Tax Deal Endangers Social Security, etc.

(1) Tax Deal Endangers Social Security: From Heidi Hartmann, president of the Institute for Women's Policy Research, an interesting analysis of the payroll-tax-holiday provision of the White House's compromise on taxes--one of the things they got in exchange for caving in to Republicans on the Bush-era tax-cuts [<--I'm starting to dislike this phrase, as it becomes more and more apparent that we're still in the "Bush era"]. The issue is whether it will be politically possible to increase the payroll tax in 2012, when this holiday expires.  Read Hartmann's HuffPo article here.

(2) Appeal from UFE on the Estate Tax: Our pals and next-door neighbors at United for a Fair Economy have put out an "action alert" to ask Pelosi and other House members to push for a strong estate tax provision as part of the compromise.  Find details about whom to contact and what to say here.

(3) Dan DiMaggio is Everywhere: Dan DiMaggio, who wrote this article for us about temp workers in Minneapolis (a version of which will appear in our Jan/Feb 2010 issue),  and who wrote a terrific article in Monthly Review about the people (including Dan) who grade all those standardized tests (that article is now online, here), has a great satirical piece on TruthOut, A Modest Proposal to Transition to a "Cater-to-the-Rich" Economy. His starting point is a ridiculous suggestion by economist Andrew Caplin of NYU that the route to economic recovery is to bite the bullet and recognize that economic inequality is here to stay, and adopt a "cater to the rich" approach--that is, the rest of us can succeed by knowing what the rich need and finding ways to meet those needs.  (I did notice, though, that the New York Times article that quoted Caplin also quoted three left economists--Theresa Ghilarducci, Jamie Galbraith, and Gar Alperovitz--all three of whom have written for D&S. Pretty impressive.)

And most recently, Dan had a letter to the editor in yesterday's New York Times, about a proposal to videotape teachers.  Dan's question: where are they going to find the "educational professionals" to analyze the resulting data? Answer: the same pool of low-wage workers that currently grade standardized tests.

More soon.

--Chris Sturr