Representative David Obey’s Share Our Sacrifice Act would finance the war in Afghanistan by imposing a tax on the public. The idea is yet another in a line of gimmicky populist measures that are sprouting like dandelions this political season, and it has garnered the support of apparently sensible people. But it has little to recommend it.
One of the Economist’s bloggers says “it’s a very bad idea to get involved in a long, grueling, expensive war without explaining to the American people how much they will have to sacrifice, and securing their support.” But the War Tax doesn’t explain anything and, as the author says elsewhere, would only reduce their support for the war. The Economist cites Spencer Ackerman who notes “the military lament that only a select and small proportion of the country is actually at war.” But soldiers volunteer for service; no one is required to join the military. If the argument were that soldiers are underpaid and should have higher wages, or that the dependents of soldiers who are killed should receive more generous benefits, it would be possible to sympathize. The only effect of the war tax would be to raise revenues for the government, which could use them for additional spending or to pay down the debt. The war will go on, however the revenues are used.
It is possible that the Afghanistan War is a bad idea; if so, the remedy is to end the war, not to raise taxes. If it is a good idea, the benefits will accrue to the inhabitants of the future, who will be protected from terrorists and other baddies, not us. We perform a benefit for the future, and we charge them for our costs; what is there to object to? Deficit spending for what is in effect a capital investment—as opposed to spending on current consumption—is justified. If the War Tax is imposed, we simply transfer additional wealth from ourselves—including the soldiers and others already making the sacrifices—to the future.
Just as the war must be evaluated on its own merits, so must taxation. If the real goal of the tax is to reduce the deficit, that’s fine; just don’t call it a “war tax” (as long as we are explaining things to the American people); call it a “tax.” If, as many economists believe, now is the time for further stimulus; a tax is a bad idea. We’ll have to borrow even more to offset the demand-suppressing effects of the tax. Whatever the case, the possibly good fiscal reasons for raising taxes are independent of the war in Afghanistan.
pireader says:
Professor Posner –
I think you’re avoiding the real issue here. Either you favor the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and taxes to pay for them, or you don’t. Which is it?
Your post argues that these wars will benefit future taxpayers, so they should pay for them … fight now, pay later.
In effect, the government made that argument back in 2001 and 2003, when the Afghanistan and Iraq expeditions began … there was a run-up in spending with no tax increase to fund it.
OK, it’s later.
If 2010 is not the time to start paying down the costs incurred, when will be? How will we know? When the war ends? When the recession ends?
Will you then be first in line to advocate the required tax increase? Or are you just one of those people who says, every week, I’ll start dieting next week?
November 30, 2009, 6:36 amHavoc Jack says:
Huh. It seems there’s a difference in deficit spending to support a war and deficit spending for stimulus purposes.
And it’s funny how these taxes to support wars never actually end when the war does. Not that we pay down the incurred debt either.
November 30, 2009, 6:46 amRobert Bloomfield says:
You seem to be missing the point of this proposal, which is to make the people who support the war actually sacrifice something to do so. Decades ago the draft served this purpose — people risked that their children (or at least some known to them) might die, so they would support a war only if it was worth the human cost.
A draft isn’t feasible, but making people put their money where there mouth is might be.
It seems that you are arguing that the economic cost of war is irrelevant to whether it is a good idea. That is a much easier argument to make if the cost is borne by other people. I am guessing you are in favor of health reforms that would make people feel the cost of their health care more directly, and so overconsume it less. Do you see a parallel?
November 30, 2009, 6:55 am11-B/2O.B4 says:
Couple points:
First off, yes, there probably should have been some sort of tax at the start of the war, when it was politically popular, and therefore possible. The decision of the Bush administration to attempt a “costless” war may have been their greatest blunder. That said, this is a “talking points” proposal, not a real one. It is a way to remind the public that Bush started a war, and ran up deficits prosecuting it, as a way to distract from the fact that Obama tripled Bush’s combined eight-year deficit in four months. Wars are expensive, yes, and we should pay for them, yes. But this is not an attempt to pay for the war, it’s a ploy, nothing more.
