Gov. Perry’s plan for the economy; using student test scores to evaluate teachers;

Perry’s taxing ideas

Re “Perry announces plan for economy,” Oct. 26

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has hit the GOP trifecta: knee-capping Social Security, Medicare and the progressive tax system all in one blow.

Perry’s proposed private retirement accounts would abandon millions of younger workers to the volatility of the stock market, while decimating the essential revenue base for Social Security. Replacing Medicare benefits with a payment or credit toward purchase of commercial insurance would force millions of elderly Americans to buy individual policies at much higher rates.

His 20% flat tax would mean an instant 15% cut for the rich — to be paid for by radically increased levies on lower wage earners.

The candidate who threatened bodily harm to the Federal Reserve chairman now threatens the future of all Americans.

Howard Hurlbut

Redlands

The flaws in Perry’s tax plan are drawing attention from the right and the left. Here’s another that will cause the heads of his small-government base to explode when they figure it out: Under Perry’s plan, the IRS will have to administer two tax systems — the current one and the flat one.

By grafting the new system on top of the old one, he has given the IRS a reason to increase in size. That is anathema to what his supporters want.

How long before he starts walking this one back?

Gary R. Levine

West Hills

Grading the teachers

Re “State bucks U.S. teacher grading trend,” Oct. 26

As others have stated before, student achievement tests are poor indicators of teacher effectiveness, the prime reason being that students simply do not care about them. These tests have zero effect on their grades.

For example, one of my best fifth-grade math students did so well on his math placement exam that he qualified to take pre-algebra as a sixth-grader. Then he took the easier state math test a month later and fell 150 points from the year before. My smartest girl went snorkeling in Central America the week of standardized testing. Her scores declined from the year before.

These kinds of situations are common, yet politicians insist that once-a-year achievement tests be used to determine teacher effectiveness. It doesn’t take an education expert to see that this plan is unfair and flawed. California should be commended for resisting this trend.

Kurt Page

Laguna Niguel

So far, California schools have resisted blaming individual teachers for their students’ performance on test scores. After 37 years as a public high school teacher, here’s why I agree with the state:

- I wasn’t pals with the principal, so I usually got the hardest-to-teach classes.

- Kids have no reason to try hard on tests that have no effect on their graduation.

- School budgets have been cut, adding to class sizes and even causing libraries to close and badly needed aides to be laid off.

When I started teaching in 1970, at least I got respect. Now teachers may face firing because of a test.

Cheryl Clark

Long Beach

Imperial, except when it isn’t

Re “Empire building? In Iraq?,” Opinion, Oct. 25

Jonah Goldberg chastises President Obama’s decision to leave Iraq as a “strategic blunder.” Then he acknowledges that Obama is honoring a commitment by the Bush administration, without mentioning it was set in consultation with the Iraqi government.

Then, when distinguishing between the U.S. and genuine empires, he says, “When asked to leave, we’ve done so,” without mentioning that the Iraqis have repeatedly asked us to go.

I suppose we’re to conclude that, first, one administration should dishonor a predecessor’s commitments if they’re inconvenient, and second, that America shouldn’t behave like an empire, except when convenient.

But the implied alternative is scary: that the U.S. should remain until Iran no longer wishes to influence Iraq. Since that will never happen, Goldberg’s is effectively a call for permanent American hegemony in Iraq. How much does Goldberg want our taxes raised to pay for it?

Andrew Sussman

Rancho Santa Margarita

Goldberg writes that the goal Obama pursued in Libya is what critics of the Iraq war denounce as American imperialism

That may be true if you discount the fact that the Iraqi people were not trying to liberate themselves. In fact, many on the left would say that America should not be in the business of liberating those who will not fight.

That Libyans were in armed rebellion to achieve national liberation makes a difference. Iraq was about removing Saddam Hussein, not liberation.

Pete Alberini

La Mirada

Cyber security

Re “Malware myopia,” Opinion, Oct. 23

Mark Bowden rightly points out the dangers that accompany our increasingly interconnected online world. However, he places too much blame on the architects of the Internet.

Bowden writes: “The Internet was born, after all, in that brief period of inanity before and after what was dubbed the Summer of Love. Openness was the point.” He asks — after quoting Paul Vixie as saying “What were they thinking” — “Were they thinking?”

In the 1960s, a computer filled a climate-controlled room. That a kid operating out of his basement could play global thermonuclear war was science fiction. In those days, computers were connected through specialized, custom circuits, not telephone lines.

Let’s not blame the Internet innovators for failing to include security features for which they could not possibly have foreseen the need.

David Salahi

Laguna Niguel

Nanny vs. sick

Re “Incentives to shape up bodies and bottom lines,” Oct. 25

Thanks to The Times for informing us of the progress of preventive healthcare. Our society is drowned in ads for unhealthful foods and vehicles that serve as substitutes for walking.

For those who complain that the carrots and sticks being utilized to achieve healthier lifestyles amount to a “nanny state,” I agree. But ads conducive to unhealthful lifestyles play with our psychology and are like carrots and sticks.

If people had to vote, the “nanny state” would win over the “sick state.”

Stephen V. Hymowitz

Los Angeles

Cuba and oil

Re “Stop spamming Cuba,” Editorial, Oct. 24

Rather than dwelling on a relatively minor waste of money spent on Radio and TV Marti broadcasts to Cuba, why not discuss our ability to shoot ourselves in the foot big time?

Take the impending and likely entrance (several international producers are financing the drilling, and are optimistic) of Cuba into the club of oil exporting nations, for example. That event will throw the U.S. blockade into the dustbin of history.

Cuba’s leadership will continue to resist any oversight from the U.S. What is it about “no” that we don’t understand?

F. Daniel Gray

Los Angeles

L.A. pensions

Re “Mayor seeks to sway pension boards,” Oct. 25

It is an outrage and an act of arrogance on the part of L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to threaten to replace Roberta Conroy as board president of the City Employees’ Retirement System. Conroy understands her fiduciary responsibility to the system’s beneficiaries and keeps their best interests at heart.

The mayor needs to stay out of the actuarial business of the city’s pension fund.

Susan Harbach

Sherman Oaks