Believe me,

I'm in favor of a tax cut... a big one... the bigger the

better.

But if the

Republican Party is banking on a fight with President

Clinton over the size of its proposed tax cut to carry

the day in the 2000 elections, I fear for the future.

Most people

favor a tax cut. I don't need anybody's poll to tell me

that. Taxes eat us alive as we try to take care of the

necessities and have a little left over to enjoy the

fruits of an economy that can crank out some really

interesting and fun quality-of-life enhancers.

But most

people also, wrongly in my opinion, favor a small tax

cut, a gradual tax cut.

The reason

people favor the wrong approach to tax cutting is that

they have bought the media hype, fed by both parties in

Congress and the president, that there is a budget

surplus. They also buy the argument of one particular

party that we should "save Social Security" and

accomplish some other wish-list items before we, the

taxpayers, get to cash in on these supposed good times.

First,

there is no budget surplus. There is a projected surplus based on

current spending levels. If Congress changes hands in

2000, there will never be a surplus, and there's no

absolute guarantee that Republicans won't go crazy and

spend it all either. So we're arguing about how to spend

a fantom windfall that may or may not ever exist.

Second, the

president once again is winning the rhetorical war by

making a statement that is undeniably correct... if you

accept the premise that it's based on. He argues for

"saving Social Security" rather than passing a

tax cut, as if the two were mutually exclusive, and as if

the long-term goal should be "saving" the

program, i.e. putting enough money into it to keep it

going just as it is.

We need to

do away with Social Security, but even if we decide to

keep this obsolete program as it is, we can fund it and

still begin taking realistic steps toward whittling taxes

down to a long-term, sustainable, reasonable level that

doesn't force everyone with a five-figure or less income

to struggle his or her entire life just to render unto

Caesar that which Caesar has no right to require.

If we

reduce taxes, the economy is stimulated so that the

revenue generated by the lower tax rates increases. It

may not increase enough to completely wipe out the

effects of the cut, but the final result is certainly not

a simple subtraction problem.

And if

there is indeed a reduction in revenue from the tax cut,

that's even better because at that point maybe the

politicians won't occupy all their waking hours looking

for ways to "spend" the surplus.

And if you

think having a Republican Congress will keep that from

happening, think again. Republicans have to get reelected

just as Democrats do, and part of getting reelected is to

keep the money flowing to the district.

Now I've

spent most of this column arguing for a big tax cut, and

I said at the top that Republicans shouldn't put too many

eggs in that basket. Here's what I would propose, if

anybody asked me.

Go ahead

and cut back on the tax cut. You're not going to get a

big one past the president anyway, and after he vetoes it

and you come back with a smaller one that he'll accept,

he'll use the situation to crow about having saved Social

Security from those crazy Republicans and their

"risky" tax cut plan.

Get the tax

cut in place, and then get serious about a balanced

budget amendment. Push harder than you've every pushed

for it. Explain through the press, and through

advertising if you can't get the press's attention, that

the only way to protect the American people from the

natural effects of political back-scratching (you scratch

mine, I'll scratch yours) is to make deficit spending

illegal.

And make

Social Security reform - not "saving"

business as usual - the number one issue in 2000.

Retired people who are living on Social Security have

been robbed, pure and simple, and today's work force is

being robbed too. That case would be so easy to make that

even GOP speech writers should be able to figure it out.

Another

suggestion: Citizens Against Government Waste, a

nonpartisan group that spends all its time studying the

federal budget to find the fat, has identified a bunch of

useless, obsolete programs and says that if they were

cut, we would save $1.2 trillion over five years. Check

it out at www.cagw.org, or call 1-800-BE ANGRY.

Republicans

should thoroughly study CAGW's suggestions - they

don't have to accept them all, but identify a few hundred

billion worth that they can reasonably stand behind

- and introduce bill after bill after bill getting

rid of those programs. Then when the president vetoes all

of them, there will be plenty of issues to run on in

2000.

There's

plenty more that can be done if the thinkers in the GOP

will broaden their horizons a little. If that doesn't

happen, we'll see a repeat of `98.

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