The Texas Observer

After the terrible devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, it boggles the mind that the federal government will pay billions to construct a border wall and not pay to repair the levees in the Rio Grande Valley. A study released this week by the University of Texas-Pan American and authored by economist Dr. Daniel Sutter finds that a levee failure could cause about $1.76 billion in economic damage not to mention the loss of life.

The study, mentioned in the Rio Grande Guardian yesterday, says that approximately 57,000 homes and 2,800 businesses would be affected. The Rio Grande Valley is part of one of the fastest growing regions in the nation. It also has more than 70 miles of levees and a 100-year floodplain that ranges from Brownsville to Starr County.

The last big hurricane to blow through the region in 1967 — Hurricane Beulah – devastated the area.

Over the years, the levees have deteriorated to the point where FEMA wants to change the flood map to include much wider swathes of the Texas border region. This means many residents would need to purchase flood insurance and pay an additional $500 to $600 a year for it.

Since the feds won’t pay for the federal floodplain and levee system, Hidalgo County voters approved a $100 million bond referendum to pay for the levee repairs.

Caught in a tough spot, Hidalgo County Judge JD Salinas negotiated with Homeland Security Secretary MIchael Chertoff to create a combination border wall and levee. This would save several homes in Hidalgo County from being demolished to build the border wall. It would also draw down some federal dollars to help offset the price of repairing the levees for county taxpayers. It seemed like it was a win-win when the deal was announced February 8.

Now the International Boundary and Water Commission, IBWC, who regulates the levee system, wants Judge Salinas to sign a form that says the county will pay for the levee repairs if the feds don’t come through.

In a Guardian story yesterday, Judge Salinas says he and county commissioners will continue to fight for federal funding for the levee repairs. They have sent several letters to the Rio Grande Valley’s congressional delegation, President George W. Bush and Governor Rick Perry.

“These levees are a federal responsibility,” Salinas said in the article. “But it’s a responsibility our lawmakers have shrugged off, failing to appropriate the necessary money to the IBWC, We know this is a very complicated situation, but it becomes very simple and clear to me when faced with the unsettling numbers in this study.”

Also on Monday, Homeland Security took 25 landowners in Hidalgo and Starr counties to court to proceed with condemnation proceedings to build the border wall. Some of these landowners include the Rio Grande City independent school district.

Here I’ll quote Chad Foster, Mayor of Eagle Pass, when he sums up the federal government and its border wall. “It’s never a good time for a bad idea.”

The National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Commission recently delivered another of those tone-deaf, asinine, typical-of-a-commission recommendations that have no respect for what is politically tenable in the real world.

Created by the GOP Congress in 2005, the NSTPRC concluded that the federal government should raise the gas tax by 40 cents over five years (and then tie it to inflation), and it suggested states like Texas should ramp up their own state gas taxes even higher, in order to invest in transportation infrastructure.

Mary E. Peters, Bush’s Secretary of Transportation and a member of the commission, wrote about the recommendation in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal a week ago. The headline read, ‘Gas Taxes Are High Enough.’

I must admit to a weakness for anti-gas-tax invective (from any source). I believe the tax on fuel, while it masks a host of policy disasters and environmental nightmares, has an overwhelmingly disproportionate effect on working men and women. It’s a tax that takes its toll chiefly on the backs of the poor and middle class. It’s very much like a toll fee. For those that have plenty of dollars, it is of little concern. For those that do not, the tax can take away the last resource of an economic unit living paycheck to paycheck. People still have to drive to work, despite all the commuter rail initiatives in Texas. The used and abused model of urban and suburban sprawl in Texas has tied us to our vehicles and to the daily use of several gallons of gasoline — even if you or somebody you know bikes to work.

So, I was sympathetic, sort of, when Peters wrote how she and two other commissioners “declined to support the report’s central recommendations.” A huge gas tax increase would definitely raise some revenue, and it might even discourage some people from driving, but it would be political suicide for any politician or political party that tried it. Peters and the rest of the commission knew damn good and well that no such 40 cent increase in the tax would ever become policy.

What the commission’s recommendation did, instead, was provide an opening for conservatives like Gov. Rick Perry to look like moderates and express outrage at the idea of higher taxes — in particular, higher gas taxes — which affect everyone regardless of ability to pay. Of course, Rick’s solution is toll roads.

Should there be an increase in the gas tax? It’s important to remember that the tax on fuel serves several purposes. It gives both consumers and producers a voice in public policy — a say, that is, in just how much gasoline consumption is reasonable. The tax also serves as a tool which governments can use to discourage consumption (and driving) — and encourage better mileage standards — not to mention raise revenue.

The fact is, the oil industry is and has been subsidized by American budget policy as well as foreign policy — government has been dumping cash into this industry since Franklin Roosevelt and his foreign counterparts realized they had to have gasoline to keep their armies moving. It’s the most subsidized industry in America.

