THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 4, 1996 TAG: 9602030003
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: PERRY MORGAN
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
It's hard to believe that only a year ago George Will and other conservative oracles were instructing us on how a great sea change had come over American politics. At last it was possible to see a path toward a balanced budget. The GOP takeover of Congress meant voters were tired of the federal nanny and political careerists, deficits and dependency, and, especially, Democrats.
Alas, there has been more movement than change. After sacking Bill Clinton time and again, Team Gingrich fumbled repeatedly, coughed up the ball on the one-yard line and reeled to hear Clinton, of all people, calling out their signals.
Then, amid mounting confusion, there ran upon the playing field a RABBIT which distracted attention entirely from the battle of the budget. The rabbit, otherwise known as the flat tax, was loosed by Malcolm Forbes, a rich Republican who decided one day that he wanted to be president and figured the flat tax would steal attention from Bob Dole and other presidential wannabes. So it has turned out.
Dole groused that Forbes has ``told everybody in America, if you've got a headache, the cure is the flat tax. If your feet hurt, the cure is the flat tax. If you don't want to pay any taxes, the cure is the flat tax.'' He's right, of course, but perhaps also desperate.
For being serious about controlling deficits, Dole has suffered before at the hands of his own party, and may again. Americans have said before they don't believe the budget can be balanced with tax cuts, but they've voted to try it and may again. So what if that fling with Ronald Reagan cost $1.6 trillion in new debt? Luck changes, doesn't it?
The only sure answer regarding the flat tax is that the lucky get luckier. People living off of interest, dividends and capital gains would pay no tax, thus realizing the wildest dreams of Daddy Warbucks. Industrialist Morry Taylor, a Republican candidate, noted that he would owe nothing on the $15 million in stock profits he collected last year while his employees, their deductions canceled, would owe full tax on their wages.
Forbes, a superb pitchman, argues simply that the flat tax will give everybody a tax break. And like any system, including the one in place, it can do just that if you (1) jigger the rates and (2) ignore the consequences. One result of a tax break for everybody is a bigger deficit - $182 billion a year bigger according to Robert Hall, co-author of The Flat Tax. In addition, there will be unforeseen consequences. Allan Sloan of Newsweek quotes Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, as saying businesses deprived of loopholes might try to compensate for their higher taxes by reducing wages or curbing future increases.
Ah, but these are mere details - beneath notice of a big-picture man like Forbes who speaks accusatorially of Dole and other candidates who've stooped to holding office and having political experiences.
Poor Dole. The road grows rockier and he looks older. Having put up with patriot Phil Gramm and his five draft deferments and his incessant talk of his ``Mama,'' and having held Big Newt's horse while Gingrich ran the revolution into the ground, he's suddenly besieged by Forbes who thinks the deficit is no big deal and wants to give the rich another glorious morning in America. Of the Republican leader, as Dole styles himself, Forbes says: ``Everything he's done for 35 years has been exactly the wrong training for the Oval Office.''
If the weary Dole can see past Forbes, he spies Clinton reborn as a small-government Republicrat busily taking notes on what Al Gore calls ``class warfare Republican style.'' Needless to say, the prophesied sea change is not yet complete, Clinton is not yet vanquished and the Republican Party has not yet found its voice. Too bad. Had Dole been calling the signals, he would have taken the victory that wasn't good enough for Gingrich's outfoxed freshmen. As matters stand, the deficit is more likely to rise than to fall. And a question also rises: If Dole is rejected, will the GOP become the party of Gingrich? MEMO: Mr. Morgan is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB