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fFl he fate of Treasury Secretary Donald
I Regan's simplified income tax pro
iL posal rests in the hands of special
interest groups and big business.
Difficult as it may be to believe, the
Reagan administration proposed Tuesday
a tax strategy which would seem to hurt
corporations. Since business has the most
to lose, it will put up a fight. And it has the
money and the warriors to wage a bloody
battle.
Regan's proposal set the stage for this
inevitable legislative battle. The proposal,
if enacted by Congress, will close many of
the loopholes through which corporations
have been able to escape paying taxes.
Of course, any proposal of such magni
tude cannot be praised or daianed with
out great scholarly study and delibera
tion. But the repeal of corporte tax
breaks and investment tax credit will
help rustle taxe3 from big businesses
taxes they haven't been paying.
A Congressional Joint Tax Committee
study recently found that financial in
stitutions paid only 2.7 percent of their
income in taxes during the first three
years of the 1980s. A repeal on tax breaks
on interest and dividends likely will draw
their ire:
Yet oil companies, who would lose
money because of the repeal of special
energy tax breaks, and other businesses
have the most powerful lobbyists on
Capitol HilL These businesses, through
campaign contributions and political
action committees, also control elections
and committees.
Even with a strong endorsement from
President Reagan, the proposal will have
to fight strong opposition lobbyists.
Still, the tax proposal has to be taken
with a grain of salt. No one save Reagan
has had enough time to adequately study
the effects of the proposal. It must be in
the back of the country's mind that the
president'3 aims have more to do with
furthering the cause, of laissez faire
capitalism than economic justice.
The tax burden wont be shifted by the
Treasury's proposal The different sec
tions of the nation's economy will pay
almost the same in taxes cs they pay now.
It seems that only corporations will pay
more. But even their fiat tax rate would
drop from 46 to 33 percent.
Also, the affect of the plan on the
economy is minimal. The government's
revenue won't be increased, and so the
plan can't address the massive federal
deficit.
Je? Browne
Ptlly Ncbrcs&sa Eerier Editor
EeagoMs
need to keep fami
ly fend to themselves
From time to time, New York
Gov. Mario Cuomo refers to
. the nation as a family. To
him, that's a good thing, sug
gesting warmth, love, closeness
and a sense of shared responsibil
ity. To me, though, everytime
Cuomo mentions family, I think
of my friend's uncle who ran off
with his brother's wife.
The last thing we need is a
country that's like a family. We
had that once. It was called the
Civil War.
;
fpy Richard
Cohen
Now we have the Reagan fam
ily to prove my point. In an inter
view, Nancy Reagan admitted that
she and her stepson, Michael, just
don't get along, that there's an
"estrangement" that has existed!
for three years. To this, Michael
has reacted with hurt and shock
and the usual chagrin. One only
wishes he had reacted with silence.
But he didn't. Instead, he called
a press conference and granted
interviews. He said he wasn't even
invited to the ranch in Santa
Barbara for Thanksgiving. "What
timing for the first lady of this
country," he said of Mrs. Reagan's
pre-turkey remark. Referring to
the fall Mrs. Reagan took just
before the election, Michael said,
"Maybe the bump on the head
was more serious than we
thought." He added that he was
thinking of writing a book about
his relationship with the Reagans.
I can hardly wait.
There are those, and they are
legion, who fairly chortle at the
Reagans going at one another in
print. The first family, after ail,
family.
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has been holier than thou when it
comes to promoting family values.
Indeed, the whole conservative
movement has been pretending
that God has given it the family as
something of a ward. It must pro
tect and succor it. It must pass
legislation buttressing it. It, and
not un-American liberalism, cares
for the family and its cherished,
traditional values. No one has
expressed this better than Ronald
Reagan.
But so what. The family is the
one area in which hypocrisy is
unavoidable. No matter how good
your intentions, your family some
how gets away from you. Rela
tives just don't behave as they
should that is, how you would
want them to. Every family is a
collection of people connected
not just by blood, but by mutual
antagonisms, and no outsider can
ever tell who's right and who's
wrong.