According to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists the subsidies are diverse and generous:

Direct subsidies include government-funded energy research and development. Indirect subsidies include the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, military expenditures related to the Persian Gulf, and police and fire protection related to highway use. Although “user fees” in the form of gas taxes, registration fees, and tolls pay for a portion of the infrastructure services, large government outlays remain that must be covered by general revenues.

The environmental costs are obvious in many ways, but they are not calculated into the price of fuel.

The scientists say: Pollution costs are borne by society in the form of increased health care costs and loss of wages due to illness and premature death (i.e., morbidity and mortality costs), reduced agricultural output, loss of visibility, and damage to buildings.

To my surprise and chagrin, however, Peters’ piece leads you in complaining about the gas tax and by the time she lets you go, you’re likely paying a toll to drive on the same highways your gas taxes already paid for. And she’s proud that the administration is pushing tolls as the only other option.

…a clear alternative has emerged… some form of electronic tolling that will both reduce congestion and generate needed revenue for transportation projects. Thanks to new open-road technology, these pricing programs can be put in place without forcing a single driver to slow down to pay a toll or have their transponder “read”… With the kind of encouragement we’re recommending, many more states could soon be able to pay for new transportation projects…

Peters would have us believe that we must choose between $4 a gallon gas and a maze of toll roads that tax us every quarter mile, just to get the same level of infrastructure that the federal and state government have maintained for 50 years as a public trust.

And her argument does not even address the gross dependence of the oil, gas, and auto industries on government subsidies and the debasing of our air, water, and quality of life.

There’s got to be a better way.

Despite all the hoopla back in September over an alleged letter from Texas revolutionary figure David Crockett, it turns out the state of Texas will not shell out $490,000 for it because it cannot be verifiably authenticated.

We said at the time that the lack of misspelling and stellar penmanship of the letter likely indicated it was not written by Crockett — who spent most of his scholarly days in Andrew Jackson’s war against the Creek Indians (and perhaps wrestling bears). He certainly was not above misspelling a few words.

The letter was unveiled as a great find for Texas, and even Gov. Rick Perry showed up to marvel over the historical wonder. Today he changed his tune accordingly.

“Our hope and belief was this would prove to be a rare, historic acquisition…” Perry said. He lauded the “due diligence” of the Texas Historical Commission and the verification process.

The commission wisely gave itself 120 days to verify and back out if need be. We have to agree that this was a good idea. The episode had us all thinking about Texas history for a while — which is healthy I think. But above all, the procedure in place has kept the state from dumping 500 Large into something that’s not what it purports to be — which is important.

“I’m not worried about myself, I’m worried about how we can take care of those low-income kids.” So said our junior senator, John Cornyn, as quoted in today’s Dallas Morning News. But when it comes to Cornyn, actions speak louder than words.

He made the remark during a tour with reporters of an Austin call center that enrolls kids in the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

One in five Texas children lack health insurance — by far the highest rate in the nation. Roughly 60 percent of those uninsured kids are eligible for CHIP or Medicaid, but for one reason or another (some because of the state’s bungling of its enrollment system), they just haven’t signed up.

Cornyn has been criticized for voting against an expansion of CHIP in late August and September. The bill, vetoed by the president, would have provided health coverage to more than three million kids nationwide.

Cornyn’s photo-op seemed designed to blunt a potential campaign issue.

Still his challengers got their shots in. “He can use all the semantics and misdirection he wants. At the end of the day, he had an opportunity to vote for working families and he chose not to,” said Democratic senate candidate and Houston state Rep. Rick Noriega told the Morning News.

Ray McMurrey, a second Democrat who jumped into the race last week, said Cornyn “should be embarrassed” by his inaction.

Cornyn defended his vote against a CHIP expansion. “There are still hundreds of thousands of low-income children across the state who are going without essential health care services,” he told the Austin American-Statesman. “My goal is to try to make sure…we get them enrolled before we take our eye off the ball and we then look at perhaps growing the program.”

Seems to us that his goal of getting kids enrolled counts as “growing the program.” But there’s a bigger flaw in Cornyn’s position. Many of the three million kids who would have been covered under the CHIP expansion bill that Cornyn helped scuttle already are eligible for the program. Like Texas, many states simply can’t afford to enroll all the kids who are currently eligible for CHIP. The vetoed bill would have addressed that problem.

If Cornyn’s goal is to cover those uninsured kids who are already eligible, then voting against the CHIP expansion in Congress was self-defeating.

I’ve been ruminating over these fiendish propositions for nearly a month, now — always, you know, with this notion in the back of my head of the futility of the project — since these things almost always pass. As you may know, the propositions up for a vote today will amend the Texas Constitution for things large and small, obscure and not so obscure, often incurring debt via bond issues.

Today’s voter turnout figures will be low, as usual, and even the best-informed voter out there does not know the full merits and demerits of each of the sixteen props — although we and others have done plenty of examination.

When I encounter political futility, I always think, what would the Libertarians do? After all, nobody can beat them at steadily managing a third-party presence on the ballot and just as steadily failing to place any candidates in office — every time. Still, they consistently carve out a couple percent of the vote.

