Molly Ivins May 7

AUSTIN, Texas — There is so much bad governance coming down so fast (and I mean stuff that people really need to know about) that it's hard to keep up with it all. Meanwhile, the watchdogs of the press are all busy barking over at the Ken Starr sideshow and don't have time to keep tabs on Congress — unless, of course, it's one of the 70 dozen investigations of President Clinton going on.

Congratulations to Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, who has managed to block payment of the nearly $1 billion in back dues we owe to the United Nations unless Congress passes new anti-abortion legislation. This is less than incredibly astute since we need the United Nations on all kinds of issues, and the fact that we haven't paid our dues is now more than painfully embarrassing — it's really hurting us there. The swell of anti-American sentiment is growing around the world, even among our friends who have had to shell out millions for peacekeeping operations we talked the United Nations into doing.

And for those of you who think the United Nations isn't worth a nickel, I remind you that Secretary General Kofi Annan just saved us from having to spend a lot more than we owe the world forum on that nutty scheme to re-bomb the tar out of Iraq, which wouldn't have done any good anyway.

How, you may wonder, is abortion connected to the issue of overdue U.N. fees? It's not. It's not connected to the $18 billion in new loan funds for the International Monetary Fund, either, which it would be a good idea to fork over in order to keep assorted Asian economies from going down the tubes and taking ours with them.

But Smith has that one tied up, too. He persuaded the House leadership — that's Speaker Newt Gingrich and our team of Huey, Dewey and Louie from Texas (Dick Armey, Tom DeLay and Bill Archer) — to tie the U.N. dues and the IMF to an abortion bill that would not only bar foreign family-planning agencies from doing abortions but would also bar them from participating in abortion debates in their own countries.

Of course, if Smith tried to do that here, it would be grossly unconstitutional, but Smith has no compunction about putting restrictions on the free speech of people in other countries. Picture it: Some family-planning expert in New Delhi, India, is called in by his government for advice, and he says: "Sorry, I can't say anything because Chris Smith of New Jersey, U.S.A., will cut off our funding for our contraception program if I do."

Why would even Huey, Dewey and Louie go along with such a scheme? Turns out that the Republicans are under fire from the Christian right for not pushing their anti-abortion agenda seriously enough.

James Dobson is the Christian radio psychologist who heads Focus on the Family, the outfit that opposes homosexuality and backs worship in the public schools, school vouchers, teaching creationism as science and so forth.

In April, Dobson wrote a letter to his supporters, saying it was time for Republicans to "fish or cut bait. They have to understand that we will abandon them if they continue to ignore the most important issues. The threat must be real for us to have integrity, and I am determined to deliver on the promises to campaign against them if nothing changes."

This is the how-come of a Republican Congress suddenly getting back to divisive social issues — school prayer and late-term abortions coming up yet again. On the whole, though, it's probably better to have the GOP fooling around with late-term abortions than working on its grand scheme to eliminate the progressive income tax.

The New York Times reported this week that Republican pollsters have discovered that attacking the Internal Revenue Service is a sure-fire vote-getter; "attacks on the I.R.S. provide political cover for them to make other changes in the tax code that, opponents say, directly benefit the wealthy." The R's want to eliminate the estate tax, which applies only to the richest 1 percent of Americans, and Gingrich is sponsoring a bill to cut the maximum capital gains tax to 15 percent from 20 percent. Just last summer, the R's forced Clinton to accept a capital gains tax cut from 28 percent to 20 percent as the price of his education tax credits. Just what we need: more tax cuts for the rich.

In the meantime, a little-noticed effect of the Republicans' monster, swollen, pork-laden highway bill has been traced by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: The highway bill will cause large reductions in the non-defense discretionary part of the federal budget.

That means that programs for education, child care, the environment, agriculture, rural areas, veterans, foreign aid and scientific research will be cut. The highway bill increases highway spending to levels well over what was agreed to during the budget negotiations between Clinton and Congress last year. The agreement contains binding caps on discretionary (non-entitlement) spending, so overspending on highways means cuts in other programs.

The center notes that there is a widespread — but wholly mistaken — belief that highway spending is financed by the highway trust fund and does not affect other programs. That fund is essentially a bookkeeping mechanism; its presence does not alter the fact that discretionary spending on highways is counted under discretionary spending caps.

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

COPYRIGHT 1998 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.