“Read My Lips: No New Texas”
He calls Texas his adopted home state. So what has George Bush done for us lately? Not much.
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This is not happenstance. Highway money is distributed according to an enigmatic formula crafted to benefit northeastern states. One factor used in figuring where the money goes is the amount of “postal route miles” in a state. Postal route miles? Whatever they are, they have been part of the formula since 1916—and they count far more than interstate highway miles. The 1990 census doesn’t count either. For the next five years, the population factor in the formula will continue to be calculated according to the 1980 census—thus shielding northeastern states against their population losses during the past decade.
These formulas are not the fault of the Bush administration; they were written by Congress. But during the negotiations over the 1991 highway bill, a bipartisan coalition of senators begged the White House to intervene with a veto threat unless the formulas were made more equitable. After all, it is the Republican South and West that lose dollars, while the Democratic Northeast wins. The answer came back: no.
The Census
While we’re on the subject of the 1990 census, where was Houstonian Robert Mosbacher when we needed him? The Secretary of Commerce (now George Bush’s campaign director) had to decide whether to adjust the census for an undercount of minorities. That there was an undercount was undisputed; the only issue was what to do about it. Mosbacher elected to do nothing. Texas will lose at least $1 billion in federal aid as a result of its lower population figure. No overt act of the Bush administration will have such a negative financial impact on Texas.
Drugs
Watch the Bush administration closely on this one. In early July Congress changed the funding formula for alcohol and drug abuse funds. The long-term effect on Texas is uncertain, but the short-term effect is clear: In an unusual move, Congress made the change take effect in the middle of the fiscal year, costing Texas $10 million in the fourth quarter and disrupting programs that are already in progress. Florida is another loser (notice a pattern here? As in the case of highways, the states with big needs are ganged up on by states with lesser needs). Because the quarter started on July 1 and the bill hadn’t yet become law, Texas wants the Bush administration to send out the checks according to the old formula and let the new formula take effect when the next fiscal year starts in October.
Energy
Utter disaster. George Bush waged war to protect foreign oil supplies, yet he has done virtually nothing to promote increased domestic oil supplies. “He has presided over the final collapse of the domestic exploration industry with no apparent remorse,” says Lufkin Democratic congressman Charles Wilson.
In Bush’s defense, the policies necessary to give a real boost to domestic drilling may just be too controversial—imposing an import fee that would provide a floor price for oil and lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling. (Of course, they might not have been so controversial had Bush proposed them during the Gulf War as essential to national security.) But the Bush administration missed other chances to help the battered industry. The president’s most recent proposed budget did not include the number one priority of Texas independent producers: relief from tax laws that reduce their deduction for drilling costs and depletion. (Congress is on track to provide some relief anyway.) And the national energy bill that is working its way through Congress turned into a catastrophe for Texas when two northeastern congressmen added an amendment that gutted the Texas Railroad Commission’s power to regulate natural gas production. The White House used its veto threat to get some items removed from the bill, but on the natural gas amendment, it was AWOL.
Taxes
“No new taxes” apparently doesn’t apply to Texas. A provision in the original Medicare law allowed state and local governments to opt out of the Medicare system and provide their own health coverage to special employees such as teachers, firefighters, and police. Only a handful of states have opted out—including Texas. The Bush administration has repeatedly tried to change the rules and bring everybody under the Medicare system, only to be blocked by Congress. If the administration gets its way, thousands of Texans will have to pay a 1.45 percent payroll tax, and local governments (that is, taxpayers) will have to underwrite a matching share.
Health Care
Texas is engaged IN a running battle with the Bush administration over how much in matching federal funds Texas hospitals can receive for treating charity patients. A recent rule change by the administration puts the state in danger of losing $800 million a year.
Most of this money goes to 24 hospitals around the state, such as Park-land in Dallas, that treat large numbers of charity patients—and there are large numbers to be treated. Nearly one out of every four Texans has no health insurance, the highest percentage of any state except New Mexico. Because of arcane federal regulations, states have had to jump through some strange hoops in order to get the matching funds. In one case, private hospitals made a donation to a state, which used the donation to get federal funds and then returned both the donation and the matching funds to the hospitals. But when Texas came up with its own proposal—taxing the 24 charity hospitals and using those dollars to get matching funds—the Bush administration cracked down. It decreed that Texas must tax all hospitals in the state, not just the 24 that provide most of the charity care, in order to be eligible for federal money. Oh, sure. What is the chance that the Legislature will vote to tax around 400 hospitals that will receive little or no federal funds in return? Approximately zero. And that is how much will be left of the $800 million Texas now receives unless the state can dream up a new plan to satisfy the feds by June 1993.
Personal Pork
This is the one area where George Bush has really treated us like home folks. He gave us the Republican convention, the Economic Summit, and his presidential library. We’re glad to have them. But we’d trade them all for a healthy oil industry.
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My Library
