If You Support The War, Shouldn't You Support The War?
The New York Times' Thomas Friedman makes a very good point -- via Democrat David Obey, who proposed an Iraq war tax to help balance the budget. In Obey's words:
"If this war is important enough to fight, then it ought to be important enough to pay for.”
Friedman has White House press secretary Dana Perino's response:
“We’ve always known that Democrats seem to revert to type, and they are willing to raise taxes on just about anything.”Yes, those silly Democrats. They’ll raise taxes for anything, even — get this — to pay for a war!
And if we did raise taxes to pay for our war to bring a measure of democracy to the Arab world, “does anyone seriously believe that the Democrats are going to end these new taxes that they’re asking the American people to pay at a time when it’s not necessary to pay them?” added Ms. Perino. “I just think it’s completely fiscally irresponsible.”
Friends, we are through the looking glass. It is now “fiscally irresponsible” to want to pay for a war with a tax. These democrats just don’t understand: the tooth fairy pays for wars. Of course she does — the tooth fairy leaves the money at the end of every month under Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s pillow. And what a big pillow it is! My God, what will the Democrats come up with next? Taxes to rebuild bridges or schools or high-speed rail or our lagging broadband networks? No, no, the tooth fairy covers all that. She borrows the money from China and leaves it under Paulson’s pillow.
Of course, we can pay for the Iraq war without a tax increase. The question is, can we pay for it and be making the investments in infrastructure, science and education needed to propel our country into the 21st century? Visit Singapore, Japan, Korea, China or parts of Europe today and you’ll discover that the infrastructure in our country is not keeping pace with our peers’.
We can pay for anything today if we want to stop investing in tomorrow. The president has already slashed the National Institutes of Health research funding the past two years. His 2008 budget wants us to cut money for vocational training, infrastructure and many student aid programs.
Does the Bush team really believe that if we had a $1-a-gallon gasoline tax — which could reduce our dependence on Middle East oil dictators, and reduce payroll taxes for low-income workers, pay down the deficit and fund the development of renewable energy — we would be worse off as a country?
Excuse me, Ms. Perino, but I wish Republicans would revert to type. I thought they were, well, conservatives — the kind of people who saved for rainy days, who invested in tomorrow for their kids, folks who didn’t believe in free lunches or free wars.
Nice post!
I'm so old I remember the good old days when you could choose between the party that wanted to take all your money and the one that wanted to dictate how you live your life.
Now you can choose between the party that wants to take all your money and dictate how you live your life and the one that wants to dictate how you live your life and take all your money.
Actually, I take it back. Nostalgia was clouding my judgment. It's pretty much been this way ever since I can remember.
Shawn at October 18, 2007 5:17 AM
You want nostalgia? I got your nostalgia, right here: http://moreoldfortyfives.com/TakeMeBackToTheSixties.htm
o_O
Flynne at October 18, 2007 6:14 AM
Of course, we can pay for the Iraq war without a tax increase. The question is, can we pay for it and be making the investments in infrastructure, science and education needed to propel our country into the 21st century?
Sure we can. We just need to start means-testing Social Security and Medicare. And avoid costly middle-class entitlement increases such as the one proposed for SCHIP (that would cover adults as well!). And eliminate pork spending. If David Obey has proposed all of those things and can prove that we STILL need new taxes to pay for the war, I'll pony up. Right now, it appears to me that what he really wants is a new tax so that we can pay for the war *and* for the increased spending on middle-class entitlements that Congress has been addicted to for decades, though the level of that addiction appears to have ticked up since the 2006 elections. If the Democrats had any guts, they'd point out the need for tax increases to fund the programs that they're suggesting such as the SCHIP increase, not just for policies they don't like such as the war.
marion at October 18, 2007 7:01 AM
I detest the way lawmakers (of both stripes, by the way) continue to run up the national debt. I'd like to see what Marion proposes above, and I also think, as Friedman writes, that the soldiers and their families shouldn't be the only people making sacrifices for the war. Yes, I've read that it's a relatively small part of the budget, but it's still part of the budget. Or, I should say, "budget." (If I budgeted like these people budgeted, I'd be in bankruptcy court within months.)
Amy Alkon at October 18, 2007 7:27 AM
Word. These "budget" chickens are going to come home to roost sooner or later. Perino's a real piece of work, chiding the Democrats for wanting everyone to pay a little extra for a war that's purportedly for all of our safety. I imagine their thinking is that people would be more opposed to the war if they were spending a little extra on it. I think that they have this exactly backwards - part of the tepid support for the war is the fact that they've asked nothing from us for it. Well that, and their woeful prosecution of it. I think that telling the American people - go on about your business, we won't ask for a draft, we won't raise your taxes, we won't sell war bonds, we won't ask you to conserve, etc., they betray their utter lack of seriousness. Does anyone doubt that a big part of the success of our effort in WWII was the great efforts made to make sure everyone in the country knew we were in it together?
justin case at October 18, 2007 9:16 AM
Raising taxes as a means to pay for the war, fine.
Raising taxes as a way to further erode support for the war, no.
winston at October 18, 2007 3:35 PM
We already have the war. And as Justin Case points out, essentially, what people get for free they tend not to value. I was never for invading Iraq, but I didn't get to choose, and I'm part of this country, and get all the benefits, so I should be paying for this -- as should we all.
Amy Alkon at October 18, 2007 3:39 PM
Does anyone doubt that a big part of the success of our effort in WWII was the great efforts made to make sure everyone in the country knew we were in it together?
No, I don't doubt it. But I think another big part of the success of our effort in WWII was the uniform agreement that we were fighting for good against evil, and that the enemy was both real and dangerous. I have seen countless TV shows and movies telling me in great and tedious detail about how we're devolving into a fascist state fighting against an overblown "enemy." I just saw a preview the other day for some Tom Cruise movie in which he discusses, very smarmily and evilly, the need to Fight Against Terrorism! The fact that there ARE real terrorists who want to return us to the Dark Ages seems to be lost, and is something that Sophisticated People seem to think is a neocon concoction.
marion at October 18, 2007 6:58 PM
how we're devolving into a fascist state
The people claiming this are overblown. But there's ample evidence that our government has tortured people, illegally wiretapped communications and other things that are the antithesis of what America is about. These are things that we should resist.
justin case at October 19, 2007 6:57 AM
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