The Family Is Real; Only The Numbers Are Not But Dole-Kemp Forces Found ‘Typical’ Spokane Family To Showcase Tax Cut

The Dole-Kemp campaign thinks Fred and Magdelen Regalado are a typical enough Spokane family to illustrate the kind of tax savings the GOP is offering.

But the illustration was more of a rough sketch than a finished portrait Wednesday.

The Regalados are Hispanic Republicans - an oddity, Fred admits - who run Regal Press, a small printing business in north Spokane. They have a 10-year-old son, Josh, and a five-year-old daughter, Megan.

They’re a struggling business and a struggling family - not such an oddity.

At a campaign “photo opportunity” Wednesday morning, Rich Munson, Dole-Kemp co-chairman for Spokane County, presented the Regalados with a 4-foot model of a check for $1,261 to symbolize the hypothetical savings from Dole’s tax plan.

The problem is: The savings are very hypothetical as far as the Regalados were concerned.

The “check” was dated April 15, 1997. Munson later acknowledged that any changes in the tax law couldn’t be made until next year, so the savings likely wouldn’t show up until 1998.

The savings were calculated for a family of four making $31,000 a year. Regalado said the family doesn’t even make that much running its printing business.

“Actually, we could go on food stamps, but I won’t do that,” he said.

Regalado wasn’t sure exactly how much the family paid in federal taxes last year, and the campaign didn’t submit his tax statements to their economists to come up with a personalized estimate.

They used a report on the Dole plan published in USA Today, Munson said.

Regalado believes the family would be helped by Dole’s proposed increase in the deduction for each child, a hike in the minimum income level before taxes are levied, and the gradual reduction in tax rates. But he wasn’t sure how much.

That uncertainty doesn’t keep the Regalados from supporting Dole. They even let Josh take a day off from school to attend the campaign event.

“I think he (Dole) would be a little more business-friendly, a little more family friendly,” Regalado said.

, DataTimes