DOLE'S TAX CUT

In announcing a bold tax-cutting agenda, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole chose Monday to "side with the optimists," as The Wall Street Journal phrased the matter this week. Finally, what has been up to now a lackluster contest has at its center an issue worthy of a great presidential campaign. The issue is joined between a GOP challenger pledging Reaganesque tax relief for working Americans and an incumbent who warns against "returning to the failed policies of the 1980s."

President Bill Clinton just may live to rue the day he invited comparisons with the most successful economic program of recent history. Somehow, the national Democratic Party and its cheering section in the mainstream media don't get it: In the main, the American people loved Ronald Reagan, in no small part because his tax cuts restored them to the status of majority shareholders in their own incomes. Dole should welcome the comparison the Clintons have invited all Americans to consider.

In sum, Dole proposes:

* A 15 percent, across-the-board cut in marginal tax rates on all Americans, phased in over three years.

* A $500 per child family tax credit for children under 18, which could then be invested in a tax-free account toward future college expenses.

* Halving the capital gains tax rate, from the current, punishingly high 28 percent to 14 percent.

* Repeal of the Clinton administration's 1993 tax increase on beneficiaries of Social Security.

* An expansion of Individual Retirement Accounts.

* Work toward fundamental overhaul of the tax code and toward elimination of the Internal Revenue Service.

Reviewing the Dole tax agenda point by point, most Americans might find themselves wondering, "What's not to like?" As they listen to the debate, Americans should keep in mind one crucial fact: In 1950, the average working family sent 3 percent of its gross income off to the federal tax collectors in Washington. Today, that same family sends approximately 25 percent. Any doubt as to why middle-class anxiety persists in the face of the fifth year of a weak recovery should be dispelled in light of this fact. No wonder two incomes can barely do the job that one income could in the 1950s: One earner in every two-income household works almost entirely for the government.

Dole has impeccable credentials as a deficit hawk. He is pledging vigilance on the spending side of the kind never exercised by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives during the 1980s. As presented this week, his economic program is very nearly a 10-strike. If he presses it daily between now and Nov. 5, a contest many have written off as over in July is likely to become an interesting one indeed.