Is it or isn’t it? Is the Btu tax dead — as it deserves to be — or is it still breathing? Recent signals out of Washington seem to indicate the Btu tax is showing disturbing signs of life. If this is true — if the tax survives its near-death experience — it will be the American economy that will have cardiac arrest.

Perhaps all of us who oppose the Btu tax took too much comfort in the actions of the Senate, which responded to nationwide opposition to a broad-based energy tax and stripped it from its deficit-reduction bill. That’s why recent comments by Leon Panetta, the president’s budget director, and Dan Rostenkowski, powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, hit us like a thunderbolt. Both men were given repeated chances to declare the tax dead. But neither one did. Rostenkowski even went so far as to say, “The president’s never suggested to me that the Btu tax is dead.” …

For example, you’re heard a lot of Btu proponents extol the virtues of the tax as less of a burden than a fuel tax. But here are the facts: The Btu tax is really four taxes in one. Not only is it a fuel tax, but also a tax on utilities and virtually all goods and services that Americans purchase every day. Furthermore, the Senate-proposed fuel tax alone would amount to an additional 4.3 cents per gallon. In contract, the Btu tax — along with all of its other costs — would add almost twice as much — 8 cents per gallon of gas. How could anyone think this is a better deal? …

Now some say that sacrificing hundreds of thousands of jobs and U.S. competitiveness is worthwhile if the budget deficit is significantly reduced and conservation of energy sources significantly increased. Most regretfully, neither will be the result of the Btu tax.

In short, this tax is all pain and very little gain. It would be nothing short of outrageous if the conference committee ignored this evidence and the opposition of millions of hard-working Americans, and put the Btu tax in the final version of the deficit-reduction bill.

Of course, this still leaves the larger issue of how we will reduce the federal deficit. The House-Senate conferees would be wise to aim for President Clinton’s original pledge of two dollars in spending cuts for every dollar in new taxes. That would achieve the goal of deficit reduction without the Btu tax’s painful side effects.

The Btu tax deserves to die, and at times recently it seemed like it was dead. But it’s not dead yet. The conference committee can — and should — kill it. Michael J. Skoczenski Waterville