Of workers in seven educational categories -- high school dropout, high school graduate, some college, college graduate, nonprofessional master's, Ph.D., and M.B.A./J.D./M.D. -- only those in the last two categories, with doctorates or professional graduate degrees, experienced any growth in mean real money earnings between 2000 and 2005. Workers in these two categories comprised only 3.4 percent of the labor force in 2005, meaning that more than 96 percent of U.S. workers are in educational groups for which average money earnings have fallen. In contrast to in earlier decades, since 2000 even college graduates and those with nonprofessional master's degrees -- 29 percent of workers in 2005 -- suffered declines in mean real money earnings.

In short, TAA is inappropriately designed to address the protectionist drift. The labor-market concern driving this drift is not confined to the problem of how to reemploy particular workers in particular sectors facing import competition. Because the pressures of globalization are spread economy-wide via domestic labor-market competition, there is concern about income and job security among workers employed in all sectors.

If the United States today undertook the goal of boosting its college-graduate share of the work force to 50 percent, the graduation of that median American worker would, if the rate of past efforts are any indication, not come until about 2047. And even this far-off date might be too optimistic. In the past generation, the rate of increase in the educational attainment of U.S. natives has slowed from its 1960s and 1970s pace, in part because college-completion rates have stalled. Rising income inequality may itself be playing a role here. Since 1988, 74 percent of American students at the 146 top U.S. colleges have come from the highest socioeconomic quartile, compared with just 3 percent from the lowest quartile. Moreover, even college graduates and holders of nonprofessional master's degrees have experienced falling mean real money earnings since 2000. If this trend continues, even completing college will not assuage the concerns behind rising protectionism.

A New Deal for globalization would combine further trade and investment liberalization with eliminating the full payroll tax for all workers earning below the national median. In 2005, the median total money earnings of all workers was $32,140, and there were about 67 million workers at or below this level. Assuming a mean labor income for this group of about $25,000, these 67 million workers would receive a tax cut of about $3,800 each. Because the economic burden of this tax falls largely on workers, this tax cut would be a direct gain in after-tax real income for them. With a total price tag of about $256 billion, the proposal could be paid for by raising the cap of $94,200, raising payroll tax rates (for progressivity, rates could escalate as they do with the income tax), or some combination of the two. This is, of course, only an outline of the needed policy reform, and there would be many implementation details to address. For example, rather than a single on-off point for this tax cut, a phase-in of it (like with the earned-income tax credit) would avoid incentive-distorting jumps in effective tax rates.

A Letter From a Republican Male Voter to Richard Mourdock

Greetings from a fellow Indiana Tea Partier! I am writing to you because I love God, I love limited governments, and I share your feelings on abortion. We are going to send Obama back to Chicago and hopefully we will send you to Washington, DC as our next United States Senator!

Sometimes it is easier to talk about one's principles than to actually live by them. We have seen that recently with Governor Chris Christie who embraced Mr. Obama (I can't call him President, because he's not a U.S.-born citizen and his occupancy of that office represents an illegitimate Muslim takeover of our Christian nation) when the chips came down. Instead of protesting the need for Washington, DC / FEMA intervention, he abandoned his principles and clung to Obama as if for dear life, praising the "benefits" of collectivist intervention. It's as if he completely forgot that had New Jersey never sent tax money to Washington, they would have had plenty of money to take care of their own problems regarding Sandy. As I said, when the chips came down, expediency ruled over principles in Chris Christie's world. Sadly that is the case with far too many people, which is why our Christian nation is in the mess we're in now.

I want to share with you a story of a calling that led me to face my own moment of truth. Recently, I was called upon to either stand by my principles or deny them. It wouldn't be the first time that, facing hardship, a supposedly devout follower of Christ did such a thing. Fortunately, I am a God-fearing man and I do actually attend church and I do try to learn the lessons imparted to me. I could say I was somewhat prepared for the test that was put before me. At least, I feel I reacted the way God would want, and not the way that emotional and moral convenience would dictate.

The test came early this summer when my wife was coming home with groceries. She was detoured by road construction into a poor neighborhood. She was broadsided by a car with three drunk men. These men - one white men, a Hispanic man and a black man - dragged her from her car while she was still recovering from the airbag that hit her in the face, stole her cell phone, held her down, and took turns raping her while she screamed for help. As if this wasn't bad enough, they... did other, equally horrible things to her. When it was all over they threw her back in her car and threatened her with death if she didn't drive off. Thankfully her car limped to the nearest gasoline station where she got help.

