The Week

■ Okay, so Boris Yeltsin can incinerate the United States with several hundred megatons of nuclear weapons, but can he close his eyes and touch the tip of his nose?

■ The Bush campaign orchestrated favorable publicity to greet its tax-cut plan, but the inevitable criticisms have begun. A left-wing outfit called Citizens for Tax Justice claims that the Bush plan showers most of its benefits on the 10 percent of Americans with the highest income. Others say the assumptions on which the plan is based are too optimistic. And Al Gore robotically denounces the tax cut as “reckless.” That’s a curious way to describe a plan projected to reduce revenues by only 9 percent over the next ten years. Even that estimate is probably too high, since Bush’s advisers have assumed only 2.7 percent annual economic growth—less than the 3 percent average of the last 20 years. True, the folks who pay the most taxes get the most dollars back under the plan. But lower-income households get the largest percentage reductions in income taxes, and the distribution of the tax burden is hardly changed. Low-income workers see their effective marginal tax rates drop from 36 percent to 21 percent. Bush’s tax cut is not the one we would have designed; but it ought to be strong enough to withstand the Democratic onslaught next year.

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■ Okay, so Boris Yeltsin can incinerate the United States with several hundred megatons of nuclear weapons, but can he close his eyes and touch the tip of his nose?

■ The Bush campaign orchestrated favorable publicity to greet its tax-cut plan, but the inevitable criticisms have begun. A left-wing outfit called Citizens for Tax Justice claims that the Bush plan showers most of its benefits on the 10 percent of Americans with the highest income. Others say the assumptions on which the plan is based are too optimistic. And Al Gore robotically denounces the tax cut as “reckless.” That’s a curious way to describe a plan projected to reduce revenues by only 9 percent over the next ten years. Even that estimate is probably too high, since Bush’s advisers have assumed only 2.7 percent annual economic growth—less than the 3 percent average of the last 20 years. True, the folks who pay the most taxes get the most dollars back under the plan. But lower-income households get the largest percentage reductions in income taxes, and the distribution of the tax burden is hardly changed. Low-income workers see their effective marginal tax rates drop from 36 percent to 21 percent. Bush’s tax cut is not the one we would have designed; but it ought to be strong enough to withstand the Democratic onslaught next year.