Second, no one is a greater advocate for better pay for soldiers than I am. The standard monthly take-home base pay for a private is ~$900. With jump pay, hazardous duty, combat bonus etc., you can probably get up to $1200. Once you consider that we often work 150+ hour weeks in a combat zone, and consider the dangers and risks, it doesn’t seem like much. Even as an NCO, I made about twenty thousand a year in a combat zone. The benefits are good, on paper, but the money isn’t. Just for an economics comparison, my skill set is paid at between 200k and 250k per year by PMC companies. All that said, a new tax would never find its way to the soldiers, and we damn well know it. It’s a way of seeming patriotic while slamming a war that people disagree with politically. Do us all a favor, and leave the uniform out of the political bickering. Citizens have political views, soldiers do not, professionally. It’s our duty to carry out whatever jackassery you civilians come up with back here in the land of warm beds and regular meals. It may not pay well, but we’re consoled by the fact that we make it all possible, and besides, we’re better than everyone.
November 30, 2009, 7:10 amHadur says:
I’m reminded of the phone tax that was passed for the Spanish-American War.
November 30, 2009, 7:32 amSara says:
Huh? Not if you have to pay for that war.
November 30, 2009, 7:34 amDavid Schwartz says:
I think your argument assumes the people will always do whatever the best rational argument can convince them to do. If, for example, the war is a bad idea, the most effective way to build the political will to end it might be to make people start paying for it. There may be the political will to do that today, but not the political will to end the war today.
I’m not saying that’s the case. I’m saying it’s the type of justification your argument doesn’t address. If you’re only intending to rebut the stated justifications, then fair enough. But I think it’s obvious this is intended to create a slide toward turning popular support against the war.
November 30, 2009, 7:42 am11-B/2O.B4 says:
Schwartz has it right. The democrats have to end-run this one on the sly because of all the chest-beating Obama did during the election. Remember that? Iraq War = bad, Afghanistan = good? Now they have to reduce public opinion to make a withdrawal palatable without actually endorsing a withdrawal. Then they can just be “doing the will of the people”.
November 30, 2009, 7:49 amPersonFromPorlock says:
Given the fungibility of money, any payment the government extracts by threat of force ought to be called merely ‘a tax’: our government will blithely loot the most dedicated tax fund in the world.
That said, a war tax has it’s charms, not least that it would distinguish the war from ‘other governmental activities’ almost as much as a real declaration of war would have. As it is, the war has to compete for dollars on level ground with the preservation of the Lesser Furbish Lousewort and other vote-buying activities.
Of course, that virtue would hold only if shame or fear could keep Congress, for the duration, from deciding that the money’d be more useful elsewhere – always a risky presumption.
As far as your contention that:
Well, maybe. But isn’t that better than transferring additional debt?
November 30, 2009, 8:23 amBlue Neponset says:
Good idea, bad timing. The middle of a recession is no time to raise taxes.
I disagree with you about the war in Afghanistan being a good investment. We could spend that money on other things that would benefit us more in the long and short term (health care, infrastructure). When we leave Afghanistan, hopefully, in a couple of years, it will turn right back into a mess and it won’t affect the US too much, if at all. I just don’t see the strategic benefit to propping up a Democratic government in Afghanistan. At this point, it seems like good money going after bad.
November 30, 2009, 8:45 amHouston Lawyer says:
The war in Afghanistan will, we hope, be a temporary thing. Where is the health care tax?
November 30, 2009, 8:47 amAnderson says:
Yet another irrefutable argument that taxation is always a bad idea.
November 30, 2009, 8:47 amTamerlane says:
You seem to be missing the bigger point that everyone — whether they support the war or not — would be paying this tax.
Professor posner and other posters are right. This tax will not be used specifically to fund military expenditures in general or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in particular: Revenues from this tax increase will go into the general revenue stream. When the war ends, the tax increase will remain to fund whatever new boondogle, e.g., making Al Gore rich, the government next decides to waste money on.
November 30, 2009, 8:48 amaf says:
Too bad we didn’t have an Iraq war tax. We’d be better off today.
