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6/15/00

WASHINGTON-  Late last week and earlier this week, radio hosts in Nashville, Tennessee led the fight to prevent the Tennessee state legislature and governor from ramming a law through the legislature that would impose a state income tax.  To honor these four hosts, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), the most influential taxpayer group in the country, named the hosts Heroes of the Taxpayer for the month of June.

Legislators supporting the income tax had hoped a vote would be taken on Saturday morning to avoid giving anti-tax groups time to mount a repeat of the tax revolt that occurred last November when an earlier income-tax measure died as taxpayers besieged legislative offices with tens of thousands of calls and emails.  

But their hopes were dashed when two of Nashville's competing talk radio stations, WLAC and WTN, joined forces and served as the catalyst for opposition to the proposal.

Steve Gill and Phil Valentine of WLAC and Darryl Ankarlo and Dave Ramsey of WTN, broadcast their respective shows from a remote location at the state capitol.  During their shows, literally thousands of anti-tax protestors encircled the state capitol and nearly shut the city down. 

"Because of their efforts on behalf of not only the taxpayers of Tennessee but of taxpayers in the rest of the country, Americans for Tax Reform has named these four talk show hosts Heroes of the Taxpayers," declared ATR's president Grover Norquist.

"Thanks to the hard work and dedication of these talk show hosts and the folks who protested the proposed tax increase at the state capitol, the plan to implement a state income tax in Tennessee appears to be dead," added Kate Meerstein, state projects manager at ATR.