The answer, in this case, is “When in doubt, vote no,” which I think is a fairly reasonable approach to such an expensive list.

That’s what Travis County Libertarian Party Chair Wes Benedict says was the general feeling among his comrades, although the TCLP did approve four of the props and had no position on four more (and deciding against the other eight, particularly the big bond props (4, 12, 15)).

I also asked Benedict what he says others have been asking, namely, what did he think Ron Paul’s run for president would mean to his party?

“It does both help and hurt in the short term,” he said.

He himself has donated $600 to Paul’s campaign. Yesterday, Paul, according to his website, broke all online fundraising records, raising more than $4 million*. This puts mainstream pundits in quite a bind since they have long equated electability with how much money a candidate can raise.

Benedict pointed out something I hadn’t considered. “The one rule is… you can’t vote in the Republican Party primary and be a Libertarian candidate,” Benedict noted.

Benedict wrote about this in a post that suggests Paul’s run will eventually help the national party. But, at one point he considers what would happen if all of the Libertarian conventioneers went and voted in the GOP primary for Ron Paul:

Unfortunately, by voting in the Republican primary, those Libertarian activists would cause the Libertarian Party of Texas to lose its ballot access. We would have no candidates anywhere else on the ballot. The Libertarian Party of Texas would effectively disappear.

Now, I know a lot of Republicans and Democrats that wouldn’t mind seeing that happen one bit, but, as Benedict notes, by the time Texas’ primary rolls around, the GOP nomination will probably be decided — so Libertarians can relax a little.

But, after losing a nasty GOP primary fight, would Paul consider running again as a Libertarian for president (as he did in 1988)?

Benedict did say he is “holding out a little bit of hope for that.”

* We apologize for a previous inaccuracy in the post. 

Friday began with a blast from the White House’s spin department detailing how the latest job numbers showed an unprecedented “50th Consecutive Month of Job Growth” — a sign, the administration says, of a strong economy — noting that “personal income” and “real wages” have risen.

By the end of the evening, news programs were noting the decisive drop in stock prices despite the fact the Federal Reserve has slashed key interest rates twice. And on political summary shows like the McLaughlin Group on PBS, the pundits all round were outdoing one another predicting just when the recession (or ‘puny growth’) will strike.

Anybody that has had to work for a living in America during this administration knows damn well that today’s jobs and benefits are not the same as they used to be — that personal income and savings have suffered because of ever-increasing health care costs, endless food and energy price hikes, and huge college tuition increases. We know, that, in fact, ‘real wages’ have never kept up with inflation and have only risen despite efforts by the Bush White House — because long-sought increases in federal minimum wage laws brought about by a Democratic Congress finally raised the wage floor.

The reality is that a frightening number of Americans (we’ve heard as many as 86 percent) are just a paycheck or two away from being homeless. But not everybody is in such a precarious position. For those at the top, the economy is doing very well. The top 300,000 earners together receive almost as much income as the bottom 150 million.

Meanwhile, the dollar is tanking underneath the weight of debt the fiscally imprudent Bush administration is wracking up. My friends in Europe visit and marvel about their beer-purchasing-power — and likewise my old English professor warns that if I should really visit as I have been threatening, I “will find London expensive.”

That’s because the U.S. dollar has never been worth so few Euros, Yen, or Pounds. Curiously, the rise in any “real wage” income I might have experienced in the last decade seems to be escaping — since my money as a whole simply buys less than it did a few weeks ago.

What kind of bubble are they in over at the White House to be able to paint this economic picture as a rosy one — when in “real” terms, the U.S. is dancing with recession and the “fundamentals” — from the dollar to oil prices to inflation — are obviously not healthy?

There’s something about White House pronouncements these days that come off like offers from a three-card monte dealer.

Take the the political tussle over renewing the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program. The political grenade-throwing over CHIP continued this week in D.C.

The White House signaled its willingness to budge from its hard line and at least talk about raising CHIP eligibility above 200 percent of the poverty level. That’s about $40,000 a year for a family of four. Congress wants families earning up to 300 percent — roughly $62,000 for a family of four — eligible for CHIP.

The White House offer seemed like a first step toward compromise. But read the fine print.

Here’s the caveat: Under the White House offer, states could expand CHIP to families earning more than 200 percent if — and only if — the states first prove that at least 95 percent of kids from families earning below 200 percent were enrolled.

The White House contends this provision would ensure the poorest kids have access to CHIP before the program expands to wealthier families.

Sounds reasonable. But it’s a trap.

The 95 percent rule is an impossible standard. No state comes anywhere close to enrolling that high a percentage and no state likely ever will. Even if they tried, they couldn’t afford it — the president’s own budget doesn’t currently allocate enough money to enroll 95 percent of kids below 200 percent.

The 95 percent requirement is a backdoor way of keeping the program at 200 percent. And the administration knows it.

With disingenuous offers like that on the table, it’s a safe bet that the political bickering over CHIP will continue.