November 30, 2009, 8:49 amGabriel McCall says:
We perform a benefit for the future, and we charge them for our costs; what is there to object to?
So you accept the general moral proposition that you can impose a duty to pay for a service on an unconsenting second party if you think that service will benefit him?
Excellent. I’m going to go sign you up for some Scientology “treatments”. You’ll be obligated to pay for them. What is there to object to?
November 30, 2009, 8:56 amKen Arromdee says:
So you accept the general moral proposition that you can impose a duty to pay for a service on an unconsenting second party if you think that service will benefit him?
The point was to rebut a specific argument: “we are making future generations pay for our own selfishness” doesn’t apply since the benefit also accrues to those future generations.
If you’re going to argue something different–that we shouldn’t make future generations pay at all regardless of who benefits–of course that argument is not being addressed. Although if you accept taxes at all, the ship has sailed on that one.
November 30, 2009, 9:06 amalkali says:
If someone proposed a bill requiring that all the funds used to pay for the Afghan War be borrowed from the Chinese Communists, would anyone vote for it? Yet, that is the present policy.
November 30, 2009, 9:10 amKen Arromdee says:
In effect, the government made that argument back in 2001 and 2003, when the Afghanistan and Iraq expeditions began … there was a run-up in spending with no tax increase to fund it.
Unintended consequences strike again. Government spending has increased so much that it is much easier to fight wars–because spending is so great that it’s now possible to fight a war and have the cost of the war be lost in the noise.
November 30, 2009, 9:12 amGabriel McCall says:
Although if you accept taxes at all, the ship has sailed on that one.
There’s an argument to be made that taxing the constituency of a democratic polity, even if not all of them agree with the tax, has a very different moral status from imposing a tax on non-constituents. Imposing our debt on the unborn is pretty much the definition of “taxation without representation”.
November 30, 2009, 9:27 ammls says:
The political motivation for the tax is obvious (ie, Obey is against the war, hence wants to make its costs more evident). However, it seems to me that it is desirable, broadly speaking, for the public to see a connection between the expenditures authorized on its behalf and the taxes that it pays. When politicians speak of “investments” (ie, spending they favor), it is usually without any acknowledgment that there is an associated cost. In the private sector there are good and bad investments; in the public sector, it seems, all investments must be good.
Rather than criticize those who advocate a broad-based tax to pay for the Afghan War, I would ask that they offer a similar measure to pay for health care reform and other grand governmental experiments, rather than pretend that those items are free.
November 30, 2009, 10:00 amShag from Brookline says:
Who needs a stinkin’ war tax? Just pass the war costs onto our children and grandchildren who because of no threat of a draft and no desire to put their asses on the line in combat will be able to work at high paying jobs to pay off the resulting war deficits – unless they can continue the pass-along to their children and grandchildren.
November 30, 2009, 10:05 amArthurKirkland says:
The “painless war” approach was a major failing (among many), likely one with devastating consequences. I have not formed a conclusion concerning the wisdom of effecting one remedy (taxes to fund the military action) now. Those who argue against imposing a tax because they fear public support would move away from an artificially and unjustifiably lofty level are unlikely to be persuasive. Why not just ask Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush (the younger) for their opinions?
November 30, 2009, 10:06 amAllan says:
A couple of points from someone who was mobilized for this war…
1. The job of private in the Army is absolutely the best job for an 18 year old (the value of the job goes down slightly in time of war). Where else do you get a) room, b) board, c) the chance to use awesome stuff (tanks, howitzers, parachutes…)? And they pay you to exercise. That said, the worst job in the world is being a private in the army with a spouse and children. All you have to do is follow orders. For that, you get $900 a month to spend as you want and a college education when you get out.
2. The people in this country have not sacrificed for this war. The best means for having this happen would have been a draft. The draft would have done two things: a) made it a shared sacrifice and b) enlarged the size of the military (reducing the stress on the standing military).
3. A war tax is a second best alternative. Sure, it would have been tough to phase out, but it was necessary in October 2001 and it is necessary now.
