War+Tax

How do we pay for the Iraq War?
by Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA**, **February 2006** "This paper attempts to provide a complete reckoning of the costs of the Iraq War, using standard economic and accounting/budgetary frameworks. As of December 30, 2005, total spending for combat and support operations in Iraq is $251bn, and the CBO's estimates put the projected total direct costs at around $500bn. These figures, however, greatly underestimate the War's true costs....Even taking a conservative approach and assuming all US troops return by 2010, we believe the true costs exceed a trillion dollars. Using the CBO's projection of maintaining troops in Iraq through 2015, the true costs may exceed $2 trillion. In either, case the cost is much larger than the administration's original estimate of $50-60bn."
 * from The Economic Costs of the Iraq War: An Appraisal Three Years AFter the Beginning of the Conflict

written by Representatives David R. Obey, John P. Murtha , and James P. McGovern** "when it comes to fighting this war, there is no sense of shared  sacrifice. The only families being asked to sacrifice are military  families and they are being asked to sacrifice again and again.  Meanwhile, even the most fortunate of the rest of us are being asked  to make no sacrifice whatsoever....
 * Excerpt from a letter to members of the House of Representatives

Some people are being asked to pay with their lives or their faces or their hands or their arms or their legs. If they are being asked to  do that, it doesn't seem too much to ask the average taxpayer to pay  $112 for the cost of the war so we don't have to shove it off on our kids. ...

The surtax rates would range from 2.5% for married couples with  incomes between $30,000 and $100,000 and 16.5% on income beyond $250,000 and on corporations. The bill would exempt members of our  military who have served in combat since September 11, 2001 along with their families, as well as families of the fallen."

The struggle against radical Islam is the fight of our generation. We all need to pitch in -- not charge it on our children's Visa cards. Previous American generations connected with our troops by making sacrifices at home -- we've never passed on the entire cost of a war to the next generation, said Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, who has written a history -- The Price of Liberty -- about how America has paid for its wars since 1776. In every major war we have fought in the 19th and 20th centuries, said Mr. Hormats, ''Americans have been asked to pay higher taxes -- and nonessential programs have been cut -- to support the military effort. Yet during this Iraq war, taxes have been lowered and domestic spending has climbed. In contrast to World War I, World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam, for most Americans this conflict has entailed no economic sacrifice. The only people really sacrificing for this war are the troops and their families.'' In his celebrated Farewell Address, Mr. Hormats noted, George Washington warned against ''ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burdens we ourselves ought to bear.''
 * from Friedman, Thomas. "Charge It To My Kids." //New York Times//, October 7, 2007.**

Commenting on Rep. Obey's idea about a war surtax: 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....And if the president believes in this war so much and doesn't want to raise taxes, let him propose the deep spending cuts it would take to cover the costs. Then Bush would show how much of a priority he believes this war is...
 * from Dionne, E. J. "A Tax Test for the War." //Washington Post//, October 5, 2007.**