A Different Kind of War Time Sacrifice

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Lincoln raised taxes to pay for the Civil War. McKinley raised taxes to finance the Spanish-American War. Wilson raised the top income tax rate to 77% to afford WWI. Taxes were raised, multiple times, to help the nation pay for WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Even the first President Bush raised taxes after the first war with Iraq to keep the deficit from spiraling out of control. It was simply understood -- responsible leaders from both parties realized that wars were expensive, and had to be paid for. What we saw from George W. Bush and Republican lawmakers during his two terms was without precedent in American history -- policymakers cut taxes during a war, ran huge deficits, and effectively asked future generations to pay for our current national security agenda. The two ongoing conflicts have cost, by some estimates, $1 trillion and counting.

Attention now turns to how President Obama will respond to the same dilemma. If the administration sends an additional 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, it would cost about $30 billion per year over existing spending on the war. Some savings are gained as we withdraw from Iraq, but the costs are quickly absorbed by the war in Afghanistan.

Bruce Bartlett reflects today on the growing interest in returning to the historical norm.

The White House has given no indication of how it plans to pay for expanding the war in Afghanistan. More than likely, it will follow the Bush precedent and just put it all on the national credit card. But at least some members of Congress believe that the time has come to start paying for war. On Nov. 19, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., introduced H.R. 4130, the "Share the Sacrifice Act of 2010." It would establish a 1% surtax on everyone's federal income tax liability plus an additional percentage on those with a liability over $22,600 (for couples filing jointly), such that revenue from the surtax would pay for the additional cost of fighting the war in Afghanistan.

It's doubtful that this legislation will be enacted. But that's not Obey's purpose. He will probably offer it as an amendment at some point just to have a vote. Republicans in particular will be forced to choose between continuing to fight a war that they started and still strongly support, or raising taxes, which every Republican in Congress would rather drink arsenic than do. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see those who rant daily about Obama's deficits explain why they oppose fiscal responsibility when it comes to supporting our troops.

Obey makes no secret of his motives. He knows that deficits need to be reduced at some point and this will put pressure on spending programs he supports. "If we don't address the cost of this war, we will continue shoving billions of dollars in taxes off on future generations and will devour money that could be used to rebuild our economy," Obey explained in a press statement.

It's also a test for the public. Support for escalation in Afghanistan appears, by some measures, to be growing. The question then becomes fairly straightforward -- do Americans expect future generations to pick up the tab, or do they support higher taxes now to pay for the conflict?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

There should be a requirement to raise the funds for any war. Either cut spending somewhere else or increase revenues - i.e. raise taxes. We'd be fighting fewer wars that way for sure. I'd imagine that public support for the misguided adventure in Iraq would have been low enough to avoid that mistake had there been a price tag on it for everyone to see and pay.

[slim 1,533]

Republicans in particular will be forced to choose between continuing to fight a war that they started and still strongly support, or raising taxes, which every Republican in Congress would rather drink arsenic than do.

I remember an awful lot of support, from both sides of the aisle, when it came to the war in Afghanistan. It was almost unanimous. Somehow over the last few years it's been changed into a "Republican war" but that wasn't the case at the outset. Maybe that was because Democrats wanted to pull out completely a few years back?

[NickD 203]

I don't get the huge extra expense of going to war, can see it during WW II when we were completely unprepared for war, but has never been the same since then. Mom told me when she was working in a defense plant, food was rationed, rents were fixed, couldn't really buy anything and was able to save over 5,000 bucks to buy a house. Said things really got tight after the war for a couple of years, but all those defense plants switched to producing consumer goods so things really picked up.

When I was called spent a lot of time doing exercises, burning gas and ammo like crazy, but still got my paycheck with just a couple of bucks more per month for combat pay. Equipment broke down but mostly became obsolete even without a war. Our grave yards are over burdened with this stuff that wasn't really ever used. Look at the trillions of dollars spent for Nike bases, aircraft, and nuclear submarines that were never used. Since WW II, we have always been overly prepared for war.

And the kind of wars we have had since then depend highly upon the most lowly foot soldier to get the job done, all this high tech stuff is worthless. Understand they call that hazardous duty pay today when we called it combat pay and when I was in, was an extra ten bucks a month. Understand it's more today, but still must be a fraction of one's base pay. Just like back then, those trillions of dollars did not go to the foot soldier, didn't cost the government very much to store us in a cheapass tent with poor food to eat. And had to dig our own hole to take a ####### kind of stuff. Didn't even have a sewer bill to pay.

Admit to be really stupid on this subject, but someone is getting rich off of this, and it sure in the hell isn't the foot soldier, see Bush wanted his reenlistment bonus back if a guy got wounded and could no longer do his job. Something is very fishy about all this.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Republicans in particular will be forced to choose between continuing to fight a war that they started and still strongly support, or raising taxes, which every Republican in Congress would rather drink arsenic than do.

I remember an awful lot of support, from both sides of the aisle, when it came to the war in Afghanistan. It was almost unanimous. Somehow over the last few years it's been changed into a "Republican war" but that wasn't the case at the outset. Maybe that was because Democrats wanted to pull out completely a few years back?

The broad support that existed back then should have been translated into a means of generating the revenues needed to fight that war. The nation would have responded favorably to a shared sacrifice to fight those that perpetrated the terror attacks on our country. The Republicans had the majorities in Congress and had their guy in the White House - but they failed to do that. They rather put it on my daughter's credit card.