November 30, 2009, 10:12 amEricPWJohnson says:
How about a war on Poverty tax? we could tax 50% all the welfare and hardship social security checks – make people pay 50 cents on the dollar for food stamps – hey I’m all for purchasing your social security benefits since most people never ever contributed anywhere near the amount that would be required if it were a private annuity under the government rules
November 30, 2009, 10:19 amGordon Langston says:
A War Tax.
Likethis
As we discover with Social Security, money accumulated by government is fungible.
We should pay for all government programs that don’t pay for themselves. Or we can let our children pay for them, and their children’s children.
November 30, 2009, 10:34 amGuy says:
I agree that this is a “talking points” proposal, that it’s to remind people that the war is extremely expensive and most of us aren’t consciously aware of just how expensive. And that recessions are the one time when deficit spending is a good idea (But then why is Obama being criticized for having debt? Isn’t that argument against the war tax off-limits for those who want to criticize his deficit at the same time?). But this argument really blows my mind:
So because they volunteered for military service, generally in order to support themselves and help pay for college, that exempts the rest of us from the requirement that we sacrifice anything, or make intelligent decisions about who we go to war with? Way to support the troops there. The more I hear arguments like this, the more I think an Israeli-style mandatory service is a good idea, even if it does at first blush offend my more libertarian and peace-favoring sensibilities.
November 30, 2009, 11:01 amPintler says:
IMHO, two of the four wars the U.S. has conducted in my lifetime were justified, in the sense that the most likely outcomes of failing to act were significantly worse than the most likely outcomes of acting.
That batting average is not encouraging, and makes me think we are going to war too easily. I think that we should adopt a tradition of not conducting wars (note 1) without an explicit declaration of war (vs. ‘use of force’ resolutions or whatever), and said declaration should impose a war tax and enable the draft. If we don’t care enough to do that, we don’t care enough to go to war, IMHO. The political dynamics of a President that thinks he can have a quick clean war on the cheap, and a Congress that thinks they can hide behind a war powers resolution (‘I just voted for it to give the Pres a bargaining chip, I didn’t think he’d actually invade’) seem to be an insufficient precaution against ill advised wars.
(note 1)I realize the definition of ‘war’ can be a bit squishy. I would exclude short term operations (evacuating people from Liberia, Panama, Grenada) and long term but small scale operations (a few dozen advisers sent almost anywhere).
November 30, 2009, 11:01 amTim McDonald says:
I think it is a great idea! I will happily pay the war tax. I also think the rest of my taxes should be parceled out by what I am paying for.
I suspect that after John Q. writes a check for a few of the things Washington has saddled us with over the years, we will get a new crop of Congresscritters.
So go for it. But if you do it for things you don’t like, then do it for the things I don’t like too, or it becomes a political tool.
November 30, 2009, 11:07 amMartinned says:
Indeed. This is a matter of voter ignorance, Ilya Somin style. The argument for this tax is that it reduces voter ignorance about the costs of the war by putting the tax to pay for it as a separate charge on voters’ tax bill. I don’t see the problem.
November 30, 2009, 11:07 ambartman says:
So, that would be Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Kosovo, right? Were you not alive when we went to war against Panama, or Grenada, or Libya, or Sudan, or Columbia, or Iraq (the first time)?
November 30, 2009, 11:31 amPaul says:
Let’s do a deficit tax too. The deficit is a trillion something so why not just add a percentage to cover that to everyone’s tax bill so we don’t have deficit spending. Then we’ll all know where the money is going/what we are supporting?
November 30, 2009, 11:35 amGuy says:
Thanks for reminding me of the context, I wonder how, decades from now, the history books will explain the war in Iraq. I still don’t understand why we invaded (well, okay, I kind of do- popular ignorance about who attacked us and anti-Muslim attitudes, made easier to sell by the fact that Saddam Hussein was a bona fide Bad Guy… don’t really know Bush’s motivations, though, just too eager to believe in oversimplified neoconservative tripe that if we invade we’ll be greeted with unicorns and world peace?). I have a sneaking suspicion it will be cast in a similar light to the Spanish-American war.
