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Show THE VOICE OF BUSINESS Mr. President, would you answer some questions please By Ricluird L Leslier, PreBident Chamber of Commerce of the United States When Treasury Secretary William Miller recently appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee, he opposed any tax reduction this year and even refused to specify what tax proposals pro-posals his Administration might favor next year. Congressman Willis Gradison of Ohio was moved to ask Miller why, after four years, the Treasury is still incapable of presenting Congress a tax proposal.' Miller replied: "It would be like putting red meat in front of hungry dogs and saying, say-ing, 'Sit'." Miller's rather insulting put down illustrates il-lustrates why this Administration has so often not enjoyed political support from a Democratic Congress. But, even more importantly, it proves that the Administration really has no policy to deal with some of the most dangerous economic problems this nation has ever faced. To wit: The Gross National Product has just suffered its second worst single-quarter single-quarter decline since the Great Depression. Depres-sion. Taxes are rising by the greatest amount in history. The purchasing power of the average American family has taken its most precipitous plunge in more the 30 years. Indeed, 1980 could go down in the history books as a unique moment when the American economy was hit by triple double digits all in the same year double dou-ble digit inflation, double digit interest rates, and double digit unemployment. Yet, the Administration keeps insisting that now is not the right time to reduce taxes on the American people. Will there ever be an appropriate time? For the better part of three and a half years, the Administration opposed reasonable tax rate reductions under the guise of fighting inflation and during dur-ing the same period the rate of inflation nearly tripled. Now inflation has ebbed, if ever so slightly, so the Adminsitra-tion Adminsitra-tion opposes Lax reductions to prevent inflation from heading back up. Heads they win; tails we lose. The Administration has consistently fought tax reductions because, as Mr. Miller puts it, everyone understands that "...tax cuts increase deficits and deficits increase inflation." Strange then isn't it. that while successfully heading off tax reduction, this Administration Ad-ministration has nevertheless, piled up the biggest deficits in our history and Lcreafed the size of the federal budge more than 50 percent above the level it took all our previous history to reach . The ultimate irony is this: While trying try-ing to protect the public from the alleged alleg-ed dangers of tax redution, the Ad-minstration Ad-minstration has succeeded in clobbering clobber-ing us with the worst of both worlds. The biggest tax increases in history coupled with rocketing rates of inflation. infla-tion. Why not tell it like it really is? When tax rates are not cut in a period of inflation infla-tion taxes paid by individuals and companies com-panies automatically rise, because inflation in-flation shoves individuals into higher tax brackets, overstates taxable corporate cor-porate profits, and taxes phantom capital gains. The Adminstration knows this, but it persists in misleading the media and the public by pretending we are actually facing a choice between a tax cut and no tax cut. In reality, the only choice is between a massive tax increase in-crease and a somewhat lesser tax increase. In fact, rather than crife responsible all attempts to ry ruinous tax burden, the should provide the America," ''' with specific and straight ' answers to these questions- :' How does he justify as respor ! nearly $90 billion tax iner ' dividuals and business in the nf (' year alone? '- How does he justify as respor over $500 billion tax increase'' dividuals and businesses bet I year 1980 and 1985? , How does he justify his unj' i to allow American working i -keep more of the moi 1 earn money which rightfuUv'- to them? ' ' And, finally, how does i ministration justify its total faith in incentives and the people themselves, when it was- ly our tradition of rewarding' i willing to work, save and l made this country the most ' and successful the world . known? : Many of us would like anae ' C |
