FEDERAL BUDGET: A MORAL CASE FOR TAX CUTS

Early hints on President Clinton's fiscal year 1999 budget are that he will nix altogether any broad-based tax cuts. Any such proposals are "reckless and irresponsible," says White House aide Rahm Emmanuel, one of the president's incredibly youthful aides, in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Well. Perhaps if Mr. Emmanuel -- or for that manner the president he serves -- had ever run a business, instead of spending their entire lives in politics, the two of them might have a slightly different perspective. Too many in the political class don't grasp the fact that Americans are today laboring under the heaviest tax burden in our history. This includes pretty much everyone in the upper reaches of the Clinton administration.

In 1950, the average American family paid to the federal government approximately 2 percent of its income in taxes. Today that same, middle class family pays approximately 25 percent of its income in federal taxes. This is obscene. Many family problems, from sending a second wage earner into the job market even when there are young children at home, to finding good child care, are at bottom a financial pinch brought about by grossly excessive taxation.

With an election year looming, Clinton's slamming the door shut on across-the-board tax relief yields for congressional Republicans an historic opportunity. They need only seize it and begin making, this week and every week, the overwhelming moral and economic case for tax cuts on working Americans. The GOP might just find lots of voters listening. But Republicans can't just experience another October conversion. They need to start now and keep it up week in and week out till November.