BE OUR GUEST: CONGRESS MUST CUT SPENDING, REDUCE TAXES FAMILIES PAY

Julia A. Kridelbaugh resides in Cape Girardeau. She is a graduate of Southeast Missouri State University and has written on issues that affect the American family.

President Clinton's newly unveiled economic plan may appear to be a step in the right direction for the reduction of the national deficit and economic reform, but unfortunately the step treads on the tax paying American families. Congress under various administrations has refused to make the real changes that will decrease our national deficit and give our American families the tax fairness they deserve. It is a virtual crime for any one American to be made to pay one cent more in taxes until government waste is eliminated and government spending is drastically reduced. Families already have been tightening their belts; now, if President Clinton's proposals are enacted by Congress families will be squeezed.

The U.S. government spends 42-44 cents out of every dollar American taxpayers earn. Now we are told to "give" more but the spending in the government continues and programs are continually invented that require more and more tax dollars to support.

According to President Clinton's proposed energy tax increases, by 1996 there will be an increase to 7.5 cents a gallon on gasoline, 8.33 cents per gallon on heating oil, and 26.5 cents per million cubic feet on natural gas (N.Y. Times News Service figures). Union Electric alone has reported the BTU tax in Missouri will cost every man, woman, and child around $51 a year (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb. 19,1993).

Virtually all working tax paying American families will have to pay increased taxes on energy. In fact, according to President Clinton's current plan, government officials state that tax increases will begin with families making $20,000 (Source: David Broder, St. Louis Post-Di~spatch, Feb. 24, 1993).

The whole tax increase picture must be visualized. Along with the proposed increase in personal income taxes and energy taxes, taxpayers may have a new proposed national sales tax along with their own local and state taxes. The combined effect of all these taxes will take a toll on American families who are already struggling to exist.

Other tax impacts on the American family may include the effects of the new tax proposals on small businesses which are in many cases also small family owned businesses. According to Terry Hill, spokesman for the National Federation of Independent Business in Washington, D.C., the new tax proposals allow big businesses to take advantage of tax breaks for R & D, real estate, and job training that small businesses can not. Mr. Hill also notes that paperwork will double for small businesses along with a 3 to 5 percent increase in payroll and personal taxes.

Another proposed change in the new economic proposal could also be harmful to American families. This is a proposed cut in the entertainment tax deductions from 80 percent to 50 percent. Some restaurant owners have said that they would expect, as a result, a loss of business and thus a reduction in staff that could number in the thousands across the country. The loss of so many unskilled labor positions could effect working low and low middle class families drastically. Increased taxes and cuts in tax deductions could tear average families apart and dysfunctional families will fail to function at all.

What can be done to restore a pro-family balance between our government and it's citizens? A combined spending restraint and tax cuts, not tax increases is the answer.

Proposals that would attain tax fairness to families would include:

* Procedures adopted by Congress to identify and cut pork barrel spending.

* Privatize any federal services that can be performed at lower cost by the private sector.

~* Give the president line item veto over costly spending bills. The GAO estimates this could have saved $71 billion from 1984-1989 if it had been voted in by Congress.

* Place limits on spending growth by Congress. Families are subjected to these limits every day.

~* Reduce waste in government without raising taxes. Last year $166.6 billion could have been saved. This accounts for 34.8 percent of all personal federal ~income taxes.

*~ Adopt a balanced budget amendment with tax limitation.

* Double the tax exemption for children to bring it in line with the 1993 cost of living standards.

All of these measures would save billions of dollars together, although, cutting waste may be the single most important savings. More than one-third of the $478.8 billion or so in personal income taxes collected last year went to waste in government according to a leading national taxpayers network.

~National poll by pollster Mark Clements, found that over 80 percent of the Americans surveyed are concerned about spending in general and 79 percent felt that taxes should be cut and that certain programs should have spending cuts or be eliminated.

If we could eliminate, according to last years figures, the $166.6 billion of wasteful spending we could provide for a $1,500 tax credit for every pre-school child and $1,000 in tax credit for every schoolage child in America, and a $1,000 in tax credit could be provided for every household without children. Also by cutting the $166.6 billion in waste we could also reduce the cumulative 5 year deficit by about $375 billion. How? Tax credits and reductions can be accomplished by reducing family taxes thus decreasing the federal revenues each year (Rector, "Reducing the Financial Burden," pp. 27-38).

By reducing taxes on those without children we would further lower the federal revenues (there are an estimated 31.8 million households without children according to the National Bureau of Census). E~liminating these revenues and eliminating government waste by at least $166.6 billion per year, Congress could provide $92 billion in tax relief and lower the deficit by almost $75 billion every year (Citizens Against Government Waste, 1992).

Raising taxes with continued government spending will hurt American families more and will do little to help future generations. It must be realized now, that the U.S. Congress must stop spending and reduce the amount of federal taxes that families must pay.