November 30, 2009, 11:55 amThorley Winston says:
Part of the problem with the Obey Tax is that it presupposes that all of the current spending levels should remain in place. If there is a “sacrifice” to be made, let it come in the form of cutting spending on income transfer payments.
November 30, 2009, 11:55 amMartinned says:
Well, logically it should be offset by lowering other taxes. Any other way of doing it mixes two policy choices together. (i.e. the question of the war and its costs and the question of whatever it is he wants to do with the extra tax revenue.)
November 30, 2009, 12:05 pmNunzio says:
Perhaps we can pass the Obey tax: we raise everyone’s taxes to pay for Obey’s salary, travel, and expenses, as well as his staff’s salarys and expenses.
I doubt Obey wants voters fully-informed about fiscal policy in this country. In fact, it’s pretty ungrateful of him. If people were more informed, Obey would be out of a job.
November 30, 2009, 12:32 pmsecond history says:
One of the Economist’s bloggers says “it’s a very bad idea to get involved in a long, grueling, expensive war without explaining to the American people how much they will have to sacrifice, and securing their support.” But the War Tax doesn’t explain anything and, as the author says elsewhere, would only reduce their support for the war.
The Economist goes on to say:
November 30, 2009, 12:32 pmtheobromophile says:
As mentioned above, the other issue is that the war will end, but the taxes will go on. We see this concept in states like Massachusetts, wherein tolls were imposed for the construction and maintenance of certain roads, then kept up long after those roads were paid for because the government wanted the revenue (or at least the jobs in toll-taking for all of their friends and relatives).
If we had a government that could actually partition taxes among various projects, thus ensuring that taxes were used for the purposes for which they were imposed, people may not be so cranky about higher taxes or specific taxes. We all know that Social Security, Medicare, and FICA taxes have not been kept in a nice trust fund, to be doled out to the people who paid them; rather, they go into the general government fund, and we just hope that they decide to give us that money back, as promised.
Anyone who thinks that a War Tax would be used solely for a war, then stopped once the war has ended (or the debt has been paid off), has not been paying much attention for the last several decades.
November 30, 2009, 12:41 pmJaimeInTexas says:
If we go to war then it must be paid somehow and, yes, a [sur]tax should be levied.
A law should be enacted so that when a Declaration of War is issued, a tax automatically kicks in, and an additinal tax is levied on enterprises that stand to gain from wartime productions.
Wnaybody remembers the original cost estimates for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? What are the actual costs to-date?
November 30, 2009, 12:44 pmGaryM says:
It’s a Democratic war, sanctified by Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize. It’s no surprise the Democrats want to institutionalize it with a war tax.
November 30, 2009, 12:49 pmtheobromophile says:
Of course, I have to ask the question: if we are going to impose taxes in order to reduce deficits for present-time government expenditures, why not impose a stimulus tax?
November 30, 2009, 12:52 pmNunzio says:
The obromophile:
Actually, Social Security does go into a trust. The surplus of the trust each year is used to buy government bonds. So the trusts owe bonds and the government spends the money from the sale of bonds on whatever it wants.
Who do you think the government will stiff first when the time comes, the social security trust, the Chinese, or the Japanese?
November 30, 2009, 12:53 pmDangerMouse says:
Libs never met a tax that they didn’t like. When, ever, have Democrats as a whole cut taxes on their own initiative?
Libs never cut spending either. When, ever, have Democrats as a whole cut spending on their own initiative?
It’s hard to take seriously the calls for reducing the deficit, when the libs just spent over a trillion dollars on nothing.
November 30, 2009, 12:56 pmSteve says:
It’s a Democratic war, sanctified by Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize.
The correct formulation is “Democrat war,” pace Bob Dole. You should know this stuff.
As a liberal, the vast majority of what I want government to do involves stuff that I personally believe is an investment in the future. I wish Prof. Posner’s view that such investments can blithely be funded through deficit spending enjoyed more of a consensus, but I don’t think it does.
