BE OUR GUEST: TAX REFORMS CAN SPELL RELIEF FOR THE AMERICAN FAMILY

Julia Kridelbaugh is a Cape Girardeau resident and executive director of the Taxpayers Action Network of Southeast Missouri.

The results of a recent voter survey circulated by state Rep. David Schwab of Jackson revealed that 74.5 percent of voters questioned would like to see the legislature raise the dependent exemption on the Missouri income tax return from the present $400 to $1,200 to equal the personal exemption. This is an overwhelming cry from families who feel the smothering effects of raising a family today. Recent figures show that about 42 cents of every earned dollar goes to paying taxes. Because of this, many families are forced to fight to sup~ply the monthly basic needs of their households.

In the 1950s an average family of four could expect to protect about 72 percent of their income from taxation. By 1989 it was only 24 percent. This is a heavy burden on the American family. An average family (usually two-income) makes around $34,000 a year and faces decisions, on a regular basis, as to which of the family needs they can meet and which ones they can trim. But many can not trim an inch more.

Our tax system is unfair to families by taking resources from taxpayers who can least afford to part with them. Families with child~ren are the largest segment hurt by our tax system. As of today about 50 percent of American families have children under the age of 18 years.

Families can not be regarded as a special interest group. For too long our hard-earned tax dollars have been pirated away to a long list of special interest groups. Wasteful spending in Washington, D.C., and in local state governments have pushed our country into national insolvency.

Who has paid for these grossly mismanaged tax dollars? Families have. For much too long our tax code has been shaped by Congress to benefit special interest groups. These groups are powerful and influential. They reap while families continue to work and pay and pay and pay and pay ...

What is the answer? Can families continue as they are? Can they let the percent they can exempt from taxation decline? Will they continue to lose heart, lose faith, and lose the will to work? The answer is no. If we begin now, through tax reforms, we can start to give life and hope back to each American family who bears the burden of over-taxation.

Reforms should include the following suggestions:

* Double the personal tax exemptions to allow families (particularly the low and middle income) to keep more dollars to meet the basic monthly needs. Lighter tax burdens on families provide the best form of social reform as opposed to wasteful costly government programs.

* Continue the move to lower the capital gains tax. During 1991 more than 250,000 Americans lost their jobs. Taxes that put limits on small businesses restrain growth. In the 1980's small businesses created two-thirds of the 20 million new jobs.

* Spending restraint in Congress must be attained. For every dollar of new taxes, $1.83 has been generated on new spending. Spending increased by 112 percent from 1980-1990.

* What is termed as class warfare rhetoric divides the country and costs us jobs. The luxury tax means falling sales, layoffs, less taxable income, and higher federal expenditures from paying unemployment compensation.

* We must push toward a balanced budget amendment with tax limitation.

* Zero-based budgeting should be used at state and federal levels. (Eighty-seven percent of the registered voters from Rep. Schwab's survey also stated they were in favor of zero-based budgeting.)

Some of these reforms and many others are before state legislatures and the Congress at this time. These reforms could lighten the burden to many American families who suffer from the injustice of an anti-family tax system. Many reforms are proposed, but only those which free families from growing taxes, which cut waste, and create jobs will be true reforms.

It is clear from the results of surveys and the cries of overtaxed citizens that changes are in the making. The hope is that these new reforms will "spell relief" for the backbone of our nation, the American family.