KINDER'S COMMENTARY: TAX PLAN OFFERS PLENTY OF GOOD IDEAS

Let's take a break from wallowing in Whitewater and Travelgate to discuss specifics of the proposed radical overhaul of our nation's tax system announced this past week by former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp. Last year, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich appointed Kemp to head a panel charged with investigating how to make our tax system flatter, fairer and above all, simpler. Kemp's panel spent months conducting hearings around America and listening to testimony, especially from capital-starved minority entrepreneurs in the inner city.

In the report issued Wednesday, the Kemp commission didn't endorse a specific rate of taxation on incomes. Such specificity, commissioners properly believe, is for the legislative process on Capitol Hill. Let's look at what they did recommend:

-- A single rate of income taxation for all Americans that shouldn't exceed 20 percent.

-- Exemption for all low-income Americans from paying any income taxes, the better to help them climb out of low-income status and into the middle-class.

-- An end to all taxation of interest on savings or dividend income, as well as the elimination of capital gains, to stimulate savings and economic growth. Capital gains taxes are those paid on the sale of assets that have increased in value, such as stocks, bonds and real estate.

-- Allowing federal payroll taxes to be fully deductible for employers and employees alike. The current system allows employers to deduct half their payroll tax; employees can't deduct a penny.

-- Adoption of a constitutional amendment to require a two-thirds super-majority to raise taxes.

-- Elimination of estate taxes.

This is truly bold, bracing, even intoxicating stuff. It is the sort of thing that is worth getting excited about, the stuff of a truly great campaign. It was a thrilling sight at Wednesday's press conference to watch as Kemp, flanked by Dole and Gingrich, swept a huge stack of federal tax regulations off the table, into the wastebasket.

A symbolic media event for public relations? Sure. But make no mistake: These Republican tax reformers believe they are onto something. They are committed to radical reform of our tax code and they are serious.

In this resolve they acknowledge a crucial lesson of leadership: It is frequently easier and more effective to drive for sweeping reforms of the wholesale, root-and-branch variety than it is to effect piecemeal, half-measures. Democratic demagoguery about protecting the rich is as certain to follow as tomorrow's sunrise, but today's GOP leadership displays the confidence and serenity of Mark Twain's famous "Christians with four aces." Such charges have been a staple of Democratic rhetoric since the New Deal. The Kemp-Dole-Gingrich response will be to keep the current tax code in their sights. As one colorful politician once phrased the matter, "If you're gonna get accused of horse thievin', why take just one? Why not lasso every pony in the barnyard?"

Dole and Gingrich promise hearings up on the Hill. GOP support is far from monolithic. There is disagreement within the party, as is inevitable with so bold a departure from decades of encrusted special-interest pleading. Hold your triggers down, guys. Listen to all, accommodate where you can all legitimate concerns, but don't waver in your resolve to enact the broad design. Fortune favors the bold. This one, you can win and win big.

Peter Kinder is the association publisher of the Southeast Missourian and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.