European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 28, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 a the stars and stripes columns Tom Wicke Moynihan plan is Best bet to shake tax Monkey political horse sense dictates an obvious strategy for the democrats in an election year fall in behind sen. Pat Moynihan s proposal Tor a Rollback in the social Security payroll Las of More than $60 billion Over two years. That conclusion emerges from a study of the various other courses the party might follow. As presented by David Rosenbaum a senior writer for the new York times All Are discouraging. A the democrats could support the Moynihan proposal but pass a value added or National sales tax to regain lost Revenue As proposed by sen. Ernest hol Lings. . This would place a greater tax Burden on poor folks lighten the Load for the Rich and leave the democrats More open than Ever to the Republican charge that they favor new taxes. A they could support Moynihan. . But raise the income tax rate on the wealthy again to make up Revenue lost to the social Security tax Cut. That still would leave them vulnerable to Republican attack for raising taxes. Rosenbaum suggested moreover that people would resent an income tax increase More than they a Welcome a payroll tax Cut. A they could go along with president Bush who says when Gramm Rudman Hollings ceilings produce a balanced budget in 1993. He ii Stop using the social Security surplus to pay current Federal expenses. K a Don t m m to answer it. B wasmtt�iym>n6 a no to kit amp a a Siwera. C ivou6nrn� is pm were we keep Huldt Rouos. D-tulnkv0ur�, Plung Tutics m. Anybody who believes Gramm Rud Man Hollings will balance the budget would be a customer for the Brooklyn Bridge. Besides Why should democrats abandon a democratic lax Cut in favor of a Bush Republican plan that wont reduce taxes a they could remove the social Secu rits Trust fund from the Federal budget thus disclosing the True enormity of the Federal deficit a one of Moynihan a objectives. Bush would veto this and the democrats would t be Able to override. Thus no favourable option exists save All out support for Moynihan a tax Safire and his party can find plenty of Good reasons for that support if it will Stop imitating republicans and act instead As if it were still the party of Roosevelt Truman Kennedy and Johnson and proud of it. First and Foremost the social Security payroll lax is the most onerous of Federal levies with everyone a Rich poor and in Between a paying the same Fiat rate on wage income up to $51,300 a year. No one has to pay a dime on dividends. Interest or other income not usually available except to the will Oft. That s unfair on its face its True that social Security benefits arc weighted to lower income people a but that a off sometime in the future. The payroll tax is right now. Rosenbaum estimates the Moynihan plan would give a tax Cut of about $500 a year to a Middle income working family a Cash in the pocket every payday. Compare that he says to Bush s trickle Down scheme to Cut the capital gains tax rate most of the benefits of which would go to those with incomes of More than $ 100,000 annually. What Are democrats waiting for after All that $62 billion from employers As Well As employees share of the payroll tax would be poured into the Economy. That investment would generate new jobs particularly at the lower end of the scale and added economic growth a much More than the Bush capital gains grab could do. Would social Security benefits be endangered not at All. The a a Trust fund Quot is not reserved for such benefits which Are paid As they come due from general revenues. Now Bush borrows the Trust fund surplus spends it and replaces it with Federal ious. As benefits arc paid out the govern ment has to make Good out of its other funds. So reducing or eliminating the Trust fund surplus does not change the fact benefits Nave to be paid from general government revenues. Politically moreover the democrats suffer from no disease a unless its unelectable presidential candidates a worse than their reputation As the party of tax and tax. Never mind that the republicans Are the party of borrow and borrow. It s the democrats who have the dreaded tax Monkey on their backs Pat Moynihan has offered them a Golden Opportunity to shake it off. What better boast to take to the polls in 1990, and again in 1992, than the return of $62 billion to the wage earning people As an alternative to the new tax Bonanza George Bush and the republicans want to hand Over to the Rich and so much the better politically if Bush vetoes a democratic tax Cut. New York times changes toward peace Are Only superficial peace is losing Freedom is winning. For two generations the forces of Sial ism a communists Ana their fellow travellers socialists anti anti communists. Along with a portion of the american left a have clothed their philosophy in the word peace. During that postwar Era. The forces of individualism a conservatives social democrats along with a sprinkling of nuts and kooks a have insisted that the primary goal is not peace but Freedom. The left adopted Picasso s Dove As its Symbol denounced Quot cold warriors Quot and described its allies As Quot peace Loving Peoples Quot the right appropriated the american Dag. Muttered about Quot captive nations Quot and described its allies As a the free done to gel me wrong nobody actually knocked peace. Right Wing orators fearful of being attacked As warmongers if they hinted that the West might a prevail Quot should the soviets attack Learned to say that a no nuclear War was Rig tics in the United states were not anti peace any More than lefties were anti Freedom but you could identify yourself on the political spectrum by a matter of emphasis. If your first concern was peace you were a lefty and the Sial ism that promised Equality was not a bad thing. Conversely if you put Freedom at the top of your priorities you were on the right. Communists subverted the word peace by making it their propaganda theme. Its first. Stalinist sense was Quot do not resist takeover Quot peace a Brezhnev it sense was Quot do not counter our military buildup Quot and under Gorbachev it has become a do not upset the status quo too in the first two of those propaganda senses peace lost to Freedom. The free world did resist takeovers from Berlin to Afghanistan we did counter the Brezhnev buildup until the communist system exhausted itself. Today it is losing again the a political speedometer Quot in Vaclav Avci s metaphor is showing a surge. In this latest stage of Sial ism s struggle with Freedom however the peace propagandists hav Chad to change the terminology. As communism s loss of the arms race caused the threat of real War to decline its advocacy of propaganda peace lost All Puissance. Peace now goes under the names of stability and predictability. Not everybody has caught the name change. Many who have been in the forefront of freedoms fight have been pulled offside by the lure of stability the new they make this Case change is Fine but rapid change is dangerous. If tyrannies fall or disintegrate without structures waiting to take their place we could Sec anarchy pogroms bloodshed. Thus we should support Only Grad talc hang at convenient Speed. Make no Waves. That s Why president Bush declared last weekend with Chancellor Kohl at his Side Quot the enemy is unpredictability. The enemy is he has the wrong enemies. Pogo had seen the wrong enemy too he was not us he was them Bush has bought the complacent thesis that the cold War is Over Freedom has won and that peace predictability stability is now the primary goal. But Freedom despite its glorious victories in Eastern Europe has not yet won. The philosophy of statism remains the enemy and most of the leadership of the soviet Union a urging stability if necessary at the Point of a gun a is doing All it can to resist free Enterprise private property Freedom of movement even open skies. A democratization Quot that concentrates Power in the name of order is fake remembering right is not in favor of chaos and ethnic bloodshed any More than it was for nuclear War. We Sec the need to use the gathering world momentum of Freedom a the biggest a a Mon of All a to Force genuine change in the Center of super statism. The notion of declaring the struggle Over and walking away is attractively irreverent but essentially nutty. A March is not a score As we risked peace to preserve Freedom we must risk instability to Sec freedoms Victo now there a a right Wing word not accommodation not detente but Victory. Define that As free elections everywhere with the guarantee of continued free elections whoever is chosen. Statism will win a few but individualism with its record of greater Prosperity for All will prevail a if we do not relent. Here a to unpredictability that essence of Freedom needed to precede real peace a in Wilson a vision a the peace that comes with Healing in its new Lofv time
