Governor Bill Lee tweeted out something interesting last year: “Government isn’t the answer to the greatest challenges we face.” So why did he run for governor—twice?

And let’s talk about those challenges. A whole lot of Tennesseans can’t afford groceries or rent, can’t afford to take off work if they’re sick, not to mention go to the doctor or fill a prescription. We consistently rank among the bottom 10 states for problems linked to poverty and poor access to health care, including high rates of chronic disease, infant and maternal mortality, substance abuse and fatal overdose, personal bankruptcy, and crime.

Don’t hoard millions in federal dollars intended to provide temporary assistance to Tennessee’s working poor.

Lee’s tweet was promoting a charity that provides services for families where there’s substance abuse, incarceration, that sort of thing. The implication was that faith-based organizations do a better job of providing these services than government can.

This organization got two out of four stars on Charity Navigator. That doesn’t mean it does bad work; there’s simply not enough public information to know for sure. That’s the problem with a lot of charities. There’s not adequate accountability or transparency.

You could say the same thing about Lee’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which partners with religious organizations, often ones to which Lee has personal ties, to provide what are government services in other states. It gets $1.2 million a year of our tax dollars. No accountability. No transparency. As the Tennessean reported last year, the office’s Facebook page hasn’t posted anything since 2022, and the website listed on the page redirects to a Malaysian lottery site. Last I checked, that was still true.

I think one of Tennessee’s biggest challenges is state leaders who denounce government so they can defund it and give our tax dollars to their friends.

Here’s the answer to that: Vote against them. Religiously.