CAMPAIGN ’88 : Form Taxing for Simon

Illinois Sen. Paul Simon, taking a shot at Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, said Tuesday Americans are finding the new tax law has not made filling out tax forms any easier.

Simon’s views on the tax law mark “a very, very fundamental difference” between him and Gephardt, he told reporters at a homeless shelter in Manchester, N.H.

Gephardt was a key proponent of tax change among congressional Democrats and speaks proudly of his role in passing the 1986 Tax Reform Act. That measure cut tax rates, wiped out or reduced many deductions and was hailed, at least in the early stages, as likely to simplify tax returns for millions of Americans.

“Any of you who has started filling out the forms, it is not simplification,” Simon said to appreciative chuckles from some of the audience at a breakfast event at an Amherst, N.H., restaurant. “And the nation is coming to understand it is not tax reform either.”

“For those of you who are filling out your tax forms, I was one of the three who voted against that bill,” he said.

While Simon was criticizing Gephardt, Bruce Babbitt was criticizing Simon for advancing a deficit-reduction plan that does not add up. “Well, you run the numbers on his plan and the computer would go ‘clunk’ because there ain’t no numbers,” he said. “It doesn’t add up and it’s not a serious attempt to deal with the issue,” the former Arizona governor said in an Associated Press interview in Washington.

Babbitt said his own plan for a national sales tax could be implemented in a way that would prevent any burden on lower-income people.

And finally, another Democratic contender, Gary Hart, repeated his call for the other candidates to submit their budget and tax plans now, and called for a tax on imported oil and an income tax surcharge on wealthy income Americans.

“You’d better find out where they’re going to cut and where they’re going to tax and where they’re going to spend, before they go into office,” he said in Fayetteville, N.C.