Portsmouth Herald
8/22/95 pg. A1
By Carrie Sewell, Herald Correspondent


    PORTSMOUTH - Indiana Senator Richard Lugar believes he can attract young
voters to his bid for the Republican presidential nomination by being 
positive about the country's future, he said during an interview 
yesterday at the Portsmouth Herald.
   ``I believe that I excite young people because I am talking about the best
years of this country ahead of us,'' Lugar said. He was in Portsmouth as 
part of a campaign swing that took him to Dover, Concord and Manchester.
   Lugar spoke at length about one of his campaign's ideological pillars - a
complete overhaul of the tax system. Linking his appeal to young voters 
with his economic philosophy, Lugar said he can talk about America's best 
years lying ahead because his plan to change the tax system and budget 
system will give the country a brighter economic future.
   In his last campaign for the Senate, Lugar received almost 80 percent of
the votes from citizens 18 to 29, according to polls.
   Lugar has proposed removing the income tax system and replacing it with a
nationalsales tax. This, he said, would stimulate higher wages, savings and
investment.  ``You would have a dramatic change in savings patterns because an
individual would no longer have a withholding from an income tax,'' Lugar 
said. ``They could take it home and they would not have to record-keep 
it, or account for it.''
   This would give taxpayers the ability to save and invest their money, he
said.   Lu gar also said his tax proposal would increase foreign sales. 
Our exports are lower than they could be because they have an income tax 
factor in the price,'' said Lugar. The former mayor of Indianapolis 
believes the removal of the tax would make U.S. goods more attractive to 
foreign consumers.
   Lugar also said the collection of the tax would be made simpler, noting
the IRS leaves $127 billion uncollected every year. Using California as 
an example, he said ``The costs of administering a sales tax there
may be a quarter of what the IRS goes through.''
   Lugar takes issue with affirmative action, which he believes on the
federal level is ``mostly unconstitutional.'' However he still strongly 
supports scholarships given to minority students.  He also believes 
illegal immigration should be stopped, but ``to call out 
those issues (illegal immigration and affirmative action) to engender 
anger hatred is not only wrong, it ultimately will not win the election,'' he
said.
   It is his rejection of divisiveness, he said, that has helped get him
re-elected to the Senate.
   ``I got two-thirds the vote in my state the last time with a lot of
Democrats and independents as well as Republicans voting for me,'' said 
Lugar. ``They did so knowing not that they believed every policy that I 
supported, or in fact many disagreed, but they knew I was well motivated, 
they could trust me, that I was a person attempting to do well.''
   Lugar has not been a high profile candidate because of lack of support
from special interest groups and other major campaign funders. He is 
considered a moderate in a field where all the top candidates are trying 
to attract conservatives.
   Although domestic issues have dominated debate among the Republican
candidates, Lugar also expressed concern about foreign affairs.
   Foremost among them is the threat of smuggled weapons-grade nuclear
material fromthe former Soviet Union and other countries.
   ``A quantity of plutonium the size of a golf ball is enough to make a
nuclear explosive,'' said Lugar. ``Consider the implications of a four 
percent error rate in the Russian inventory.''