RIGHT OF CENTER: BIG TASK: CUTTING TAXES AND SPENDING

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., announced this week he plans to unveil a deficit-reduction proposal next week that omits tax cuts celebrated by the GOP in their stunning election sweep last November.

The Senate Budget Committee dictates to a great extent congressional debate on such matters as taxes and spending. To say conservatives are upset with Domenici would be a profound understatement. Why do these Republicans think they were elected anyway? To go back on their word? Do the now majority Republicans want voters to treat them as they did George Bush when he waffled on taxes?

It isn't enough to serve the American people a sugar-free, caffeine-free, light version of the same poisoned buffet that has sickened our economy. The voters want that revolting table overturned and the banquet hall itself burned to the ground.

And yet we hear the same zero-sum game cliches about balancing the budget: "I don't believe the people I'm in contact with want a tax cut before you get a balanced budget," Domenici said in an interview with The Associated Press.

But there is no good reason we can't have both. In the words of Ronald Reagan, "We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we tax too little. We have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much." That spending has increased our nation's debt to about $3 trillion since then-President Reagan made his memorable statement.

The only way to balance the federal budget and pay off our nation's staggering accumulated debt is by eliminating unnecessary federal agencies and departments, cutting congressional staffs, salaries and perks and slashing spending virtually across the board. The many entitlement programs we're now financing are among the fastest growing and most expensive in the budget. Taxpayers need to make politicians aware that the only reason programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are considered hands-off entitlements is because Congress made it so. Congress can just as easily remove the sacred designation.

But won't cutting taxes only add to the problem? Not necessarily. If the tax code remains essentially the same, with only minor rate reductions accorded a segment of taxpayers under the guise of middle-class tax relief, there indeed will likely be less revenue for federal coffers. Insignificant tinkering with the tax code isn't the answer to our nation's budget woes. Imagine, though, what would happen if Congress adopted something more radical, such as a flat income tax or, better yet, a national sales tax in lieu of any income tax. Imagine also what would happen if Congress issued a cease-and-desist order to the myriad bureaucrats meddling in the marketplace with their arduous regulations.

This nation would see -- as it glimpsed from 1982 to 1989 -- unparalleled economic expansion. The key to unleashing the kind of economic activity that, with a corresponding cut in spending, would balance the budget and begin to whittle away the national debt is to change the incentives of taxpayers and businesses.

By eliminating graduated tax rates for wealthy Americans, for example, we would remove a disincentive to earn that not only punishes achievement but robs the Treasury of needed revenue. By the same token, if we remove subsidies for unproductive businesses and individuals, while maintaining a much lower threshold of safety-net social spending, we can impose an incentive for the poor to shake off the government security blanket that thwarts their access to the American Dream.

By lowering taxes and regulations on businesses -- from Mom-and-Pop storefront operations to the largest corporations -- we would ensure the creating of a steady stream of private-sector jobs that would continue to feed the economy.

Such radical changes would produce casualties, though. The poverty pimps in Washington, whose power derives from the underprivileged poor they keep down on the welfare plantation, and the well-meaning bureaucrats, whose livelihood depends on the creeping intrusion of government, certainly would risk extinction. So, too, would the liberals who, having held the reins of power for decades, apparently continue to hold sway over the likes of the Republican who chairs the Senate Budget Committee.

~Jay Eastlick is the news editor of the Southeast Missourian.