Your editorial today accusing Barack Obama of creating a new marriage penalty in his tax plan and declaring a “war on women” was an outrageous distortion [Editorial, “Obama’s War on Women,” August 14, 2008].

The truth is that under Mr. Obama’s tax plan not a single new couple would get a marriage penalty because they have high incomes. Not one. In fact, some of Mr. Obama’s other tax plans would eliminate the marriage penalty faced by a great many low-income workers currently receiving the Earned Income Tax Credit.

It is of course the case that in our current tax system some households face marriage penalties and other households get marriage bonuses. The Obama plan, like the McCain plan, would not change the number of high income families facing these penalties and bonuses. They would be the same under both plans.

But unlike Senator McCain, Mr. Obama has a comprehensive economic plan that would be good for women.

His Making Work Pay credit would give $500 per worker of tax relief to more than 70 million working women; more than 8 million working women would get a raise of up to $4,700 per year from his increase in the minimum wage; he strongly supports closing the wage gap so women no longer earn only 77 cents for every dollar a man earns; and his tax credits for health care would help provide quality, affordable health care to more than 20 million women who are currently uninsured.

The best way to help women who choose to work outside the home is to enact Mr. Obama’s proposed expansion of the child-care tax break, his generous EITC expansion, his plan to provide high-quality afterschool learning programs to an additional 1 million children, the 7 days of paid sick leave, and the significant tax incentives to reward 8.7 million women business owners for starting and growing the companies that create jobs and grow our economy.

The last eight years of Republican rule has been the real war on women. And Mr. McCain would continue the same failed policies of President Bush, America needs a change that puts women and families first.

JASON FURMAN
Economic Policy Director and

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE
Senior Economic Adviser Obama for America

‘For Energy, Do Everything Now’

It’s time to look at offshore drilling for what it really is: A national security necessity. No, it’s not to salve the obvious pains with the economy being shot, oil, energy, and inflation spiking high, or the banking and housing crises feeling for bottom [Oped, “For Energy, Do Everything Now,” July 31, 2008].

I have yet to hear the number one reason to drill “from sea to shining sea” from either the Obama or McCain camps. The bulk of our crude oil, like that of Japan, America, and many other nations, comes out of the Persian Gulf.

With Iran going nuclear and Israel threatening pre-emption, the 12-mile wide gap in the Straight of Hormuz represents the kind of Achilles’s heel in our supply chain that our government can’t afford overlook. Congress needs to debate this subject post haste and lift the ban.

We better drill for oil before war breaks out. Otherwise the price of a barrel, due to interrupted, or worse, cut-off supply, might just soar out of sight.

JAMES OTTAR GRUNDVIG

New York, N.Y.