House

Republicans last week laid out their domestic agenda,

preempting the president, who presented his domestic

agenda shortly afterward.

(Interestingly,

CNN covered the GOP press conference, in which a program

called "lock box" for Social Security,

discussed in Congress for several months, was discussed.

But during the president's press conference Monday, CNN

maintained a headline under the president's face stating:

"President proposes `lock box' for Social

Security." They never quit.)

The

Republicans presented some good ideas. In fact, I find

myself in the unusual situation of being in favor of

every single one of them.

Here are

the main points of their presentation:

Use Social

Security and Medicaid taxes only for Social Security and

Medicaid. Previously, the government has borrowed against

the Social Security Trust Fund as a bookkeeping gimmick

to make the deficit look smaller. This would end that.

They make

it sound more dramatic than it is, saying they're going

to "lock away" Social Security funds so they

can't be used for anything else, as if someone were

trying to take money directly out of Social Security and

use it to pave an expressway somewhere. That's not the

case, but it's still the right thing to take the trust

fund out of the general flow of dollars so we can see

exactly how big the deficit is.

- Eliminate the death tax. This one

makes me want to cheer. The death tax is the most onerous

of taxes for two reasons: it taxes money that has already

been taxed during the lifetime of the deceased, and it

forces families to sell off assets after a patriarch or

matriarch passes away in order to pay the taxes.

Fayette

County has numerous farm families who will benefit if

this goes through. Currently, if a farm owner dies and

the land and buildings are worth enough money, his heirs

have to come up with cash to pay taxes on half of that

net worth. If the land is worth $5 million, not at all

out of the question in Fayette, the heirs have to come up

with $2.5 million cash. The only way out is to sell the

land and break up the farm.

That's not

right.

- General tax cuts. Republicans are

asking the president to join them in working for

reductions in overall taxes for a variety of reasons: to

stimulate the economy, to help middle class workers, to

encourage those who want to be stay-home moms or dads...

But the biggest reason is a simple one: taxes are too

high. Taking half of everything a family earns is not

right. Period.

- Eliminate the marriage tax penalty.

Married couples who both work currently pay more taxes

than they would if they were single, paying separately.

It's not the biggest problem the country is facing, but

it should be fixed.

- Education savings accounts. You

wouldn't have to pay taxes on the interest on money

you're saving for education. We shouldn't pay taxes on

savings interest at all, but this is a good step in the

right direction.

- Education programs that help fund

local boards of education rather than using all the money

to support Washington bureaucracies and task forces. A

bunch of egg heads meeting in some posh congressional

committee room somewhere cannot possibly figure out how

to make education better in Fayette County. They just

can't.

- Increased funding for the military.

We've been over this one several times before.

One thing

is glaringly missing from the GOP agenda: a balanced

budget amendment. I know they don't have the votes to get

it through the House, but in my opinion Republicans

should put it on the agenda and vote on it every year if

necessary until there are enough like-minded people in

Washington to get it passed.

If we get a

Republican in the White House next election, and if we

maintain the Republican Congress, we'll probably make

some real progress in the direction of a truly balanced

budget, and get some tax relief in the process. But we

won't be truly free from the whims of some future

spend-happy Congress until we state in the Constitution

that the Congress can't spend money it doesn't have.

Still, if

Republican leaders will keep pushing good, common sense

ideas like this, they'll have a good chance in the 2000

elections.

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