Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 1-11

123456 TRIBUNE 11 COMMENTARY resident Bush is in Europe todaytrying to craft atrans-Atlantic relationship of legacy quality. Still, his domestic legacy also needs attention. Indeed, if Bush act fast, he will be too late to stop damage to the single most important element of that legacy: a relatively competitive U.S. economy. Asingle the problem.

The president is leading the charge to reform and privatize Social Security. Like the tax cuts that came earlier, these are both measures that would strengthen his economic legacy. After all, with a solvent pension system and dropping tax rates, the U.S. would be better positioned than most developed nations to handle growing challenges from developing ones (read, China). Things were looking especially good last week, when Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Board chairman, blessed the main components of the Bush plan.

Looking good, that is, until Bush allowed that he might consider raising payroll taxes on higher earners to fund his changes, among other Currently, each worker pays 6.2 percent of wages in Social Security taxes; his employer pays another 6.2 percent. But that total 12.4 percent tax applies to only the first $90,000 of income. Bush suggested to the New Haven Register that he would be open to removing that $90,000 cap so that all the income of higher earners would be subject to this payroll tax. He may have elaborated on his thoughts the next day, but no one heard him. The roars of rage from the Republican base drowned out all conversation.

concession is being played as a political story and it certainly is one. His friends say he moved for tactical reasons, merely to woo support is the table. Every Republican Party official recalls the moment when George H.W. Bush, the father, first hinted that he would betray repeated pledges not to increase taxes. In a similar moment of fiscal 1990 budget Bush senior let drop the thought that he might allow revenue to narrow a deficit.

He went on to tarnish not only his legacy but Ronald as well by raising rates and undoing the historic tax reform of 1986. The salient feature of the Bush change was an increase in the progressiveness of the rate structure. Bush senior and his advisers wagered that by taking this action in 1990 they might be able to recover by 1992. But not even the gulf war victory of 1991nor German reunification could save him. The most avid student of that bitter experience was the current president, who went on to campaign as a tax cutter.

Now he is also debating an increase in progressiveness. The Republican blogosphere is already trying out the narrative. If Bush repeats his error, the pair will go down in history as the bookends to an era of Republican fiscal hypocrisy. The symmetry is so neat as to terrify. Screen rights, anyone? But the political drama obscures something more economic consequences of cap lifting.

It is possible, as even Sen. Charles Grassley(R-Iowa), the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is saying, that lifting the cap makes sense. After all, the federal budget is in trouble, with alarming numbers, just as in 1990. In a static and nominal sense, capturing more of the revenue from higher earners would do something for balance sheets. Still, such calculations omit what the payroll tax increase would mean to the culture of entrepreneurship.

Fewer than one in 10 workers earns enough to be affected by a lifting of the cap. But many of those earners are job doctors and, most important, small businesses. The potential tax increase for these productive earners is enormous. Last year, a couple earning $90,000 faced a marginal income tax rate of 25 percent. If all of their wages (including the employer side) beyond the $90,000 mark were also subject to the payroll tax of 12.4 percent, that would represent a significant increase in the household marginal tax rate.

Since income tax rates are higher for higher earners, some households could see a tax rate approaching the 50 percent line. But of course they will not go quite that far, comes the standard rebuttal. The cap will not be lifted, it will merely be adjusted upward to cover, say, the first $200,000 in income. Or it will only be lifted on one marriage partner. And so on.

These arguments, however, miss a crucial point. National economies are just like markets: Cchange matters on the margin, and one change begets similar changes. To lift the cap once is probably to lift it again. And to give in on this one tax is to open the door to raising other at least, was what happened to Bush senior. What is more, increasing such an important tax on labor signals that the U.S.

is open to heading in the European direction. This at a time when the only chance of sustaining U.S. growth rates is for the country to become more like Asia. Bush should cough twice, clarify and apologize. Apologies hurt, but even a thousand are worth it when it comes to preserving such a strong legacy as this one.

Amity Shlaes is a syndicated columnist with the Financial Times. E-mail: amity.shlaes@ft Flying in the face of good ideas Without the crutch of tax increases, President Bush is losing his fiscal focus Amity Shlaes ary Kay Letourneauand Vili Fualaauhave set a date. Middle of April, according to their online wedding gift registry. You can search it out on www.macys.com. Among other things, the kids registered for a Delonghi Retro 4-Slice Toaster in case feeling generous.

There is speculation that the sell television rights to the ceremony in order to pay for it. Fualaau also has expressed interest in writing a book about their affair. Noel Soriano, a friend of the two, told the Seattle Post-Intel- ligencer recently that all this is overdue. going to be fabulous, seeing them get hitched And Soriano added this thought: have gone through a lot. That they lasted this long proves how strong their love If you are not gagging on your Special right now, I have to assume because you remember the story.

remember that Letourneau began a sexual relationship with Fualaau in 1996, when she was a married, 34- year-oldmother of four and he was her 12-year-oldstudent. remember that shortly after she served her six-month sentence for child rape, she was at it again, caught with Fualaau in a motor vehicle, for which she drew a just-completed remember that two children were born of this relationship. remember that she is a convicted rapist and he is her victim. Or maybe just that your capacity for outrage is gone, worn away by the excesses of an era in which fresh affronts arrive on your doorstep in the daily paper. Ihope not the case.

