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Core Issues of Concern and Emphasis:

Health Care
Education
Economic Development
Tax Reform

Healthcare

• Oppose health care mandates and other laws and regulations that jeopardize the affordability of health care in Tennessee.
  
• Strongly support TennCare reform that makes the program the state's insurer of last resort, available to Tennessee residents only and is well managed to gain the confidence of the business and medical communities and the general public.
  
• Support necessary medical malpractice tort reform at the local, state and federal level.
  
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Education

2. TBR supports excellence in Tennessee's schools and colleges.

• Support the efforts and initiatives of the P-16 Council; emphasis on early childhood education; strong post-secondary and vocational training and a seamless transition from Pre-K-Adult.
  
• Provide better, performance-based compensation and incentives for good teachers; require school-based measurable results and accountability.
  
• Provide a fair formula for achieving teacher pay equity for all school districts without penalizing communities who significantly invest in their own schools.
  
• Support higher standards, standards-based reform, results accountability and more effective and efficient funding for higher education.
  
• Encourage reading initiatives such as the Imagination Library founded by the Dollywood Education Foundation.
  
• Encourage effective and stable partnerships among the business community, the state's K-12 and higher education systems and Tennessee's Independent Colleges and Universities.
  
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Economic Development

3. TBR supports aggressive economic development programs.

• Provide competitive financial incentives, along with a reformed tax system, to boost new business recruitment and existing business retention and growth.
  
• Support excellence in education to create a better-prepared work force.
  
• Reform workers compensation laws to be fair to both employers and employees.
  
• Encourage public and private research and developmental alliances among Tennessee's key institutional assets (ORNL, UT, Medical Centers, etc).
  
• Promote access to capital for both start-up and existing businesses.
  
• Oppose efforts to mandate a so-called “living wage” at the state or local level that exceeds the Federal Government minimum wage laws.
  
• Strongly support Tennessee's right-to work law.
  
• Strongly oppose legislation allowing state government to mandate employee benefit programs.
  
• Aggressively promote Tennessee's technology assets including support of technology transfer and commercialization efforts.
  
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Tax Reform

4. TBR supports reform of Tennessee's tax system.

• Achieve balanced, broad-based revenue sources that provide revenue growth as the economy expands.
  
• Provide a stable government tax base with fair business taxation to help stimulate economic expansion and fair competition with our sister states.
  
• Demand accountability of government officials for sound management practices and conservative budgetary policies.
  
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