This is a critical time in our nation. People are tired and weary with the war in Iraq. Citizens are tired of bickering, and those who divide the country with partisan rhetoric. It's only January, and people are already tired of the 2008 presidential campaign. In fact, only 20% of voters bothered to vote in last week's Michigan primary.

What can we do about it? Well, I am convinced that one person joining together with the voice of many can make a difference.

You are not here to hear about me, but perhaps telling you a little about myself will help you understand the particular passion I bring to the issues we are raising in today's briefing. Like each of you, I've tried to make a difference.

I have been in the business of making a difference all my life. Initially I didn't even realize it — having founded Terry Neese Personnel Services, which has been in business for 30 years, I focused my efforts on helping women find the type of career that would benefit their families. This often included helping women decide which career path to take as they gained knowledge — essentially helping them climb the ladder of success.

Building Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) into the largest women's advocacy association in the country kept me in the business of making a difference and changing the world for women, families, and small businesses.

In 2007, I founded a non-profit Institute which brought women business owners from Afghanistan to America to study, mentor, and return home to build their Democracy. Some years ago, I even ran for office in Oklahoma, to make a difference. 

I can't resist quoting observations from Oklahoma's favorite son, Will Rogers. I grew up in a poor farming community in Southwest Oklahoma and like Will, I have a tendency to be too honest, sometimes. Will was often critical of politicians. He could have been president, but he said (and I paraphrase), "I want to keep my honesty as long as I can." That doesn't apply to anyone here today, because I know we're all working to keep our honesty as long as we can!

So, let me talk honestly about the issues we face. As we have dialogue today and in the months ahead, I hope you'll talk the same way to me.

As a Distinguished Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, I am focusing on real kitchen table issues impacting women, families, and small businesses. That's our agenda, simply put.

I can't cover all of our concerns today; but I can raise the major ones and ask for your help to make life better. In doing so, I know I stand on the shoulders of those who have come before me. Much of my analysis is adapted from the excellent book John Goodman did with Celeste Colgan and Kimberly Strassel in "Leaving Women Behind," published by NCPA and The Manhattan Institute in 2006. I'm sorry my friend John Goodman, who runs NCPA, is unable to join us today. 

And speaking of NCPA, all of us there appreciate the data collected regularly through the Current Population Survey at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The time has come to examine why our government continues "leaving women behind." It is time to understand better how a variety of our institutions evolved in an age when most women did not work outside the home, how those institutions and policies have not kept pace with our modern world, and what we can do about that.

Most of these laws I am talking about were written in the 1930's. Women rarely worked outside the home. It merely describes the lives of most of us here to say that the single most important economic and sociological change in our society in the past 60 years has been the entry of women into the labor market:

• Between 1950 and 2000 the labor force participation rate of women between 25 and 55 years of age more than doubled; today, more than 75 percent of these women are in the labor market.
• Less than 12 percent of mothers with children under 6 were in the labor force in 1950; today, more than 60 percent are working.

These changes have had a major impact on family life. For example:

• In 1940, two-thirds of all working households were one wage-earner and a stay-at-home spouse; today about one in four households fit that pattern.
• Dual-earner families - with both spouses in the labor market - now constitute slightly more than half of all married couples.

Despite these remarkable changes, public policy and major institutions have never kept pace.  Tax law, labor law and a host of other institutions are still designed from top-to-bottom for an Ozzie and Harriet lifestyle. I don't say this to marginalize the life many of our grandparents and parents lived. It's merely a direct observation.

Our major economic institutions - including tax law, labor law, and employee benefits law, as well as Social Security, and retirement policies - reward families with a full-time worker and a stay-at-home spouse and by comparison punish every other arrangement.

Women who work for modest wages outside the home still pay effective tax rates higher than Bill Gates! Consider that hypothetical case of Ozzie and Harriet, our middle-income couple. Here's what happens when Harriet enters the labor market:

• Even if she earns only the minimum wage, she is taxed at Ozzie's income tax rate. And even if Ozzie has maxed out on his Social Security payroll taxes, Harriet must pay Social Security taxes on every dollar she earns (up to the same maximum).
• Since Harriet is entitled to half of Ozzie's Social Security benefit (and gets 100 percent after his death) whether she works or not, odds are that she will get little, if any, benefit from the payroll taxes she pays.
• When all taxes and all costs are considered (including the cost of child care and other services she was previously providing as a homemaker), the second earner in a middle-income family can expect to keep only about 35 cents out of each dollar she earns.

