Molly Ivins November 12AUSTIN — Note to Jeff Foxworthy for his "You might be a redneck if ... " series of jokes: You might be a redneck if you've got a moonshine jug of illegal CFCs stashed around your place. Chlorofluorocarbons, the chemicals that destroy the ozone layer, are hot now with guys who have a lot of old trucks parked in the front yard. Smuggling them in from Mexico is a rapidly growing enterprise. Hint to law enforcement officers: This stuff is mostly sold in flea markets. But please don't send Bubba to jail over it. He's got enough troubles already. Now: Everyone and his dog is drawing up lists of cheap, effective things that our new bipartisan government can agree on, so let's ... Take the advice of the excellent Tim Wirth, the State Department's main guy on international environmental questions, on global warming. Wirth thinks we need to replace the voluntary targets on carbon dioxide emissions reduction set at the Rio conference in 1992 with binding, longer-term commitments. The way we're going now, the United States will not be able to reach the voluntary targets set for 2000, which would be disastrous for the whole process. We can replace those targets with lower, more realistic ones for 2000 that would be binding. Cost: zip. Ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention. Not only is this a dandy idea in and of itself, chemical weapons being nasty things, but if it doesn't pass, we have no chance of getting a treaty to outlaw biological weapons, which are far more dangerous. Nor will be able to get any kind of nuclear weapons treaty, which is the real horror scenario for the next century. Our current nuclear treaties with Russia do not even speak to the real menace: terrorists with nuclear weapons. We need an international body that is free to inspect any suspected nuclear factory. Cost: practically nil. (Thanks to The New Republic for that one.) Save welfare reform. In addition to fixing the more obvious bone-head moves — such as cutting food stamps and slashing benefits to legal immigrants — take a page from Gov. Tommy Thompson's successful welfare program in Wisconsin. If you want this to work, you have to put more money at the beginning, not less, into the mechanisms that make it possible to move people from welfare to work.
Covert to public campaign financing. This is everyone's chance at the history books. Pay for it with voluntary IRS check-off system, and democracy is restored, faith in government renewed. President Clinton and the R's already agree that if you can't vote, you shouldn't be able to contribute. Corporations can't vote, PACs can't vote, unions can't vote. Cost: negligible. Cost of not doing it: They all lose the next election to people who pledge they will. Cut corporate welfare. BobDole is no longer in office; the ethanol subsidy can go. Bye-bye, sugar subsidy. The R's can make themselves into real heroes, and liberals can unite with right-wing radicals. Happiness for all, huge savings. With politicians no longer dependent on corporate cash and millionaires, we could simplify and integrate the tax system on a progressive basis. Just by shifting the same proportion of the tax burden to corporations they used to pay before they bought Congress, we'd have enough money to give every individual a tax break and pay for a single-payer health-insurance system. Zero cost. (The Nation.) OK, failing that, at least get all the poor children enrolled in Medicaid. Tell the Republicans that it's the only way they'll ever close the gender gap. Nothing makes American women madder than the sight of sick children who can't get help. Reform immigration. Go ahead — do it right. Cut off the demand for illegal immigrants by putting serious fines on the employers who hire them, with jail time for repeat offenders. Gov. Pete Wilson of California will lead the charge, I'm sure. Need illegals to pick your crops? Expand and regulate contract labor. Also, cut the number of unskilled immigrants, at least temporarily. We can start admitting them again when at least half the cab drivers in a major city know how to speak English. (The New Republic.) See, bipartisanship can work. And if it doesn't, we can always throw them out again in two years. *** Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. COPYRIGHT 1996 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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