You're paying for Bredesen's big German vacation

Gov. Phil Bredesen has just announced a massive Tennessee invasion of Germany to sell the Chattanooga area as a place for German suppliers to locate plants.

The delegation, including every person in the Chattanooga who wants to try authentic bratwurst, will spend seven days in Germany at taxpayer expense. Receptions with lavish foods and alcohol -- for German suppliers and their relatives who would like to try MoonPies -- will be paid for by Tennessee taxpayers.

The trip is an emergency one. Bredesen thought he had given the right encouragement to all German companies when he gifted Volkswagen with a whopping $577 million in taxpayer giveways to locate its plant in Chattanooga. Although Tennessee taxpayers are footing that enormous bill, Bredesen's deal did not require Volkswagen to even employ Tennesseans. The states of Georgia and Alabama can get the manufacturing jobs, too, without spending a penny.

Now, there is word that a big German supplier for the VW plant may locate in Huntsville, Ala., and not Tennessee. Bredesen's bad economic arithmetic figured on all German suppliers locating in Tennessee for his mega VW deal to pay off economically in the long run.

So the govenor is panicked. He has to take a bunch of people with him to Germany to beg for location of supply plants in Tennessee.

Again, for his incomptence, Tennesseans are paying. Meanwhile, as Bredesen plans to party in Germany, he is cutting off 1,000 human beings from 24-hour nursing care to stay alive under TennCare. How many of those vulnerable people could have been saved without all the freebies to VW and now a party trip to the real Oktoberfest?

Bredesen indeed has run government like a business ... Lehman Brothers, Enron, Meryll Lynch, AIG, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the list goes on and on.