagen giveaway makes Dell look like hard bargaining.

WKRN's report comes on a Friday evening. It looks like the governor released the information into what politicos consider a dead zone in news media coverage. Even more on a Friday evening before a holiday, you're going to a high school football game, or out to dinner, or staying at home just too damned tired from being overworked or on the road to visit friends and family. So you won't be paying attention to the news.

Bredesen knew the information on Volkswagen giveaway was so damning that he wanted to bury it as much as possible, like a pile of ... well, you know what.

These kind of usual Bredesen shenanigans are so angering. They serve the few at the expense of the many taxpayers and vulnerable. The 2,000 jobs are not even guaranteeed to Tennesseans. That means you're financing jobs for folks paying taxes to the state of Georgia, or Alabama.

Bredesen has done it to taxpayers again. And he has shown that he cares very little for the people who do most of the living and dying in this state.