NATIONAL SALES TAX, FLAT TAX IDEAS GAIN SERIOUS INTEREST

Eying the 1996 elections, House Republicans are laying the groundwork for radical changes in the nation's tax code. Support for a flat tax has intensified since the idea first was floated by House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas.

Now Armey's GOP cohort in Texas, Rep. Bill Archer, chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, has upped the ante, declaring the income tax "too broken to be fixed."

Last week, Archer assembled more than 40 reform advocates to testify before his committee about the evils of the tax system. The Texas congressman would replace the income tax with a broad-based tax on individual and business consumption spending, with exemptions for medical and some housing expenses. For good measure, Archer wants to repeal the 16th Amendment, which authorizes the income tax.

Revenue alternatives to the income tax include a national sales tax, possibly in combination with some type of value-added tax levied at all levels of production.

There isn't likely to be any major overhaul of the tax system until after the 1996 election. But surely Archer has a winning campaign strategy in insisting that any reform meet four objectives: eliminate individual tax returns, encourage savings, catch tax cheaters and promote U.S. exports. Certainly the existing tax code fails on each of the criteria.

Armey, who has championed a flat income tax, stands as the primary Republican rival to Archer's plan. But either proposal would dispose of the current, woefully flawed tax code. Those two ideas stand in stark contrast to Democratic proposals based on "tax fairness" that penalize achievement and subsidize non-productivity.

Many Democrats are portraying the effort to eliminate the income tax as part of a Republican campaign to reduce dramatically the size and scope of the federal government and to shift responsibility for social services to state and local government. They have it exactly right. Unfortunately, they are on the wrong side of the issue, opposing reform every step of the way.

But rest assured, radical tax reform is an idea that is long overdue. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and Senate Majority Leader and presidential hopeful Bob Dole, R-Kan., have appointed a GOP commission to recommend a tax reform plan in time for next year's primaries.

A flat income tax or elimination of the income tax -- and the behemoth Internal Revenue Service -- plays well in Peoria. That commonsense values are far removed from the too often status quo mentality that prevails in Washington indicates this won't be a bloodless battle.

But wage it Congress must if its members are to ride the tide of populist change that continues to sweep the nation since the 1994 fall election.