E.J. Dionne, The Washington Post, October 5, 2007
WASHINGTON – Would conservatives and Republicans support the war in Iraq if they had to pay for it?
This is the immensely useful question that Rep. David Obey, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, put on the table this week by calling for a temporary war tax to cover President Bush’s request for $145 billion in supplemental spending for Iraq.
The proposal is a magnificent way to test the seriousness of those who claim that the Iraq war is an essential part of the global war on terror. If the war’s backers believe in it so much, it should be easy for them to ask taxpayers to put up the money for such an important endeavor.
Obey makes the case pointedly. “Some people are being asked to pay with their lives or their faces or their hands or their arms or their legs,” he said in an interview this week. “If you’re going to ask for that, it doesn’t seem too much to ask an average taxpayer to pay thirty bucks for the cost of the war so we don’t have to shove it off on our kids.”
Or as Obey said in a statement, “I’m tired of seeing that only military families are asked to sacrifice in this war.”
Unfortunately, the Democratic leadership ran away from this idea as fast as you could say the words “Republican majority.” That, of course, is what Democrats are afraid of. “Just as I have opposed the war from the outset,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “I am opposed to a war surtax.”
I floated this idea MONTHS ago. Bart even printed it. I offered it up to both my Senators, my “representative”, and the House “leader”, Pelosi (who couldn’t respond because I’m not her constituent).
In MY version, though, I simply suggested repealing George’s tax breaks for the wealthy as an essential component of a war funding bill. A stand-alone bill will simply be vetoed by George the lesser.
I think it’s a perfect “trap” yet the Dems won’t use it. After awhile, when I know they can and I see they don’t, I’m left to conclude they won’t, by choice.
Many call the Dems “scared”, “sacless”, and/or “ineffectual”. I call them “complicit”…
Comment by macrobank — October 9, 2007 @ 7:39 am