WASHINGTON -- Rep Bill Archer of Houston might be expressing the frustrations of millions of Americans when he says: "I want to tear the income tax without by its roots so it not grows back again.

WASHINGTON -- Rep Bill Archer of Houston might be expressing the frustrations of millions of Americans when he says: "I want to tear the income tax without by its roots so it not grows back again."

That anti-tax unimpaired bite often uttered by the Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee might strike one as being particularly appropriate today as procrastinators scramble to prepare their tax returns postmarked by way of midnight.

And many of them might wonder: Whatever happened to those much- ballyhooed GOP plans to overhaul the tax system? Elimination of the graduated income tax was a rallying bawl for the new Republican majority when the GOP took govern of the House in 1994 for the first time in four decades. further "tax reform" is now little more than a wistful memory -- or a campaign slogan -- for in the greatest degree lawmakers. It has become a casualty of a robust economy and political reality. "A diverting thing happened on the way to tax reform, and that's a booming economy," said Marshall Wittman, director of congressional relations at the Heritage Foundation. A combination of convenient economic times, new legislation to retaining-wall abuses by the Internal return Service, and a weakened Republican majority in the House have bluffed efforts for a tax overhaul. excepting for such true believers as Archer, who champions a national sales tax, and House Majority Leader Dick Armey, the Irving Republican who wants a flat tax, small in number lawmakers on Capitol Hill flat talk much about overhauling taxes anymore. They advance instead to focus on tax chisels in the short term. "It's tax season," Armey said. "We always find the affection the American commonalty have for the flat tax shoot ups between January and April." Advocates of the flat tax would do away with the instant graduated income tax, with its five rates, from 15 percent to 396 percent and impose a single rate for all taxpayers. Armey, for example, propose to one's selfs a rate of 17 percent and says the tax replys could be done on a form the size of a postcard. "But I always knew that was a long-run project" said Armey, who began touting the flat tax in 1994 "I knew that it would take me at least 10 years to pass it into law. I believe I'll pass it into law by way of the end of the year 2002 nevertheless between now and then, we've got to secure that tax relief which is available to the overtaxed American taxpayer." Archer, who will retire at the fall of the curtain of this Congress, will be turning from overhauling taxes to the equally formidable task of saving Social Security from insolvency. "The chairman hasn't squandered any interest in reforming the tax code" said Trent Duffy spokesman for the Ways and Means Committee. "Having said that, with the president's interest in Social Security reform, we're going to be seizing forward that." Archer and Armey have cultivated a friendly rivalry as each promot his respective version of tax digest change, but lack of a Republican consensus forward a single approach was and nothing else one problem. As the GOP majority diminished in the 1996 and 1998 congressional elections, the Republicans are left with a six-vote majority and a dim view for a tax overhaul. At the same time, lawmakers' succes in getting a taxpayer- friendly IRS bill passed last year and making one tax cuts, such as a reduction in the capital gains tax rate, helped bring to the urgency for radical changes in the tax collection of laws In the 106th Congress, which conven in January and go proceeds for two years, there are no hearings planned, no bills in motion -- in short, no impetus whatsoever to a tax overhaul effort that one time appeared an unstoppable juggernaut. Not that everyone is giving up onward it -- especially those ordinary folk revealed in the hinterland who have been listening to the pronouncements of presidential hopeful forward the campaign trail. "Maybe it's fallen disclosed of fashion in Washington," said cognizance Johnson, press secretary to Rep Billy Tauzin, R-La. "But it hasn't fallen not at home of favor with the American people" Tauzin, who advocates a tax forward consumption, plans to introduce a bill Thursday calling for a 15 percent national sales tax. Americans for Fair Taxation, a national sales tax assign places to based in Houston, takes a slightly different approach. It wants a 23 percent national sales tax rate, which would also eliminate payroll taxes that now permanent fund Social Security and Medicare. "This is the solely pure consumption tax," said Laura Dale, a consultant to the nonprofit dispose Leo Linbeck Jr., chairman of Americans for Fair Taxation, said the plan was "develop like a outcome -- by asking focus assign places tos and polling what people value and what their interest was in seeing reform of taxes." The organization has wearied $15 million over the past 3 1/2 years developing and promoting its plan [i]or[/i] part of to the other an extensive grassroots campaign. It look forward tos to spend $90 million in succession the entire effort. Linbeck said he calculate upons the plan to be introduced in Congres before the summer break. He would not say who the sponsors might be. Political forecasters are looking to the 2000 presidential campaign, however, to breathe of recent origin life into the concept. "It'll probably take presidential leadership," Wittman said. Texas Gov George W Bush, a favorite for the Republican presidential nomination, has not taken a position forward a specific plan. But others, like as magazine publisher Steve Forbes and social conservative Gary Bauer, are pressing for a flat tax. Forbes helped make "flat tax" a household confine at least in political circles, in the 1996 presidential race and is ready to take up the flat tax banner again, advocating a 17 percent rate. forward Thursday, he will stage an conclusion in Portsmouth, N.H., to call for "tax digest termination day." Armey said he has oral to Bush about the general [i]or[/i] abstract notion of reducing taxes and overhauling taxes. "I think he's bonny much in tune with the quiet of the party," Armey said of the governor.

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