Molly Ivins July 24

AUSTIN — Congress nowadays ineluctably brings to mind the old country-western song "Everythang Yew Touch Turns to Dirt." Remember when the R's came to Washington full of beans in 1994 and promised to "change the way Washington does business"? Well, they have. They've made it worse.

Up for sale. Special-Interest City. The greed-hogs are in there, slopping out of that trough like nothing anyone has seen before. Tax loopholes. Corporate welfare. Flat giveaways. What an abysmal show.

Remember when Rep. John Kasich, the Ohio Republican, promised to go after corporate welfare? Ralph Nader and all the liberal public-interest groups got excited and joined up with him, the libertarian Cato Institute helped out — what a coalition! After months of wrangling, the coalition put together a list of 12 of the most worthless pieces of corporate welfare in the whole government: $11.7 billion of egregious subsidies over five years, some of them actually designed to ship jobs overseas.

So far, the Kasich Coalition is 0 for 12. Not only have they lost on every one of their hand-picked lousy programs, but while they're failing to get corporate pork out of the budget, more is being snuck in.

The biggest single giveaway in the budget — in fact, the biggest in all recorded history except for the time Napoleon signed off on the Louisiana Purchase for $15 million — is an outright gift worth billions of dollars from the people of the United States to a handful of broadcasters. From your wallet to Rupert Murdoch, ABC, NBC and CBS. "This is the equivalent of simply giving away federally owned oil fields to oil companies," David Keating of the National Taxpayers Union told The Washington Post.

Congress is giving away the public airwaves. What are they worth? During the past three years, according to the Post, the Federal Communications Commission has auctioned off small slices of the communications spectrum to entrepreneurs, earning $20 billion for the treasury. That's $20 billion in taxes that you and I don't have to pay. But in April, Congress brought these auctions to a screeching halt; Congress ordered the FCC to start giving away the public airwaves for "high-definition" digital broadcasting.

Two things make this even an even dumber move than it sounds on its face. One is that even now, as the House-Senate conference committee meets, the broadcasters are trying to get a sweeter deal. The broadcasters, who originally agreed to give back the channels they now occupy by 2006, are trying to wiggle out of even that obligation.

Second, police and fire departments around the nation are being squeezed off the airwaves.

Public-safety agencies need more channels; they're upgrading their equipment, and they've already run out of channels. At the Oklahoma City bombing, they were reduced to having people run with written messages between headquarters and the scene. Randy Arndt of the National League of Cities told the Post: "These frequencies are desperately needed. This is a bold power grab by broadcasters that torpedoes a vital need for public safety all over the country. This isn't pie in the sky. This is an issue, potentially, of life and death."

Like that one? Let's try some more:

— The Overseas Private Investment Corp., one of the most hated pieces of corporate welfare, is the U.S. agency that insures and finances investors in Third World countries and one of Kasich's top targets. Not only will it be re-funded, but it will probably get an additional $6 billion in operating authority.

— New tax cuts will go to pig farmers, the oil and gas industry, fish processors, ethanol producers and drug companies.

— By a two-vote margin, the timber companies saved almost all of the $41.5 million we spend annually building roads in the national forests so the timber companies can go in and wreak environmental havoc.

Citizens for Tax Justice found $144 billion in proposed new special corporate tax breaks in the House bill and another $23 billion in the Senate bill. Their top picks are:

— Elimination of the alternative minimum tax, the one that forces profitable corporations to pay something even if they have loopholed their way out of everything else. The Treasury Department says this could create 76,000 profitable corporations paying zero taxes, including Texaco, Dow Chemical, Union Camp, etc. Total corporate freeloaders.

Want to know how they get their tax bills down to zero? Among a zillion other ploys, they get to deduct the fines they have to pay for breaking environmental laws, securities laws, etc. They also deduct the cost of those obscene salaries they pay their CEOs from their tax bills — it's a "cost of doing business."

— Special reduced tax rates in the House bill for timber and insurance corporations by allowing them to call their regular income "capital gains" and therefore pay lower taxes on it.

— New tax break for real estate investors, also allowed to convert ordinary income into capital gains.

You know what? We'd be better off without a budget bill this year.

According to Treasury, if we don't do anything, the budget could be in balance next year. Not this old pie-in-the-sky, cut-taxes-and-it-will-balance-in-2002 number. Next year. The R's and the D's can both claim credit for it. Plus, cutting taxes when the economy is booming is dumb; you're supposed to cut taxes when your economy needs a stimulus, and ours is whizzing along. Plus, the tax cuts in the congressional bills are so skewed to the rich, so larded with corporate welfare, that we'll be worse off with these tax cuts than we would be if we didn't get any.

President Clinton ought to veto this sucker on principle.

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

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