Molly Ivins August 6

AUSTIN — Well, here we are again, Charlie Brown, being offered that delicious tax-cut football by Ol' Bob "Lucy" Dole. Mmmmmm-hmmm, 15 percent across-the-board income tax cut over three years, not even counting the extra goodies for the rich folks. Boy oh boy, we'll just grow our way out of the deficit, fer sure.

Last time we tried this, we wound up another $2 trillion in debt, of course.

There goes the last good reason to vote for Dole. I'm disappointed and disgusted. Just like Charlie Brown, I keep falling for that tired old trick about how Republicans are fiscally conservative, how they believe in a balanced budget and all that baloney. One thing you used to be able to say for Dole was that he was a real fiscal conservative who never fell for all that supply-side, Laffer-curve, voodoo-economics sewage. Now look.

No-Problem Dole says he can pay for 72 percent of his $548 billion tax cut with spending cuts. Sure, you notice how easy Congress — Democrats and Republicans over the last four years — have found it to cut less than that. Sorry, but we've already dumped on the poor children to save money; there's nothing left but defense (on which the Republicans want to spend more) and Social Security.

Dole says that only 27 percent of his tax cuts would be paid for with economic growth — hey, hey, hey. Just one or two years of slower-than-expected growth, not to mention a teeny-weeny recession, would leave us right back in the deficit soup, with no way out except to cut more spending, thus worsening the recession, thus worsening the deficit, thus worsening the recession ... etc.

We've been there, we've done this; it is economic folly and leads to economic disaster. Not to mention those darling little extras in his plan — the capital gains tax cut and repealing the Clinton tax on the rich — which will make the income distribution charts worse than they already are. Having laid plans to make the poor significantly poorer via "welfare reform," if we proceed to make the rich even richer, this country is going to start to look like Mexico. Welcome to the world of (as they say) "social unrest."

Politically, Dole has just given Ross Perot a humongous boost.

Clinton has done two things lately that got little coverage but made me like him more. When he went to the Olympics, he specifically asked to meet Michelle Smith, the Irish swimmer whose three surprise gold medals got one of the most churlish reactions in the history of bad sportsmanship (Bob Costas was a commendable exception).

The president told Smith: "I admire the way you've handled all the crap that's been thrown at you. I've had to deal with that myself, so I know what it's like."

And when he went to visit the families of those who went down on TWA Flight 800, Clinton spent three hours with them, an hour over schedule, and according to the family members, he was terrific — a combination priest-minister-rabbi-therapist-grief-sharer, etc. The families said he gave them comfort and strength, and to a person, they expressed their appreciation. After he left them, Clinton was so wiped out that when he got into his limo with the first lady, he just put his head down on her shoulder and left it there. It's not easy when you really do feel other people's pain.

But Clinton has done one thing lately for which I will never forgive him: sign the welfare reform bill. The more you look at it, the worse it gets. Just tell those folks on welfare to get a job? What jobs, people, what jobs? Unemployment in the Rio Grande Valley is running at 13, 15, even 19 percent (McAllen-Edinburg-Mission). The Urban League has studies showing that there are five, eight or 10 applicants for entry-level jobs across the country. As Bob Herbert of The New York Times points out, downsized managers and recent college graduates are taking low-skill jobs now. About half the Republicans who backed "welfare reform" voted against the modest increase in the minimum wage last month.

Thanks to Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein for voting against the welfare bill. Women all over the country have worked and contributed to get other women elected to Congress; we do not believe that women are superior to men, but we do think that they tend to show more sensitivity to the needs of children.

Unless the Democrats retake Congress this fall and reverse at least parts of the welfare bill, Texas needs to brace itself for some huge problems. Not only are we losing hundreds of millions worth of food stamps and $330 million in federal funds for legal immigrants, but we already have a hunger problem in some South Texas counties. According to the Center for Public Policy Priorities, last year, 187,000 legal immigrants in Texas received food stamps, 22,000 received AFDC, and 53,000 received Supplemental Security Income. This state already has 1 million children at or below the poverty level.

Please, please keep this in mind when you vote for members of the Legislature. Beyond the Lege — we can't count on the Lege for anything — churches, community groups, softball leagues, businesses, high schools and Rotary, Lions and book clubs all need to stand by to "adopt" a family or a child in need. This is going to be grim.

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

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