PRESENTS FOR JUNIOR AND SIS
Ivins, Molly
SMALL FAVORS Molly Ivins Presents for Junior and Sis Anote on language: Know what Native Americans are calling casino gambling on the reservations? "The new buffalo." On to less amusing...
...And we're talking leaky roofs, broken windows, poor heating systems, dangerous staircases, and more...
...Whereupon the Republicans had a cow and insisted he retract his remark...
...As Fallows points out, the media now cover the merits of issues less and less, and focus only on the politics of issues...
...Note, too, that the purpose of this budget deal is to eliminate the deficit "so we won't leave a burden of crushing debt to our children...
...It takes a slice, but Junior and Sis are still getting theirs...
...The budget deal would at least double that to $1.2 million and possibly double it yet again...
...Phil Gramm has never worked for anybody except the government in his whole life...
...Then Clinton and Congress wiped out the $5 billion entirely, even though there is at least $100 billion worth of work that needs to be done on them...
...When Minority Leader Dick Gephardt came out against the budget deal, the establishment media seemed determined to prove the point so tellingly made against them in James Fallows's book Breaking the News...
...When people like Robert Reich talk about viewing some government expenditures as "investments" in this country, that's what they mean...
...A: The deficit has already been shrunk down to $75 billion, which is still a nice chunk of change, but also the lowest it's been since Jimmy Carter was in office...
...And it's not as if the government confiscates anything you might leave over $600,000...
...The only reaction to Gephardt's decision was to analyze it in terms of his supposed Presidential ambitions...
...and his momma is being taken care of in her old age by the government...
...in economics...
...Especially charming is the proposed cut in the estate tax...
...Naturally, this caused Texas's own Phil Gramm to announce that the deal stank like a dead fish...
...Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers described cutting estate taxes as "pure selfishness...
...Hello, the redistribution of wealth...
...Whew, what a rant...
...Gephardt positions self for run in 2000," "Gephardt prepares to run against Gore," etc...
...It gives tax cuts to the richest people in the country and cuts programs for the poorest...
...Keep in mind that the median income in this country is $30,800 for a family of four—half of us are living on less than that, and in many cases a great deal less...
...Estate taxes don't even apply to anyone who leaves under $600,000, which should be enough to help Junior and Sissy get a start in life...
...I have no way of knowing...
...Only 30,000 Americans pay any inheritance tax at all, but the tax still brings billions into the treasury...
...In return for this ridiculous gift to the rich, Clinton settled for some student-loan programs (described by hysterical R's as "a new entitlement"), and restoring some of the hideously unfair welfare cuts aimed at legal immigrants...
...As has often been documented, Phil Gramm's health care has been provided by the government since the day he was born in a military hospital...
...I always enjoy Gramm's little lectures about how we should all learn to stand on our own two feet, quit ridin' in the wagon, get out, and help pull...
...The budget deal between Clinton and the R's is a sorry piece of work...
...But it's also possible he just thinks it's a bad deal, a possibility that might have been explored...
...Perhaps that was his motivation...
...The budget deal gave out $135 billion in tax cuts—and initially set aside $5 billion for repairing public schools...
...B: The deficit is under 1 percent of the total economy, less than a third of what most economists figure is an acceptable level...
...his education was paid for by the government right up through his Ph.D...
...Some recent attempts by the media to portray this as a middle-class issue (after all, people's homes have appreciated so much in value) defy parody...
...Over half the tax cuts in the proposed deal go to people who make more than $100,000 a year...
...Next time, fabulously entertaining tales of the Texas legislator who is dumb enough to be twins...
...One-third of our schools were built before World War II...
...On to less amusing prospects...
...Excuse me, but no honest person looking at this budget deal could conclude that we are concerned about our children...
...When we would rather give estate-tax cuts to people who have more than $600,000 to leave than rebuild the public schools, we have reached a point of both irresponsibility and stupidity that defies all common sense...
...Some of the impressive pile of tax money that has gone into Gramm over the years was paid by now-elderly legal immigrants, who worked Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star Telegram...
...for decades...
Vol. 61 • July 1997 • No. 7
