Ramifistations in the Hilterland
Ivins, Molly
SMALL FAVORS Molly Ivins Ramifistations in the Hilterland You look at Washington, you look at your legislature, you got to say to yourself, "There are a million Chinese students demonstrating in...
...SMALL FAVORS Molly Ivins Ramifistations in the Hilterland You look at Washington, you look at your legislature, you got to say to yourself, "There are a million Chinese students demonstrating in Beijing so they can have this...
...It's rolling out of California, and you can see that sucker headed this way, my friends...
...Our guys are less given to either the delusions or the follies of grandeur...
...In addition to his memorable opening-day declaration that being reelected left him filled with "humidity," he has favored us with his opinion that sometimes you have to turn over the first rock in order to find a sacred cow...
...This session has brought particularly awful results in the field of products liability...
...There's less pretense and more action...
...This session, we had to change the product-liability laws because insurance premiums are so high...
...Those of us who study democracy at the state level have, I believe, certain advantages over the scribes and pundits in what the Gibber calls "the District of Columbus...
...It is also true that Molly Ivins, a columnist for the Dallas Times Herald, appears in this space every month...
...That fact has many times been demonstrated...
...The reason that's delightful news is that the First Commandment at the statehouse is that what goes around, comes around...
...And when what's comin' around is mean, it bites you in the ass...
...Fifty years ago, that great Texas populist Wright Patman said, "It is one of the first duties of government to protect the weak against the strong, to prevent men from injuring one another...
...All is not hidden behind a great smog of politics...
...We know that many, but not all, of our most powerful and influential citizens are very greedy...
...we can see the guts and gristle of the legislation itself...
...You can see the engine that makes government go—the lobby is not subtle here in the hil-terlands...
...We have given manufacturers a license to kill in Texas...
...The entire industry is a scandal in this state, companies in receivership, the Insurance Board unable to function, senior citizens getting ripped off by phony Medigap policies, the workers' comp system paralyzed...
...As the Gibber says, "the record reflects itself...
...Where there is greed there is no vision," and the greed-heads don't have enough vision to see what's coming...
...The Texas Legislature is, of course, a land with no vision...
...I hate to think I'm slacking off on the cynicism front, but you could have knocked me over with Dan Quayle's brain...
...When trying a new budget approach, you have to "run it up the flagpole and see who salutes that booger...
...I don't know how it's going where you live, but in Texas more than a third of the House members took their names off a resolution expressing sympathy for the victims of AIDS and their families...
...Every proposed law dealing with business should be carefully considered with reference to its effect upon the consumers, who represent our entire population...
...But the finest work the insurance whores have done in years was the way they managed to deform reform...
...But none of this is "adnormal" for the Speaker, who will be in big trouble if we ever pass English Only in this state...
...Well, as Speaker Gib Lewis says, it's the kind of thing that could have ramifistations in the hilterland...
...When confused, he confessed, "There's a lot of uncertainty that's not clear in my mind...
...The politicians can either catch it on the first wave, or they can wait until it's as bad as the savings-and-loan situation and then drown in it...
...The insurance whores had lawmakers voting against antitrust provisons, collusion penalties, audits, Medigap reform, honest reporting, anything and everything that would have cleaned up the mess...
...It is perfectly natural that they should seek more power, influence, and greater wealth...
...where there is greed, there is no vision, and the Good Book says that where there is no vision, the people perish...
...The Gibber has been in good form this session...
...Two years ago, the Lege was tied up in knots over tort reform, and the reason we had to have tort reform is because insurance premiums were so high...
...There's a whole bunch of people about to get right with God and insurance reform or go down...
...And even now the toughest issue of the session, workers' compensation, is being further fouled up—because insurance premiums are so high...
Vol. 53 • July 1989 • No. 7
