Tudamorf
11-23-2009, 05:16 PM
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?entry_id=52214&tsp=1Obey wants war surtax
House Appropriations chief David Obey, in an interview with ABC news, threw down the gauntlet on Afghanistan, saying if the administration wants more troops, he will demand that they be paid for with an across-the-board income tax surcharge.
He said the ten-year cost of the war clocks in at $900 billion, about the size of the Democratic health care legislation. Obey warned last spring when he pushed through the last war funding bill that the administration had one year to show progress. Time is up. House Democrats are now in a full-scale rebellion.
Obey said unless the war is paid for it will "wipe out every initiative that we have to rebuild our own economy."
It will be interesting to see how Republicans who are fighting the health care legislation will feel about a war surtax; if they oppose it and do not find $900 billion in programs they want to cut, the only alternative is deficit financing, which is no longer an alternative. With a $1.4 trillion deficit this year, the Bush days of unfunded Medicare prescription drug bills and troop surges are over. Republicans, Democrats and the administration are going to have a very hard time getting used to that.The transformation that began in the Reagan era is now nearly complete: the Democrats are now the Republicans. (And the "Republicans" are now, well, the nutjob overspending oppressive Christian party.)
Funny how the "Republicans" yell and scream about the cost of health care and how we're going to pay for it, yet when it comes to waging war, they couldn't care less if it's paid for.
"We cannot afford to reduce taxes, reduce income, until we have in sight a program of expenditure that shows that the factors of income and outgo will be balanced." The words of the quintessential Republican, who today would be laughed out of his own party's primary.
House Appropriations chief David Obey, in an interview with ABC news, threw down the gauntlet on Afghanistan, saying if the administration wants more troops, he will demand that they be paid for with an across-the-board income tax surcharge.
He said the ten-year cost of the war clocks in at $900 billion, about the size of the Democratic health care legislation. Obey warned last spring when he pushed through the last war funding bill that the administration had one year to show progress. Time is up. House Democrats are now in a full-scale rebellion.
Obey said unless the war is paid for it will "wipe out every initiative that we have to rebuild our own economy."
It will be interesting to see how Republicans who are fighting the health care legislation will feel about a war surtax; if they oppose it and do not find $900 billion in programs they want to cut, the only alternative is deficit financing, which is no longer an alternative. With a $1.4 trillion deficit this year, the Bush days of unfunded Medicare prescription drug bills and troop surges are over. Republicans, Democrats and the administration are going to have a very hard time getting used to that.The transformation that began in the Reagan era is now nearly complete: the Democrats are now the Republicans. (And the "Republicans" are now, well, the nutjob overspending oppressive Christian party.)
Funny how the "Republicans" yell and scream about the cost of health care and how we're going to pay for it, yet when it comes to waging war, they couldn't care less if it's paid for.
"We cannot afford to reduce taxes, reduce income, until we have in sight a program of expenditure that shows that the factors of income and outgo will be balanced." The words of the quintessential Republican, who today would be laughed out of his own party's primary.