Almost every family is a reposi
tory of feuds and hostility, of
scandals that make "Dallas" seem
tame, of vows broken and prom
ises breached, of people brought
together not out of choice, but
out of circumstances because
.someone married someone else
and God knows why. Thanksgiv
ing and even Christmas remind
us that families are mixed bless
ing. There axe more fireworks
around this time of the year than
there are on the Fourth of July
arid sometimes .on the weighty
issue of whether mashed or sweet
potatoes shall be served at the
otherwise festive dinner.
of families making us a part of
their fights. That holds for Cheryl
Crawford whose mother, Joan,
may have been the world's most
awful mother, but I didn't want
to know it. It holds also for Gary
Crosby, who in a book told us
things about Bing that I could
have been perfectly happy not
knowing. What made it all so
much worse is the guess nay,
t he certainty that if Joan and
Bing were still around, they could
have made a parent's case against
their kids. These things are un
knowable. They should, at the
very least, be unmentionable.
It would have been best if Nancy
Reagan had simply told her inter
viewer that she was not going to
talk about her family that she
would extend her husband's
vaunted 11th commandment
(Thou shall not speak ill of a fel
low Republican) to her own fam
ily. But all she did was acknowl
edge that she and her stepson did
not get along. To that shot from
her peashooter, Michael re
sponded with a Big Bertha of a
press conference, interviews, and
now a threatened book.
Maybe there's no stopping
Blichael and we can all sit back
and watch the first family act like
any other. I'm sure he thinks he's
justified. What kid has not wanted
to call a press conference to tell
the world about his parents? But
the whole thing is unseemly and
tells us nothing we either need to
know or do not know already.
Michael . . .Nancy, your country
gives you a choice: Either make
up or shut up, but either way,
close the window. The neighbors
are listening.
Maybe it's just me, but I'm sick 1 m, Washington Post Writers Group
Average-guy singers give common man hope
V
pryith all the excitement Bruce
1 Springsteen brought to town with
V his "Born in the USA" tour, IVe
found myself in front of my bathroom
mirror playing the air guitar and lip syn
ching into a carrot-stick microphone.
f If i
1 kj
James A,
Fiissell
Everyone should have one unrealistic
dream. I want to be a rockn'roll idol for
one night. That, or play third base for the
Phillies, I cant decide. But, a rock star
be still my sweaty heart. Those fans;
those wild, screaming, unprincipled, un- -shaven,
unbathen, unconscious, frantic
and frothing fans. Screaming for me to do
just ens mere set.
Dreamer .... I cant sing. Really. Ask my
minister, stand outside my shower win
dow. When you look up off-key in the dic
tionary, you see my picture.
Usually when I see a star on the tube
who is all of 23 and working on his second
million, I try to console myself by remem
bering my strengths.
Big deal, I can write. Steinbeck didn't
have any roadies, Royko may have had
people tear his clothes off, but not out of
adulation. It's a hard thing to accept, but
young worden just don't swoon in the
aisles when you write a perfect infinitive
absolute, and nobody pays $35 to watch
you struggle with a lead paragraph, or
bleed your copy. I wish I could sing.
"But, wait a minute" I said the other
day as I was listening to an old Bob Dylan
classic. I realized that Dylan was making
millions singing like a moose with ade
noid problems. Of course he was a pietty
fair songwriter. Details.
Over the next couple of days I listened
with renewed interest to the voices war-
bling out of my stereo. Chuck Berry, Bob
Dylan, Neil Young, Brian Adams, Bruce
Springsteen, Rod Stewart, Mick Jagger,
and Joe Cocker. To be brutally honest,
none of them can sing their way out of a
cardboard box.
Don't get me wrong, I like all of them,
and would gladly see. them in concert,
with a great deal of enjoyment. You see,
they just cant sing. And this is good
good for their careers, and good for us.
Hie hidden secret to many successful
rock stars is a sort of creative badness.
Boy George, now there's an exception.
That boy has a sweet voice. Pure talent
Right there, he knew he was in trouble.
My gosh, he could sing. He needed a gim
mick, and he needed it fast
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