On paper, our elderly entitlement programs treat everyone the same. But the ages of husbands and wives are often not the same.

• At age 65, Ozzie is eligible for Medicare; but Harriet is not eligible until she also reaches 65. If the couple was relying on Ozzie's employer-provided health insurance before his retirement, they must now find higher-priced, individual insurance for Harriet (and pay for it with after-tax dollars).
• At age 62, Harriet can get early Social Security retirement benefits. But if she works part-time (say, to help pay health insurance premiums), the withdrawal of Social Security benefits and the Social Security benefits tax can combine with other taxes to take 60¢, 70¢ or 80¢ of every dollar she earns!

Since Medicare does not cover most long-term care, seniors must provide for their own needs, or exhaust their assets and qualify for Medicaid. Since women are more than twice as likely as men to experience a long stint in a nursing home, this really is a "women's issue." Yet public policies are hardly accommodating.

• Like other employee benefits, there is virtually no legal restriction on the ability of people to acquire long-term care insurance with pretax dollars at work; for people who must buy insurance outside the workplace, however, the tax breaks are stingier.
• Although four states allow seniors to protect assets against Medicaid by buying insurance, Congress has prevented similar arrangements in the other 46 states.

In sum, the labor market does not provide women with the flexibility they need for the life-style most of us live in the 21^st Century.

Our institutions were not only designed for the full-time worker with a stay-at-home spouse, employers and employees find it difficult to make any other arrangement.

• Because of rigid tax laws and employee benefits laws, if Ozzie and Harriet both work full-time they will likely receive duplicate, unnecessary sets of benefits. Harriet will be unable to acquire higher wages in return for foregoing health and pension benefits she acquires through Ozzie's employer.

Let's leave poor Harriet for a moment and take Katherine for another example. She is a divorced mother of two who has held several jobs in her career. Early on, most of her jobs did not provide retirement benefits. Of those that did, she was rarely there long enough to become "vested." Now in her late forties, Katherine is frantically trying to save as much as the law allows, but it's unlikely she will ever be able to save enough to provide true security when she retires.

Surely, our nation's employee benefit system needs to be reformed in order to meet the needs of women in the 21st Century. Consider:

• Women are more likely to work part-time so that they can look after children or elderly family members; therefore, women are less likely to qualify for employer-provided benefits.
• Women move from job to job and in and out of the labor market more frequently than men; therefore, women are more likely to be burdened by employee benefit programs that penalize job switching.

In addition, women raising children or caring for an ailing parent have other reasons to want flexibility in working hours. However, rigid labor laws may deny them the opportunity to attend a child's soccer game or take a parent to the doctor one week and make up the hours the following week. Our old-fashioned labor laws will not allow them to have that flexibility.

Women are not asking for a wave of new government entitlements, we just don't want to be penalized when we exercise our liberties. Women want to be free, under law and in the economy. There's no reason to leave laws or policies in place that impede our economic choices. But the truth is that many changes are needed to bring aging institutions into sync with the way people are living their lives in the 21st century.

At the NCPA, we  intend to be a voice for women, families, and small businesses. We need your help. We need your leadership. Together, we can make a difference.

Let me pose some questions, then offer just a few suggestions. As I do so, please know that I realize you are the policy-makers. Tell me, tell us, if we're "off-pitch" or if there are better ways to approach these challenges facing American women and their families.

