Opponents of tax relief have attacked tax relief proposal passing the House of Representatives as being too big, risky and irresponsible. The tax cut is phased in over a full decade and arguments revolve around guess-timates as to the size of the tax cut-pegged at about $792 billion. If one accepts such dubious estimates, then it is worth evaluating exactly how big such a tax cut actually would be.

During the 1990s, federal revenues grew at a better than 6% annual average rate. If one projects that average rate of growth over the coming decade, then the federal government will extract more than $25.5 trillion from taxpayers over the period 2000 to 2009. Therefore, $792 billion amounts to a mere 3.1% tax cut. By the way, President Clinton's call for $250 billion turns out to be a barely detectable 0.99% tax cut.

One thing can be seen clearly through these rather foggy projections: Current tax relief proposals aren't too big, they are far too small.