As you can imagine, Mr. / future U.S. Senator Mourdock, the test was two-fold. The second part came when we discovered that she'd gotten pregnant. A football injury in high school rendered me unable to father children, so we know for certain that one of those men is the biological father. What we don't know yet is which man impregnated her.

I love my wife dearly and it was utterly devastating to know what happened to her and to see her emotionally wrecked by her experience. It was even more devastating, emotionally, to find out that she had gotten pregnant as a result of this brutal rape. To make matters worse, the perpetrators used her cell phone and took turns filming the incident. We found all of this out, plus the following, only because law enforcement got involved: since they knew Youtube would erase the video, they posted it on a foreign site and bragged about what they did, and even made mock bets on what race the baby would be if she got pregnant. Her cell phone had a lot of personal information on it, and as a result they monitored our emails and Facebook posts and started asking her how "their" baby was doing.

It is obvious what our solutions were. Either have the baby or get an abortion. Coping with a pregnancy caused by rape has unimaginably difficult for me. I found it hard to touch her because of the way she had been defiled by those men. Worse than that, she started suffering morning sickness and finally she started to show. I could not help but wonder if this was a legitimate rape after all. Not a night went by that I didn't get on my knees and pray over these issues. I didn't know what to do. To put it crudely, the option of abortion started looking pretty good as a solution.

But I think you know what God would say. A life is a life, it isn't the baby's fault how he or she is conceived. A child is a gift to an otherwise childless couple. A gift given to us under circumstances that we would not find desirable is a gift nonetheless. It's no different than an adoption, it's not our child in either case. Actually, it is - this child is half hers, biologically speaking. Just as people die when their time comes, they also live when their time comes to enter this world.

I've harbored feelings of anger at the rapists, guilt that I wasn't there to protect my wife, even jealousy over the fact that one of these men fathered a child while I could not. I've felt deeply insulted that they put a baby in my wife's belly and left their mark upon her and within her forever. I've contemplated with terrible uncertainty how I'll feel when I look into the eyes of a rapist's child, and even more uncertainty at how I will raise that child as my own. Through prayer I have started to get over my reluctance to touch my wife; as surely as it wasn't the baby's fault that they're alive and growing inside her, it wasn't her fault that she was raped. I can't let them win. I can't let the devil win.

As for not knowing the father of our baby, we chose not to get DNA tests. The tests are unnecessary to ensure the life of the baby. Why know who the father is if you have moved past your anger, or are trying to move past it? Thus, as part of my Christian therapy I have started meeting with the perpetrators in prison. I didn't start doing that right away, mind you. It took until I was able to accept in my heart that our child is a gift and that the circumstances of their creation was secondary, even if not irrelevant. I had to remember that just as these men sinned by coveting thy neighbor's wife, I have sinned in many ways - ways which I feel are much lesser, but which are not lesser in the eyes of God. Forgive us our trespasses, is part of a basic Christian prayer. For the sake of my own soul I am still working my way through this. Part of this working through process involved thanking these men for being the deliverers of God's gift to my family.

In closing, Mr. / Future Senator Mourdoch, I had planned to write you this letter 2 months ago, but I kept putting it off. I understand why now. The three men who accosted my wife and gave her the blessing that's swelling inside her now, accepted a plea bargain. They received a reduced sentence and have joined the prison ministry, and are already model citizens behind bars. I am confident that they are well on their way to repentance and emerge as productive members of society. So perhaps it was a gift to them as well.

I am supporting your candidate for U.S. Senate, Mr. Mourdoch, because while your words are uncomfortable for people to hear, they are truthful. Thank you.

Sincerely,
A Republican Male Voter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. government agency has withdrawn a report that challenged Republican ideas about taxes and economic growth - an action that drew fire from Democrats who accused it on Thursday of bowing to political pressure.

Republican lawmakers blasted the Congressional Research Service (CRS) report when it was issued in September and then went to the agency to complain. The report suggested that lower tax rates on the wealthy are not linked to economic growth, an item of faith among many conservatives.

The CRS, a non-partisan arm of the Library of Congress, withdrew the report in an unusual move late last month, the agency confirmed on Thursday.