This, alone, according to many policy specialists, justifies a tax cut to bring the tax burden back into line with historic standards.

• The federal government will collect 19.1 percent of the $7.6 trillion gross domestic product this fiscal year -- compared to 17.7 percent before Clinton came to office.

• Since 1960, the federal government's share of gross domestic output has been as high as 19 percent only five times, and there were special circumstances to explain each occasion.

• These periods were 1969 and 1970, during the Vietnam War, and 1980 through 1982, as inflation pushed taxpayers into higher brackets.
• Nevertheless, from 1960 to 1995, taxes averaged 18.1 percent of GDP.

These percentages make it clear we're ready for a tax cut. Just reducing the federal tax level to its historically average share of gross domestic product would require a $75 billion tax cut this year -- a 12 percent reduction in individual income taxes.

As for tax cut opponents' belief that balancing the federal budget is of primary importance, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that achieving budget balance by 2002 and maintaining it beyond that point would add only one-tenth of a percentage point to the growth rate. Of course, right now, a tenth of percentage point looks good given current predictions:

• The CBO is predicting declines in real growth from 2.1 percent last year to 2 percent this year, and 1.9 percent next year.

• By contrast, real growth averaged better than 3 percent a year in the 1980s, despite two recessions from 1980 through 1982.

While the Clinton administration would have us believe that the current growth rate is the best we can do, and that an increase in growth would only raise wages and push up inflation, higher growth is possible and workers' real wages should increase.

• Last year, real average weekly wages were just 75 cents higher than they were in 1992 -- fully 5.5 percent lower than during the Reagan administration.

• In 1994, real median family income fell to $38,782 -- compared with $40,890 just five years earlier.

While it is essential to control inflation, nothing in economics says that rising real incomes are inconsistent with stable prices. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has said he won't stand in the way of balanced higher growth. And both the House and Senate have passed spending cuts sufficiently large to accommodate a large tax reduction.

Only President Clinton's veto stands in the way of both a tax cut and a balanced budget. If Bob Dole eventually decides to call for a big cut in the federal income tax, he can do so confident that it is the fiscally responsible thing to do.

Source: Bruce Bartlett (National Center for Policy Analysis), "Yes, We Can Afford a Federal Tax Cut," New York Times, June 11, 1996.