European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 8, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes August 1985 columns William Buckley heres a bet Reagan won veto a fax on open there is among conservatives a Strong temptation to say that a tax is a tax is a tax and that therefore no proposed tax should be and such Funda mentalism is presumptively the tax that Cut up on your Lap like a Kitten leaves you scarred even if you never feel the Ronald Reagan for years in quite that the blow to limited government was the tax withholding scheme dreamed up during the second world Many americans psychologically accept their net salary As their and Are therefore relatively docile on the matter of the existing level of having said As clearly some taxes arc to be preferred Over user for for luxury items jewelry can be but for some items Medicine the demand is and any general Levy can raise predictable sums of Revenue and Are regressive in effect Rich men and poor men cat the same amount of need the same amount of pen the proposed tax on foreign Oil appeals in part be cause the demand for fuel is to some extent elastic fewer americans would drive about aimlessly if fuel costs were to some extent inelastic you can turn Down the heal in the but you cannot turn it but what appeals most about a tax on fuel is surely the open it is to some extent in disc we acknowledge Many of its notably and Are cheating by Selling Oil at less than the Price the Cartel has now it is especially important to Bear in Dur ing a season when the clamor for protectionism Heigh the difference Between a tax on foreign Oil and a tax on foreign thirteen countries Are actively engaged in a conspiracy to maintain the Price of Oil at an artificial such a practice within the United would put its practitioners in a proper reply to a Cartel is economic and till Best kind of providential is both easy and lucrative a tax on foreign How much Revenue would this bring it is hard to say because it is hard to predict to what extent Ameri can Consumers would Rise to pay the higher to what extent they would conserve their use of a one cent increase in the Price of a gallon of assuming there were no diminution in the use of brings in billion in but it is important Here to weigh the psychological Benefit of our deficit there is nothing else to commend namely the braking Power on fresh spending by All revenues from such a tax should be ded by Law they should be required to flow William Safire toward the reduction of the Bear in mind that when the 1982 tax was being its advocates promised that for every extra tax Dollar three government spending dollars would be it proved to be not three to but 60 cents to one Dollar Many suggestions Are before including the myriad proposals got up by the Grace All reductions Are unpalatable to to some it is reassuring that the suggestion that indexation be either repealed or else reduced to biennial instead of annual indexation is meeting with less favor than one would the new York which if Ever it criticized its candidate Walter Mondale for promising to repeal indexation did so so noiselessly As to escape general wrote in its editorial on new the to raise proposes to do it indexation Only in eve numbered letting bracket creep take its hidden bite in the years be this Fli Flam is particularly tempting because its but indexation is the fairest tax measure Congress has enacted in diluting it would be the i wish i had said that and come to think of i Ronald Reagan is a master and Al though he has endorsed a comprehensive Bill with numerous suggestions for cuts in both taxes and he has not become a Champion of specific he has gone to the other end As the Champion of no new let he says in decide on which cuts to heres betting he would not veto a dedicated tax on open note not mexican c 1985 Universal press Syndicate Advance Nof peace negotiations Are always Good in right if the Middle Oast peace process is moved who can complain that is the attitude of our state departments near East which seems to enjoy getting seduced and then double crossed every few years by Jordans King negotiation itis is tempting our diplomats into an intervention that would Advance process but under mine today the seventh floor at foggy Bottom is twitter with the possibility of circumventing an agreement with Israel not to Deal with a terrorist our diplomats snatched up a notion advanced by Hussein for the United slates to meet a delegation including palestinians chosen by Yasser but not officially designated As after the process is supposed to continue with a meeting among israelis and Ameri process Niks at state say what could be wrong with paving the Way for talks Between arabs and israelis with this preliminary Chat plenty even Shimon Peres belatedly sees the if Hussein were prepared to make peace with and to negotiate the status of arabs living on israels Side of the Jordan he could do so now is the with the Plo Defeated and dispersed and no longer a threat to his for direct what is stopping him what stops Hussein is the desire to get the end of the process decided by the United states be fore it his sole purpose in avoiding direct Deal ing with Israel demanding a session with the Diplomatist and Arafat men first is to entrap the americans into promising to pressure Israel to hand Over the area seized and then lost by Jordan in wars of now dubbed the West assistant Secretary of state Richard Murphy knows Murphys new Law if anything can go wrong with Ronald reagans policy in the Middle it he is eager to intervene because he can pretend not to be imposing a settlement while doing exactly All he will have to say to Arafat men is that our policy of september 1982 is that single greatest Blunder of the Shultz tenure kicked Over the no imposition guarantee of the Camp David accords and in effect told Israel to hand Over its territory to some confederation of Jordan and the Plo in that wont the dear to the hearts of outside is a no government in not not not the govern ment of National will consider israelis know what would happen if they withdrew from that part of their heartland Hussein and the plos Arafat and syrian factions would go to War Over what is now a relatively promising part of Israel and a potential Bridge Between the next generation of arabs and jews would be handing Over the West Bank would restart a War which no sane israeli policy will Ever the fact that the United states encourages talk of its possibility makes it hard for Arab palestinians who want peace in that area to Deal constructively with israelis they worry that if the Plo takes they would be gunned Down As the More that state department arabists encourage the fantasy of a the longer it will take for arabs on the scene to accept reality and build a new that what makes the so called preliminary meeting behind israels Back so we would not Only legitimize and strengthen the we would be committing ourselves to an outcome unconnected to we Are now about to mislead arabs into thinking we can push Israel into abandoning its territorial Security we Are also about to Poison our relations with our ally in its darkest economic for what for some process that accepts the wrongheaded notion that carving up Israel will buy the should Stop kidding itself that it can provide the Means to reconcile ends that Are Irr Concila Diplomatist find it hard to grasp that negotiation is not an end in but when it dramatizes and Sharpens different the process prevents let Hussein accept prime minister Peres invitation to direct the United states should not be suck ered into any Deal that obligates us to deliver the undo c 1985 new York times service i Jse Amhi in the columns on this Page represent of the Are in no was to considered n representing those of the stars and stripes or the United slates