efore I get to this week's topic, I want to welcome you all to my new column. I'll be joining you every week until the elections in November, trying to lend some street smarts and folk wisdom to the political coverage this year.

Doing a column on the Internet is a new concept for me. I'm not exactly a high-tech kind of guy. Not too long ago, my assistant told me that story about the guy who mistakes the built-in CD player in his computer for a cup holder. Hell, when I first saw one of those things, I thought it was for playing 45s!

But I could get used to this Internet thing. Today I found a site where I can listen to my alma mater's football games. I got a peek at the site CBS put up for < href="http://www.cbsradio.com/MM/"> my wife's radio program. Best of all, I found the online fan club of George Jones, my all-time favorite singer, complete with information on where I can order George Jones Country Gold pet food for my little spaniels. What else could a guy ask for?

For my first Salon column, I want to focus on the subject of taxes. Now, before any of you out there start whining or yawning, you should know how big this subject is going to be during this election season. You see, this week or next, Bob Dole is going to uncork a tax cut of Reaganesque proportions. The Republicans hope that such a tax cut will help Bob Dole with the vision thing. They also think that large cuts are their best hope of making themselves look kinder and gentler to the American people.

Kindness and gentleness are in short supply these days in the GOP. Remember when Bob Dole tried to soften the party's image by merely suggesting that the party add in a sentence of tolerance language to its abortion plank? The party erupted in outrage, making it look like tolerance was a completely bizarre, foreign concept to them. In fact, the whole episode reminded me of the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, when a Coke bottle falls from the sky and no one knows what to make of it. Tolerance? What's that?! We've never seen it before! It's scary!

The Republicans ought to have better luck with tax cuts. It should be their ace in the hole. But as with most other important decisions this campaign season, Bob Dole is about to misplay his hand.

From the cards that Bob Dole has already shown, it looks as if he is going to propose a cut of enormous proportions -- perhaps $600 billion. Mark my words: A cut of that size will backfire big-time.

Last year, in the budget that President Clinton vetoed, the Republicans proposed a tax cut of $245 billion. Americans had no trouble seeing the connection between that cut and the GOP efforts to slash funding for Medicare, education, and the environment. And now Bob Dole may well present a tax cut of more than twice that amount! Every American will understand what that means: Suffering much deeper cuts in programs they support (plus, this time around, Social Security) or losing all hope of a balanced budget. Neither option is pretty.

So what are the Republicans thinking? Well, they must believe they can perform a bit of Reagan magic and convince Americans that huge tax cuts actually make it easier to balance the budget. That's right: It looks like supply-side economics is about to rear its ugly head again.

Back in 1981, the first time the nation tried supply-side economics, it was an intriguing, if highly dubious, hypothesis. Sure, the whole idea behind supply-side economics was the product of a cocktail-napkin sketch by a guy named -- appropriately enough -- Laffer. And sure, almost every single member of the American Economic Association said supply-side was bunk. But Americans are curious by nature, and we tried it.

It was a miserable failure! Contrary to what the wide-eyed supply-siders promised, revenues didn't go up. They plummeted! Our deficit didn't disappear. It tripled! The whole thing turned out to be like one of those crackpot diet schemes where you eat chocolate cake and french fries to lose weight.

It's almost possible to forgive the Republicans' follies last time around. As I said before, supply-side was just an unproven hypothesis. But this time around, we've got all the data in the world to show unambiguously that across-the-board tax cuts do not pay for themselves or usher in miracle growth. By now, these supply-side claims are not just wishful thinking. They're nothing less than willful deception.

The most pathetic thing is that we all know that Bob Dole has nothing but disdain for supply-siders. "I never was in that camp," Dole said on "Larry King Live." "I used to tell the story that somebody told me -- a good-news-bad-news joke. The good news is that a busload of supply-siders went over the cliff. The bad news was there were three empty seats." And yet now Bob Dole wants one of those empty seats for himself! Americans will call Dole on this blatant hypocrisy.

The coming debate is one I welcome. It is based on stark differences. What Bob Dole is peddling is a warmed-over plan that has failed this nation miserably once before. It is a plan based on unaffordable tax cuts skewed toward the wealthy, a new era of bloated deficits and anemic spending on core investments.

President Clinton, in contrast, offers a plan that will continue to deliver targeted, reasonable and affordable tax cuts; meaningful deficit-reduction; and robust investments in our people and our environment. At least to this country bumpkin, the choice is as clear as can be.

Next week: A preview of the Republican Convention