If anything ever deserved your indignation and condemnation, this is it. Not that you and I getting hot and bothered will change anything. Fualaau is 22 years old now. He can wed any woman have him. But that relieve us of the moral obligation to shout down the suggestion implicit in comments that these two are Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers racing for the finish line.

To find a bigger load of bull, have to visit a stockyard. Mentally stable 34-year-old women do not have sex with 12- year-old boys, period. Twelve- year-old boys ought not be having sex with anybody, period. At that age, one is still largely unformed, still emotionally undeveloped, still in the process of becoming. So even if Vili Fualaau is earnest in wanting to marry this woman, we have to wonder to what degree that wanting is colored by what happened to him, what she did to him, when he was just a child.

We have to remember that he is not who he otherwise would have been. Frankly, I find myself wondering if public outrage would be as muted if the genders were reversed, if some young woman were marrying the man who raped her when she was 12. Would it still be necessary to wait for screaming to start? Would the bland declarations of a Noel Soriano still be unchallenged in the court of public opinion? Would we need reminders to be sickened at talk of selling TV rights to the wedding? Putting aside for a moment the predations of homosexual priests upon altar boys, we are not conditioned to think of males as victims of sex crimes. Indeed, guys have a word for the man or boy who is preyed upon by an attractive older woman: lucky. For the record, Vili Fualaau is not lucky.

He is 22years old, unemployed, father of two girls, the oldest of whom is 7, and engaged to marry the woman who took his childhood. Shame on any book publisher or television producer who enriches this couple. Shame on anyone who supports them. And shame on Noel Soriano. This is many things, but a love story it is not.

Knight Leonard Pitts is a syndicated columnist based in Washington. E-mail: wedding is no modern-day love story AP photo by Chris Polk Vili Fualaau (sitting) hit the talk-show circuit to discuss his relationship with his former 6th-grade teacher, Mary Kay Letourneau (above right). AP photo by Alan Berner Mary Kay Letourneau, a former grade-school teacher, listened to testimony during her 1998 hearing for violating parole by having a relationship with then 13-year-old Vili Fualaau. The saga of ex-teacher who plans to marry ex-pupil she raped is worthy of outrage, not a book or movie deal Leonard Pitts By Mike Lawrence I llinois political leadership needs to refocus on school dropout rates among teachers. About 40 percent of new instructors in our public schools quit after five years, and 70 percent blame working conditions and lack of administrative support.

In some Chicago schools, attrition soars to 73 percent. The General Assembly took note a few years ago when it approved legislation touting the establishment of mentoring, professional development and evaluation programs for entering teachers; however, all too typically, the state has failed to fund the initiative. Despite appeals from education experts and public-spirited, corporate-backed organizations such as Civic Committee and the Illinois Business Roundtable, less than 60 percent of our school dis- tricts have teacher mentoring programs, compared with more than 90 percent in Michigan and Ohio and nearly 90 percent in Indiana. Meanwhile, most school districts continue to throw the toughest assignments at the newest teachers as veterans employ their union-won prerogative to choose their clientele. Corporate chiefs are unimpressed.

What other professions assign the most formidable of tasks to the rawest of rookies? Even All-American quarterbacks are eased into National Football League starting roles over a couple of seasons, often with a fading but still savvy old-timer showing the way. Rather than go nuclear with unions over collective bargaining agreements, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and lawmakers should take the more politically realistic route of subsidizing the millions it will cost ev- ery year to tap truly outstanding teachers as mentors, compensate them fairly, and provide them and others with the appropriate training in guidance and evaluation. New teachers will gain vital support, and the best of their seasoned colleagues will welcome the recognition and fresh challenge. Some will contend we cannot afford it.

But can we afford further neglect? Not long ago, half of the teachers in Joliet elementary schools were leaving after their first year, forcing the district to devote resources and energy to 100 hires. Since the district took it upon itself to launch a mentoring project, nearly 90 percent are staying, according to an analysis by Dan Jones, an education faculty member at Southern Illinois University. Mentoring is not a cure-all. Randy Dunn, the interim state superintendent of education, strongly advocates finding additional ways to reward motivated and effective teachers by offering compensation premiums for exciting and empowering assignments, such as working with parents in at-risk families and teaming with administrators on staff development. Mindy Sick Munger, an education adviser in the Jim Edgar administration, believes the profession will entice and retain young people only if they foresee opportunities for variety and personal growth.

Universities must prepare prospective teachers for the tasks and trials of a realm in which too many parents second-guess them and too few are positively engaged. Where pay is not competitive, we must raise it. We must do a better job of marketing teaching as a profession, meriting renewed societal respect. But mentoring offers a particular promise because it targets people who have opted to teach even after considering the downsides. We need only consider the stark lament of a woman who left journalism and entered teaching in another state only to resign in despair.

teachers, however naive and idealistic, often know before they enter the profession that the salaries are paltry, the class sizes largeand the supplies scant. What they know is how little support from parents, school administrators and colleagues they can expect once the door is closed and the textbooks are Claudia Graziano wrote in Edutopia Magazine. keep the Claudia Gra- zianos of Illinois in our classrooms. Mike Lawrence heads the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University. A how-to on keeping teachers in class Illustration by Randy Mach Bishop.