Flat Tax and the Deficit

Richard Stern’s proposal (“Perot Wants to Serve His Country? Pass the Hat,” Commentary, Oct. 28) to apportion the national debt out to Americans with big assets is a winner. It amounts to privatizing the national debt, a winning free market idea. Consider:

-- Citizens with greater assets have benefited from the American economy, including the national debt, more than citizens with lesser assets.

-- Citizens with greater assets are cleverer about money than citizens with lesser assets. Arthur Laffer, the supply-side guru, said the big asset owners are so clever they “don’t pay anything like the (income) tax on the books.” They have converted that to assets.

-- Citizens with greater assets could manage their privatized debts better than the government.

With the national debt paid off, the income tax could be cut by the amount of interest we now pay on the debt. That money would be available for investment in the free market. Our children and grandchildren would have an assured future. No one would sacrifice his/her standard of living. Ross Perot would be left with $500 million; the Waltons would be left with $1,000 million. A millionaire would be left with $962,000.

I’d even favor a constitutional amendment that the national debt be apportioned to the citizenry every five years.

There are untold benefits.

DONALD O. PETTIT

Santa Barbara