Call For Guest Posts About Taxes & The Economy

As I have done for the past few years, I’ll be turning over the reins at taxgirl to my readers for the last week in August. Last year, pieces focused on the expiring Bush tax cuts (like this one and this one); in 2009, I asked readers what kind of tax reform ideas they wanted to share with Congress (like this one and this one).
For 2011, I’m offering readers the chance to offer insight about the best way to deal with the current economic situation: raise more revenue, cut more spending, a combination of the two or something else altogether?
I’m hoping for some specifics – a word or two beyond “we need more jobs.” For example, you may want to consider whether extending the so-called Bush tax cuts makes sense. Should we raise taxes? Cut taxes? Throw taxes out? What about those mandatory spending cuts for the debt ceiling – are those fair?
Starting today, I’ll take guest post submissions for publication the week of August 28. You can take any position that you wish but the post must focus on a potential solution (or solutions) to the current economic situation. Stay focused. Anything that’s clearly meant to be an “issue piece” about something other than taxes (i.e. abortion, immigration, gun control, same sex marriages) will be disregarded.
You don’t have to be an expert. The call is for everyone – not just journos and tax geeks.
Here are a few more guidelines:

Posts need to be submitted in plain text format. The best way to do that is just cut and paste your piece in the body of an email. Do not send attachments. I will not open them.
Posts should be submitted to guest@taxgirl.com by Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 11:59 pm EST.
While I’m hopeful that most pieces are around the 300-600 word mark, you can write up to 1200 words. And then I draw the line. Pieces longer than 1200 words won’t be posted. Pieces shorter than 300 words may be posted so long as they include something substantive – you know, other than “Taxes stink.”
I’m not editing or redacting. So, use spell check and common sense.
No swearing, no personal attacks, no bad behavior. Keep it clean and reasonably nice. My mother could be reading. And the last thing I need is a call from my mother explaining that people on my blog aren’t very nice. She’s already a bit concerned about my living in Philadelphia, so we don’t need to add to the list of her worries (she’s a Southern mom, she worries, it’s what she does). I don’t want to have to increase her blood pressure medication because of something that you wrote.
No spam, no selling products or services, no free advertising for your own blog. Talk to Google or Yahoo if you need advertising. And if you’re a lawyer trolling for business, shame on you. Get your own damn blog.
If you submit something, you’re agreeing that the work is your own creation and you are giving me permission to post it on the site.
One post per person.
Please also include a one to two sentence bio/personal statement identifying yourself, something along the lines of “Bob Smith is a volleyball coach from Wilkesboro, North Carolina.” If you have an established blog or web site, you can include a link so long as it’s safe for work. And by work, I mean traditional workplaces, just because you can view it in your basement doesn’t mean that it would make the folks at Fidelity or IBM happy. So, nothing racy, violent, racist or otherwise disturbing (the last part could include NY Yankees-related sites). And that’s my call, not yours.
There’s no vetting process other than what’s outlined above. So long as you play nice and follow the rules, you’ll get posted. No stress, no muss, no fuss. I want to hear what you have to say.