• Why can't we have a fairer tax system for two-earner couples? At a minimum, both spouses should be able to file completely separate tax returns, if that helps them in terms of tax liability and economic equity.
• Why can't we have a flexible employee benefit system that makes it easier for dual-earner couples to obtain higher wages rather than unneeded, duplicate benefits, and for part-time workers to accept lower wages in return for more valuable health and retirement benefits?
• Why can't we have flexibility in labor law, making it easier for workers (especially parents with young children and caregivers for elderly parents) to choose alternatives to the traditional 40-hour work week?
• Why can't we have a level playing field under the tax law? People who save for retirement, purchase health insurance, long-term insurance and/or day care should receive just as much tax relief as people who obtain these benefits at work.
• Why can't we have portable health and retirement benefits, so that people are not penalized when they switch jobs?
• Why can't we have a completely new approach to the treatment of spouses under Social Security? Earnings sharing (where payroll tax contributions are divided like community property) could easily be applied to any new system of personal retirement accounts.
• Why can't we have a new approach to the taxation of Social Security benefits? If benefits must be taxed they should be taxed in a way that does not raise marginal tax rates and there should be no earnings penalty for seniors who work.
• Why can't everyone protect assets by buying long-term care insurance, using Medicaid only for catastrophic costs?

While I'm at this, let me ask similar questions about the problems facing all of us, women and men, who work in smaller enterprises.

• Why can't small businesses have better access to affordable health insurance? As a small business owner, I want to provide health insurance for my employees. In fact, I want to provide Fortune 500 benefits to my employees. But I am not a Fortune 500 firm. Corporate America and Labor Unions can purchase health insurance across state lines in economy of scale and lower costs. Small business owners can't because they are not allowed.
• Why can't we bring an end to our government's discrimination against small businesses run by women or men?
• Why can't we allow are small businesses access to affordable health insurance just like labor unions and corporate America?

I do not raise these issues to denounce our nation. I love my country. I can never adequately repay America for the opportunities she has given me. I raise the voice of reason, compassion and care for those who work, pay taxes and obey the law.

There are shrill voices in the media every day who talk about discrimination against women. But they never seem to talk about how women have been left behind by our outdated labor laws.

We plan to speak for those who have been left behind. We plan to provide the alternative voice, to amplify the voices of women for economic liberty, opportunity and freedom.

Right now, there's a lot of talk about new government programs or benefits to "help" women. But why not let women help themselves? Instead of growing government, with its notorious cookie-cutter approaches, what about simple solutions to empower women and working families to live their economic lives according to their personal needs and preferences?

To distill this again, our suggestions are:

• A fairer tax system for two-earner couples; spouses should be allowed to file separately without economic penalty. Let's end the marriage penalty in fact, not in fantasy.
• A flexible employee benefit system that makes it easier for dual-earner couples to obtain higher wages rather than unneeded, duplicate benefits, and for part-time workers to accept lower wages in return for more valuable health and retirement benefits.
• Flexibility in labor law, making it easier for workers (especially parents with young children and caregivers for the elderly parents) to choose alternatives to the traditional 40-hour work week.
• A level playing field under tax law, so that people who save for retirement, purchase health insurance, long-term insurance, day care, etc., receive just as much tax relief as people who obtain these benefits at work.
• Portable health and retirement benefits, so that people are not penalized when they switch jobs.
• A completely new approach to the treatment of spouses under Social Security; earnings sharing (where payroll tax contributions are divided like community property) could easily be applied to any new system of personal retirement accounts.
• A new approach to the taxation of Social Security benefits: If benefits must be taxed they should be taxed in a way that does not raise marginal tax rates and there should be no earnings penalty for seniors who work.
• The ability of everyone to protect assets by buying long-term care insurance, using Medicaid only for catastrophic costs.

If it's possible to tie all these concerns together in one tidy package, it seems to me the primary focus should be on tax fairness, flexible benefits, portable benefits, flexible workplaces, and health care for small business.

As we move forward on these issues, we don't want to replace outmoded patriarchal models or assumptions with equally outmoded models or assumptions that big government approaches will make life better for American women.

Women want, and need, to be free.

America needs policies that work for people who work. American women - and all American workers — need flexibility, portability, and security. They deserve no less.

NCPA intends to be a voice for such policies. With your help, the voices of women entrepreneurs — mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, significant others, partners and friends — will reach into the homes of millions, to transform and re-form the policy impediments I've sketched here today.

Our opinions, our solutions, our voices, need to be heard.

Let's stay in the business of making a difference for women and their families.

Let's change the world. Why can't we?

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