Good Treasury pick

President Bush's selection of CSX railroad chief John Snow to succeed Paul O'Neill as Treasury secretary is largely being portrayed in the major media as replacing one pro-big business honcho with another - the principal difference being that Snow is more on board with the administration's tax-cut economic program than O'Neill was.

That may be true as far as it goes - of course, any Cabinet secretary should support the president - but Snow brings a lot more to the table than loyalty. He brings business and government experience, an understanding of capital markets that should reassure a skittish Wall Street, a rapport with Congress, and a force of personality that should help him sell the president's economic program at home and abroad.

In short, Snow looks like an unusually good pick for the key Treasury post. His experience indicates he's no shill for big business, but he is a friend of small- and medium-sized businesses, entrepreneurs and everyone else who seeks liberation from the government's Byzantine tax system.

This is because some years ago he served on the 14-member National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform, headed by Jack Kemp. The panel was charged by Congress to make recommendations for a "flatter, fairer, simpler" tax code to generate stronger economic growth.

The panel's recommendations didn't go far in Washington, but they did turn Snow into an enthusiastic tax reformer - and we suspect that in his new post he'll be talking as much about that as tax cuts. A simpler tax code would mean less money spent on taxes, if not directly, then indirectly by the billions saved in tax preparations.

Here's what Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, says about the Treasury-designate after working with him on the Kemp panel: "Snow is an enthusiastic promoter of a modernized tax system that will free capital to create new businesses, generate more jobs, and free every business from the extraordinary burdens of compliance with an impossibly complex tax code."

Now that's the kind of Treasury secretary the nation needs.