GOP Should Call Clinton on Tax Plans

Welcome to 1998. Now start keeping your new tax records.

If you don’t know which records to keep, don’t be too hard on yourself--no one else knows, either. That’s because we are witnessing a confusing dialogue between the president and the Congress, the end result of which is currently a great mystery.

The precursors of the tax debate are two related events that occurred last year. First, Republicans swept the handful of 1997’s off-year elections because they had a superior message of lower taxes. And congressional hearings exposed widespread mistreatment of taxpayers by IRS bureaucrats seemingly unconcerned about their devastation of innocent citizens. Thus, the Republican leadership announced its intentions to cut taxes and reform the IRS in the new session of Congress.

The stage was set for this new year, and Bill Clinton responded by sending signals that he, too, might offer up tax cuts in 1998. Yet in recent weeks, Clinton’s sensitive political antennae have been engaged, and his position has become more tentative.

In his year-end press conference, Clinton was noncommittal about announcing tax cuts in this month’s State of the Union address. And he dispatched his aides to fuzz things up even further. White House economic advisor Gene Sperling said the president would offer no overhaul of the tax code. On the other hand, he wouldn’t “rule out” some type of major reform if it met the president’s criteria of being fair and good for the economy, not increasing the deficit and making the system simpler. Acting as Clinton’s cat’s paw, Sperling added in clear reference to Republican tax cut proposals: “Many of them would take away very popular deductions like the home mortgage deduction.”

Republicans have thus been fairly warned of Clinton’s classic liberal strategy in the coming weeks--divide and conquer through class warfare. Claims that the sacred home mortgage deduction might be threatened is a signal that the left is prepared to use demagoguery to defeat Republican proposals for tax simplification.

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Clinton’s approach is unsurprising; it is one he has perfected over the years. After embracing the general principle of popular legislation and reform, he will stand aside to watch his adversaries first expose their position. In this case, Republicans have been all over the lot with such vastly different proposals as broad tax cuts, a national sales tax, a flat tax and assorted targeted cuts such as ending the onerous and unfair marriage penalty.

Clinton’s ploy is to hug and squeeze the rhetoric of change, reform and “fairness cuts” while watching Republicans engage in a circular firing squad. Clinton will select the proposals most susceptible to attack and position himself for the poor and the middle class against the “rich, the privileged and the greedy.”

But now that Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich know what the Democratic strategy is, they can move to finesse it. The congressional majority should compel the president to engage in the historic tradition embodied by the aphorism: The president proposes and the Congress disposes. They should force the president to show his hand by praising him for seeing the light through his embrace of tax cuts and reform. Then they can announce that they eagerly await his precise proposals to achieve those ends.

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Each day, week and month that passes without a proposal from the executive branch would provide an opportunity for Republicans to seize the high ground, claiming that Clinton’s espousal of taxpayer-friendly change is all talk and no action.

Republicans could further goad the president by reminding Americans of traditional Democratic disdain for cutting taxes. After all, it was Clinton, last year, who claimed that Virginia voters would be “selfish” if they voted for the anti-car tax Republican, Jim Gilmore. Democratic Minority Leader Tom Daschle complemented Clinton by saying: “I don’t think many people are overtaxed.” And of course there is Barbara Boxer’s advice to “kiss the ground if you have to pay taxes.”

The American people want and deserve lower taxes and real reform of an outdated and punitive tax code. They will not get it if Clinton and his tax-loving confreres are allowed to thwart those goals by dint of superior positioning and maneuvering.

Sometimes Willie is slick only because he is allowed to be. It needn’t happen this time.