Molly Ivins May 30AUSTIN, Texas — How bad is this legislative session? Look at it this way: They haven't even repealed the Veggie Libel law. Here at the end, it's all come down to this: Do we get the $2-billion property-tax break that Gov. George W. Bush wants because it will make him look good in the presidential primaries ("And he cut taxes in his home state by $2 billion!'') — that's about a Big Mac and fries annually for each of us, thanks, Bubba — or do we finally get kindergarten for the kids statewide? Or as the more dramatic Democrats put it: Are we stealing from the mouths of 5-year-olds to give tax breaks to giant corporations? Of course we are — this is Texas. OK, here's the deal: Texas, as you may recall, is a low-tax, low-service state. Very low-service. In fact, we rank 50th (that's last) in per-capita state spending. And because the only thing we do well is highways — Mississippi with good roads, that's us — if you take out the highway part of the state budget, we're probably behind Guam. Possibly even Botswana. So, here we are with this nice, fat budget surplus. Aha, you say — a budget surplus means we're taking in more than we're spending, so give it to back to the taxpayers. What could be fairer? The reason we have a budget surplus, however, is not because we're overtaxed. And it's not just economic good times causing the tax receipts to go up, either. It's also because we're getting $1.9 billion over the next two years in tobacco-settlement money, and that's a nice piece of change. Although that money is allocated to health-care costs, it does free up revenue for other purposes. So, without increasing taxes at all, we could really improve state services. So, the Lege, with its usual splendid sense of priorities, decided to increase highway spending by 25.6 percent and spending on higher education 9.9 percent over the two years. Public schools are also getting more money (17 percent increase), but most of it is in the form of a much-needed $3,000-a-year teacher pay raise. No one is opposed to the teacher pay increase; they certainly need it and deserve it. But as you may have heard, there is all this new research about the importance of early childhood development, and how crucial early childhood programs are for later success in education, and Hillary Rodham Clinton had this big conference at the White House, and all the Repubs also endorsed it, so we're all for the program, right? Not in Texas. Rep. Paul Sadler (the smart one), chairman of the House Education Committee, wants $250 million for new kindergarten, pre-kindergarten and Head Start programs, and that figure includes a little money for a new dropout-prevention program at the ninth-grade level. You may be surprised to learn that we don't have kindergarten in Texas. Well, we do have it in some of the wealthier districts — even full-day kindergarten. But not statewide. And, of course, we have never even come close to enrolling all the kids who are eligible for Head Start in that program, even though it is one of the most successful programs ever invented. So, it would take about $300 million to get full-day kindergarten statewide in Texas. That's compared to, say, the $1.2-billion price tag on each B-2 stealth aircraft. Kindergarten for every child in Texas. OK, you can still argue that you'd rather get your money back than fund kindergarten and Head Start. But you're not going to get your money back, are you? In a state with a notoriously regressive tax structure, where the bulk of the money comes from a high sales tax that weighs, of course, more on poor folks than on rich folks, they are not fixing to give you consumers any breaks, except maybe a back-to-school tax holiday that might be worth about $10 — if you have kids. Nope, the big tax breaks are for business, including the special breaks for the timber industry, gas wells and high-tech. And the trouble with those business tax cuts is not just that they go to big corporations instead of average citizens (because you average citizens don't have high-priced lobbyists working for you). They also have a balloon effect: They're liable to cost the state so much in the future that they will actually cause tax increases —which will be put on someone who doesn't have a lot of high-priced lobbyists representing him (hint). And then, there is the utilities deregulation bill. If you're going to do a really stupid thing like deregulate utilities, you better put your smartest people on it, and David Sibley in the Senate and Steve Wolens in the House pretty much qualify. The happy result is that now instead of having to eat an entire bucket of slop, you only have to eat two-thirds of a bucket of slop. Don't you feel better? Mark these words: "This is a good bill that will reduce rates, introduce competition, and that includes a component I particularly like that will clean up emissions from older plants and result in cleaner air for Texas,'' said Bush, who rather notoriously opposed that very provision (put on by Austin Rep. Glen Maxey) he "particularly likes'' — and got a lot of heat for it. Flexible fellow. The real news here is that you just got stuck with the cost of the electric utilities' white elephants — the nuclear power plants that we begged them not to build and that don't work. Congratulations. Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 1999 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC. u�vyu�vw�x y��������HNew Landers����������������������‡C�3����������µ3rd Qtr. 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