ustxtxb_obs_1987_05_15_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

, I, illY 6 ‘ I 1 I CO_ 1987 ___=—–1-WPEOP —=-N-‘g:1 =—=.7. —/liE iim ifill H ra -.111111111101w 110. I’ , I $ . I 111.1’4, I. ‘ Ill I 1 I 1 111111111111.” 11 il II I li . FOE V–7—–,:i3 _ -._ PRIE14v Itii ,7 “, til t 114111 —–=. :-.1t . – . CLA 4 I ____ ii . f / —‘-___, z_ —. –..- -,-.”..—.7—. – …:”=- “—-Z-_-__ . -7.—— —— — …— l.a, TETXDB …. -.. SERVER 01,Ncr ct NMI:41111g Vol. 79 No. 10 5 N -/41r ..,. May 15, 1987 Copyright 1987 by Texas Observer Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Material may not be reproduced t.ithout permission. PUBLISHER Ronnie Dugger EDITOR Dave Denison . ASSOCIATE EDITOR Louis Dubose EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Kathleen Fitzgerald CALENDAR: Kathleen Fitzgerald EDITORIAL INTERN: Joan Fereday WA.SHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Richard Ryan EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode. Kerr ville: Chandler Davidson. Houston; Bob Eckhardt. Washington, D.C.; Sissy Farenthold, Houston; Ruperto Garcia. Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith. Cam bridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham. N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly ‘I l vins, Dallas; Larry L. King, Washington. D.C.; Maury Maverick, Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris. Oxford, Miss.; Kaye Northcott, A _ustin; James Schwartz. GalveSion; Fred Schmidt. Fredericksburg.. Robert Sherrill, Tallahassee, Fla. CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Bill Adler, Betty Brink. Warren Burnett, Jo Clif ton, Craig Clifford. John Henry Faulk. Terry FitzPatrick, Bill Helmer, James Harrington. Jack Hopper. Amy Johnson. NIichael King. Dana Loy, Rick Piltz, Walsh. CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Vic Hinterlang, Bill Leissner, Alan Pogue. CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS:. Mark Antonucci. Etic Avery, Tom Ballenger, Jeff Danziger. Beth Epstein. Dan Huhig. Pat Johnson. Kevin Kreneck, Carlos Lowry. Miles Mathis. Joe McDermott. Ben Sargent, Dan Thibodeau. A journal of free voices We lull/ serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of humankind as the foundation of democracy: we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the power ful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we agree with them because this is a journal of free voices. Managing Publisher Cliff Olofson Subscription .Manager Stefan Wanstrom Office Manager Joe Espinosa Jr. Publishing .Consultant Frances Barton Development Consultant Hanno T. Beck 600 The Texas Observer , ‘the Texas Observer Publishing paid at Austin. Texas. Subscription rates, including 5 lift% sales tax: one sear $23. two years $42. three years and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Michigan 48106. not be reproduced without permission. POSTMASTER: Send form 3579 to: 600 West 28th Street. #105. Austin. Texas 78705. 2 MAY 1,, 1987 EDITORIAL The Republicans’ Last Stand NOW, LATE IN THE 70th session, there are welcome indications that the particular strain of Republicanism that Governor Bill Clements is trying to spread is apparently not infectious. The state is still blessed with a strong natural resistance, not the least of which comes from the Democratic business establishment. The governor’s recent 17-city budget bluster blitz didn’t seem to change anyone’s mind about the taxing and spending conundrums at hand. Though he talked of taking his message of “no new taxes” to the people at the grassroots, Clements spoke mostly to safe audiences at Republican clubs. It seemed as if the governor was having visions of Ronald Reagan in his head, thinking that by staging a media event and calling Democrats “big spenders” and “budget busters” \(and “prairie in and his agenda would triumph. But the Democrats who followed him around the state disputing his budget figures were able to steal some of his thunder. By and large, newspaper editorialists around the state did not support Clements. And in his abscence, both houses of the legislature passed a budget far exceeding what the governor said he would accept. The survival of the $39.4 billion two-year budget in the House of Representatives, the more conservative chamber, was especially telling because it spelled or should spell the death of the Republican idea when it comes to government spending. With 56 Republicans, the House is probably as conservative now as it has ever been. The House appropriations committee is chaired by conservative Democrat Jim Rudd of Brownfield, who once distinguished hiniself by telling the New York Times that there is unemployment in the Rio Grande Valley because “A lot of people in the Valley will not work,” and that “The taxpayer cannot take care of people who choose not to take care of themselves.” House Speaker Gib Lewis is by no stretch of the imagination anywhere to the left of Jim Rudd. And we have, in Bill Clements, a governor who is not just egging conservatives on, but who is demanding a Republican approach to the budget. And yet, despite all this, the state’s budget moved through the committee process, and then through the appropriations hearings, and then through the entire House, and the cuts simply could not be found to bring the budget anywhere near the $36.9 billion that Clements had insisted on. We have here a group of citizenlegislators who have inherited a tradition that has kept Texas at rock bottom in most categories of social spending and who are for the most part naturally inclined to keep it that way. These are people Republicans and Democrats alike who have been deeply influenced by the ideas that became fashionable in the “Reagan Revolution.” But they were not able to slash government spending. Not that the most hard-core among them didn’t make one last attempt when the spending bill came up on May 4. The governor’s leading henchman, Rep. Mike Toomey, R-Houston, tried to get the House to send the entire budget bill back to the appropriations committee with instructions to cut a few extra billion dollars out.