MISSOURI COMMENTARY: THERE WAS ONLY ONE R. REAGAN

"It's the economy, stupid," proclaimed James Carville, Clinton's chief 1992 campaign guru. Indeed, it was. It's the economy that has been the dominant and decisive issue in 20th Century American presidential politics. Every once in a while a war or some other diversion pops up, but place your bet on the economy as to what will most influence the outcome in the run for the White House.

Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, and George Bush can all attest to this political truism. Hoover was ousted by the Great Depression. Carter has a couple of big problems -- including the Iranian hostage crisis -- but it was stagflation and 20 percent prime interest rates that were his principal undoing. Bush plummeted form a 90 percent approval rating to defeat because the economy was in recession and the recovery didn't manifest itself soon enough to rescue him.

As of now, Clinton's economy is the stuff of a winner. Unemployment is down. Inflation is down. The "misery index" (unemployment plus inflation) is extremely low -- lower than any time since the 1960s. The federal deficit is 1.9 percent of gross domestic product; it was 4.9 percent in 1992.

Remember back in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was debating Carter and asked, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" That question is now a part of almost any presidential election poll. Last week's NBC poll had 46 percent responding yes, I am better-off; 20 percent no, I am worse-off. When Clinton ran against Bush in 1992, the worse-off number was significantly larger than the better-off.

All of this means that Dole has to come up with an economic counter-strategy, preferably a blockbuster. How about these? Things appear to be pretty good, but I can do better. Tepid. Things appear to be pretty good, but a Clinton economic disaster is right around the corner. Won't sell.

An economic bombshell. A massive tax cut -- the second coming of Supply Side. If only for lack of a better alternative, Dole is about to dive head first into Voodoo II. This is what Speaker Newt Gingrich and Jack Kemp are urging Dole to do.

For all of his political career, Dole has been a balance-the-budget type. He has, on occasion, even supported higher taxes when he thought it was necessary to reduce deficits.

As Herb Stein, chief economic adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, puts it, Republicans seem poised to repackage the lovely notion that the more you lower taxes, the more tax revenue comes in via the stimulated economy. Supply-side economics was holy scripture to Reagan. When he came into office, the federal debt was 26.8 percent of gross domestic product. Today it's 50 percent plus -- and climbing.

Supply side economics failed in 1981 and, with an even greater debt now generated, it would fail in 1997. Supply side deficits grew from $79 billion in 1981 to $207 billion in 1985 to $290 in 1992. Stein writes, "We could afford Ronald Reagan once. We can't afford him again."

Dole knows the Forbes flat tax at 17 percent would be a budgetary catastrophe. "Snake oil," Dole called it in the Iowa caucus. So all he's got left is some re-processed Reaganomics: lower rates, dropping the top rate from 39 percent to 28 percent; reducing capital gain tax; tax-free savings accounts; easing the "marriage tax." While promising mega billions in tax outs, he has to make a bunch of promises: not to touch Social Security; no huge whacks at Medicare; increase defense spending; no cuts for veterans; no cuts in law enforcement or narcotics control; strong support for research, training and education; continued protection of the environment.

It won't work. You cannot tax cut yourself into a balanced budget.

Bill Clinton will not be caught off guard. He's ready to play in the tax-cutting contest. When Dole was prepared to repeal the gas tax, Clinton was right there with a "count me in." Clinton has never seen an offer he couldn't seek to match. He has some tax tidbits of his own directed towards college education. For Clinton, there is no concept too small to advocate. In lost revenues, Clinton's proposals are chicken feed compared to the upcoming Dole cuts.

Dole knows that he will find precious few economists who are willing to support an across-the-board tax cut as the way to increase federal revenues. But fiscal prudence and austerity aren't the way you run for president. "If that's what you want, I'll be another Ronald Reagan," Dole once said. There was only one Ronald Reagan.

~Tom Eagleton of St. Louis is a former U.S. senator from Missouri.