Alexander Stumps for Tax Reform

On the heels of a $200,000 national advertising blitz touting his new tax plan, Lamar Alexander, the oft plaid-clad perennial presidential hopeful, addressed a packed ARCO Forum Tuesday night.

Advocating numerous tax cuts for families and the tripling of deductibles for children, Alexander touted his plan as a morally-conscious tax code.

Alexander said his plan would also encourage giving by doubling the deduction for charitable contributions and creating individual savings accounts for retirement planning.

Changes like these provide the foundation for Alexander's proactive tax code.

"We want our tax code to be taking sides--our side. We shouldn't have a morally neutral tax code. We are losing our capacity to say some things are right and some things are wrong."

Alexander said his plan would effectively repeal the Bush and Clinton tax increases of 1991 and 1993. The tax cuts would be funded by the federal budget surplus.

He justified these cuts along with reductions of the capital gains and estate taxes by stressing that the tax burden on families with children today is five times what it was in the 1950s.

Alexander also appealed to the American ideal that the money you make is the money you keep.

"We prize freedom in this country. In European countries, people put caps on how much [money] you can keep. This is the country where we come and we keep what we earn," he said.

While Alexander emphasized the economic benefits of his tax code for families, he also focused on his desire to alter the focus of the GOP.

"My mission for the Republican party is to be on the side of parents raising children," Alexander said. "My party has been known as the party of free markets and defense spending. I want my party to be known as helping families and children."

He also stressed the importance of school choice and the greater issue of trusting families.

"Do you trust the parents or do you not? Are we going to give more control to the government and less to the parents... We need to try to get back on the side of parents."

Alexander advocated school choice as a way of "Unshackling our schools" so parents can be the ultimate arbitrators of where their children go to school.

In response to a question from a Tennessee teacher's daughter concerning the nation's poor treatment of teachers, he asked the audience to envision school choice.

"What if everybody in this school wanted to be there? Then your parents could tell irate parents to choose another school."

Concerning speculation about a potential presidential run in 2000, Alexander remained vague in his comments after the speech, despite the recent flurry of advertisements.

"I very well may be a candidate in 2000. [We] need to bring out our best in the country as we go into the new century."

But recent actions seem to indicate that Alexander has become more serious in his pursuit of the GOP presidential nomination.

In August, he launched a $200,000 national advertising campaign pushing his tax code in fourteen states, according to his press secretary. Iowa and New Hampshire, the first states for presidential primaries, were included in the campaign.

The ads also try to separate him from other possible Republican presidential candidates who are pitching a flat tax or a national sales tax program.

Alexander ran for the 1996 GOP Presidential nomination after serving two years in the Bush administration as Secretary of Education between 1991 and 1993. He also served as governor of Tennessee between 1979 and 1987. Ronald Y. Koo Crimson RESTING ON HIS MORALS:LAMAR ALEXANDER touts his new tax plan at the Kennedy School of Government.