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Show Cut Taxes . . . Your Man In Washington By U.S. Senator Orrin G. Hatch A young Wisconsin member of the U.S. House of Representatives Represen-tatives is building quite a reputations for him self these days over a very simple tax cutting proposal that could be just what the doctor odered for the American economy. Rep. William Steiger has introduced an amendment which would simply cut, by half, the federal capital gains tax rate. The current rate is at a maximum of 49.1 percent, and Rep.-Steiger Rep.-Steiger wants to roll it back to the pre-1969 period of not more than 25 percent. The first obvious concern is what would that do to the U.S. Treasury which is already in debt by nearly $8000 billion The Department of the Treasury says the cut would be an enormous loss to the treasury in a "handout to rich investors." in-vestors." Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal, as you might have guessed, is agains the tax cut. He is using the tired, old approach of "static analysis" which does not take into account the spin-off benefits to the economy which will naturally come if the Steiger Amendment is approved. As the Wall Street Journal argues: "A lower tax on capital gains will raise more money, not less, for the government. |