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> Tear down tax shelters for real estate investors.
> Repeal the depletion allowances of 22% for oil and gas and lesser amounts for other minerals.
> Reduce the 7% investment tax credit.
> End the fast depreciation write-offs on plants and machines. The aim is partly to raise revenue, but much more to force companies and well-to-do individuals to pay what McGovern calls their "fair share." In the most memorable line of his campaign, McGovern thundered: "Money made by money should be taxed at the same rate as money made by men." This has touched off a great controversy over capital gains taxes. Supporters of the present tax structure insist that money made by money deserves preferential treatment, in part because it represents the reward for capitalist risk taking. They add that McGovern's tax policy would hinder investment that is vital to economic growth. There would indeed be some danger of dampening investment, but McGovern has at least produced a tax program that is logically consistent and that would obey the principle of levying taxes in accordance with people's ability to pay.
The Republican platform also pledges Nixon to tax reform, but what that might consist of is a mystery. The President once talked of providing $16 billion to local communities for property tax relief, but he now promises unspecified modest.sums to reduce property taxes for the elderly only. Administration officials hint that they have in mind some other tax reforms that would encourage investment; these changes look like the opposite of McGovern's. Commerce Secretary Peter Peterson talks of cutting capital gains taxes. The idea is to allow investors to deduct certain sums representing the extent to which the real value of the gain has been reduced by inflation.
PRICES AND JOBS. These two issues are inseparably linked. It would be a crude and unfair oversimplification to say that Nixon is "for unemployment" or that McGovern is "for inflation." But each would face a cruel choice of which to fight harder, and their approaches would be quite different.
Nixon's budget-paring program is aimed as much at checking inflation as minimizing tax boosts. The President hopes to drive the unemployment rate from its present 5.5% to below 5% next year, but many economists doubt that he can do it unless he abandons his efforts to hold fiscal 1973 spending close to $250 billion. In any case, Administration officials have never set any target date for reaching the traditional "full-employment" goal of 4%. They imply that 4% cannot be achieved quickly without spending so much money as to light inflationary fires.