ASHCROFT'S TAX PLAN DESERVES ATTENTION

Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft was in Cape Girardeau last week, touting what he calls his "New Beginning" plan for reform of the federal tax code. Ashcroft says Americans are burdened by high taxes and by a tax system that is unfair and out of control. The senator says the average two-income family pays 38 percent of its income in taxes and works until May 10 to pay all taxes at the federal, state and local levels.

Ashcroft cites the fact that today's federal tax code contains five million words, up from "only" 744,000 words in 1954. This is truly an abomination.

The Ashcroft plan would abolish the $29 billion tax penalty on marriage and end the double taxation of middle-class Americans who pay income taxes and payroll taxes on the same earnings. Other key portions of the Ashcroft tax plan include the following:

* Reduce the income tax to only 10 percent for three out of four taxpayers.

* For income above the current taxable wage base for Social Security, currently $68,400, a 25 percent rate would apply. This rate compares with the 40 percent rate these taxpayers now face.

* Reductions in taxes on savings and investment.

* Abolition of levies on estates, or "death taxes."

* Includes deductions for home ownership, charitable giving and health care.

Ashcroft says his plan will reduce federal taxes by nearly $1.7 trillion over five years. An analysis by the Heritage Foundation, a private, not-for-profit organization, concluded that the Ashcroft plan would create two million jobs over five years and lead to a permanent increase of 1.5 percent in the Gross Domestic Product.

Ashcroft is clearly on to something here. It is worth noting that Republican prospects for gains in this year's elections started to head south as soon as congressional leaders threw in the towel on tax cuts last month. Republican gains in today's elections won't be as large as they should have been had they kept tax cuts at the forefront of their campaign. Across the country, Republican candidates who have continued featuring tax cuts as their campaigns' centerpiece stand to do well, while their counterparts who are silent on these crucial pocketbook issues are falling short.

Nationally syndicated columnist Robert Novak, writing on election eve, pointed to the potency of the tax-cut issue in tight race for governor of Minnesota. "In Minnesota," writes Novak, "St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman, a recent Republican convert and the party's nominee for governor, was the common target all summer of five candidates competing in the Democratic Farmer-Labor primary. Battered and bruised, Coleman fell way behind the primary winner, State Attorney General Hubert H. Humphrey III.

"But Coleman pulled even with Humphrey by using this message: `Only one candidate will deliver on a permanent, across-the-board tax cut. ... Coleman cut taxes every year. Now, he'll do it for all of us.'"

Novak concludes: "That is the only tested antidote to the (Democratic) attack virus, and Republicans who didn't deploy it may perish on Tuesday."

The insightful Mr. Novak is right, as is John Ashcroft. Missouri's junior senator finds himself about 15 months into an exploratory effort to determine whether he will make the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. It is a pity that more Republican leaders seem to have forgotten the lessons of the 1980s, taught us so brilliantly by Ronald Reagan, that tax cuts are winners with voters. We haven't had any real tax cuts since the Gipper gave us his second round, back in 1986. It is time again for bold new action in that direction, and the Ashcroft plan sounds like the great "New Beginning" we need.