War Tax
I wondered yesterday how serious David Obey was about the idea of paying for the Afghanistan war with higher taxes. Today the answer seems to be that he’s pretty darn serious, with Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel and Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank joining Obey, who chairs the Appropriations Committee, and also picking up Conference Chair John Larson and Jack Murtha who chairs the Defense Appropriations subcommittee. That’s a blockbuster leadership lineup and a clear signal that any House backbencher who feels like jumping on this bandwagon is safe to do so.
The details of the proposal:
Dubbed the “Share the Sacrifice Act,” the six-page bill exempts anyone who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan since the 2001 terrorist attacks as well as families who have lost an immediate relative in the fighting. But middle-class households earning between $30,000 and $150,000 would be asked to pay 1% on top of their tax liability today — a more sweeping approach than many Democrats have been willing to embrace.
Contrary to popular opinion, we actually have to pay for the wars we choose to wage: a dollar spent in Afghanistan costs just as much as a dollar spent improving health care domestically. Congressman Murphy committed some time ago to bringing war funding under PAYGO rules:
I’m obsessive about putting all the war funding under the budget. The fact is, no one is having to sacrifice for this war except the soldiers who fight it, the families they leave behind, and the working men and women in the U.S. who have seen their safety net gutted in order to fund it. Paygo rules don’t apply to emergency funding, but the fact is that this funding can’t be considered “emergency” any longer. You are absolutely right - paygo rules should apply to this bill and all other supplemental requests.
by: Chris Murphy @ Thu Nov 15, 2007 at 19:49:51 PM EST
It’s good news that Congressional leadership has caught on to this idea. Of course, it’s not great news, since it reinforces the expectation that we’re about to see the war in Afghanistan expanded – but getting to a place where we Americans understand the costs of war (in dollar terms, at least) is a huge leap towards returning to sane political debate in this country.