Molly Ivins April 24

AUSTIN, Texas — Former state Rep. "Jumbo" Ben Atwell of Dallas has a marker in the Texas State Cemetery. It's made of pink granite, carved in the shape of Texas and says on the back, "He passed a tax bill."

If you spend any time at the Capitol in the next few days, you will see why Atwell considered passage of a tax bill his life's proudest accomplishment. Nothing like voting for a tax bill to get the juices flowing at the statehouse. Two hundred amendments, intraparty politics, interparty politics, considerations of fairness and class, powerful monied interests squealing like stuck pigs, the governor's presidential ambitions at stake, money to run the public schools at stake and (towering over it all) a tidal wave of inertia. (A tidal wave of inertia is close kin to Stanley Steingut's marvelous metaphor, "an avalanche of creepin' paralysis.")

Our system is set up so that it is infinitely easier to prevent anything at all from getting done than it is to do anything whatsoever. The art of governance has become finding that slim sliver of daylight in the wall of obstruction that permits something to get done about anything.

The chief questions about the tax bill now under debate in the Texas House of Reps are: What is it we're trying to do here? And is it worth it?

The proximate cause for this tax bill is Gov. George W. Bush's insistence that property taxes be reduced. Fine idea; round of applause from all hands. But if we cut property taxes significantly, we have to find some other way to fund the public schools.

As all our politicians who are about to retire from public office will tell you, the fairest, easiest and most sensible way to tax people is an income tax. But because politicians who are seeking public office continue to demagogue this issue, Texas is stuck with a 19th-century tax system that is regressive and inequitable, has no resemblance to the state's economy and on the whole is seriously stupid. "Regressive" means that working- and middle-class people wind up paying a higher proportion of their income in taxes than rich people.

If you won't tax income and you're trying to cut taxes on property, the only thing left to tax is consumption, via the sales tax. The beauty of the sales tax is that none of us ever has to sit down and write a check for it. You have to send in a check for your income tax, you have to send in a check for your property tax, but the sales tax? The perfect solution: an invisible tax.

It's just every day, day after day, nickels and dimes added to everything you buy. In most Texas cities, the sales tax now runs 8.5 cents on every dollar you spend.

Am I telling you that Texans are so dumb we don't notice a tax just because we don't have to write a separate check for it once a year? I'm open to all alternative explanations. There are even some poor and working-class folks who figure the sales tax is fairer to them (despite the numbers that prove otherwise) because it's the one tax that rich folks can't get out of paying. They may have a point there.

The Legislature, led by state Rep. Paul Sadler of Henderson — who is such a good, smart, solid legislator that not only do I think he's a prince but so does The Dallas Morning News — took Bush's idea and ran with it. The plan cuts property taxes and makes up the revenue by plugging holes in the sales tax and the corporate franchise tax. The net result is not so much a tax cut as a seismic shift in the tax burden — off homeowners and onto business, although business benefits from the property tax cuts as well.

Unfortunately, the net result is also a shade more regressive than the system we have now; rich folks are going to get more than twice as much tax relief out of this deal as middle-class folks. So why should we favor an outcome like that? Because we end up with a better way to fund the public schools.

With the state picking up 80 percent of the operating costs of schools, we get a better revenue stream and solve the "Robin Hood" problem, under which 91 wealthy districts now to have fork over part of their proceeds to poorer districts. All other things being equal, the slight increase in regressivity (possibly solvable if a good way can be found to force landlords to pass on their property tax relief to renters) is worth it for better school funding. As former state Rep. Joe Salem of Corpus Christi used to shout with regularity, "Vote for the school cheeldrun of Texas!"

Unless, of course, you happen to be a black or brown rep and your district looks like this: 37 percent renters, 10 percent on public assistance and 29 percent on Social Security. You've got 60 percent of your people getting no property tax relief and 70 percent of your people paying expanded taxes to fund someone else's tax relief. Bad deal.

At a minimum, Sadler is going to have to remove the property tax exemption for country clubs (give us a break) and add one for automotive repairs (poor people drive older cars that break down more often). That along with 198 other fixes, and Sadler just may have himself a tax bill.

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Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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