There is a perfectly reasonable argument that the costs of the typical short-term military adventure should be amortized, to avoid the distorting effects of a major ramp-up in tax levels for a 1- or 2-year period. When a war has been going on for 8 years and we’re talking about a possible commitment of another decade or longer, it seems less appropriate to kick the can down the road.
Still, the amazing thing is that for everything else the government proposes to do, the first question out of people’s mouths is “where is the money coming from to pay for this?” Yet when the same question is asked in the context of a war, somehow it’s seen as just a political stunt.
November 30, 2009, 1:01 pmtheobromophile says:
Nunzio: exactly my point.
(By the way, I don’t know what an “ombrophile” is, because I’m just a lowly chocolate-lover.)
November 30, 2009, 1:03 pmPLR says:
Another timely reminder from American academia that the moral issue du jour is not the slaughter of people half a world away by a foreign aggressor with unstoppable military airpower. It is the allocation of the associated
November 30, 2009, 1:05 pmeconomic coststax burden among the aggressor’s generations that is the moral issue.JakeCollins says:
War is a “capital investment”? That’s hilarious. That argument would be truly Palin-esque… if she knew the meaning of the phrase “capital investment.”
November 30, 2009, 1:15 pmBama 1L says:
How is the road ever “paid for” if you include “maintenance”?
November 30, 2009, 1:25 pmSunTzu's Nephew says:
How about a tax on cheezy bearded politicians?
And it seems to me that my taxes are already paying for the war.
November 30, 2009, 1:26 pmRyan M says:
Eric Posner says the Afghanistan war is “in effect a capital investment” rather than “spending on current consumption.” That strikes me as highly wishful thinking: it assumes that our military actions in Afghanistan will create lasting conditions for peace and prosperity. While we are all hoping that will be the result, I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
Spending on “defense” and war – as opposed to health care, education, or infrastructure – is almost always consumption, not investment.
November 30, 2009, 1:29 pmMark Field says:
Some of the anti-tax arguments here are ludicrous. To spend is to tax; the only questions are when and how the tax gets imposed. Thus, by increasing the expenditure on Afghanistan, the Administration is already committing us taxpayers to pay for it. The troll argument that the tax won’t be repealed is simply an argument that expenditures will continue; duh. To turn Prof. Posner’s argument on its head, the proper way to oppose a tax is to oppose the expenditure in the first place. Otherwise the tax follows.
November 30, 2009, 1:42 pmroad2serfdom says:
Indeed.
November 30, 2009, 2:01 pmAllan Walstad says:
PLR gets it.
November 30, 2009, 2:08 pmBruce Hayden says:
Maybe a better example was some telecommunications tax or something that was imposed, I believe, to fund the Spanish-American War, and was kept for most of the next century.
The problem is that money, esp. in the government, is fungible. So, we had Bush (43) run up the deficit paying for the war in Iraq. Obama comes along, triples his deficit, and now they want to increase taxing and spending to cover the war in Afghanistan.
What that says to me is that paying off constituents in the “Stimulus” package, 8,000 earmarks in the appropriations bill, Health Care “Reform”, Tax and Bribe (aka Cap and Trade) are all legitimate uses of deficit spending for the Democrats right now, but somehow we need to assess an additional tax to pay for defense.
Seems to me, that the priorities are reversed. From my point of view, and I suspect that of a majority of voting Americans (or at least tax paying Americans), providing for the common defense is one of the most basic jobs of the federal government, and all the rest of this stuff is a bonus, when and if we can afford it, and should be the stuff that is additionally taxed.
But, of course, the idea here is that the cost of all the rest of that social spending and political payoffs is hidden in the current taxation and borrowing.
November 30, 2009, 2:12 pmyankee says:
Have the Republicans ever cut spending on their own initiative? Not that I can recall.
November 30, 2009, 2:17 pmDilan Esper says:
As mentioned above, the other issue is that the war will end, but the taxes will go on. We see this concept in states like Massachusetts, wherein tolls were imposed for the construction and maintenance of certain roads, then kept up long after those roads were paid for because the government wanted the revenue (or at least the jobs in toll-taking for all of their friends and relatives).
Yet another example of a conservative assuming that spending follows taxation and that “starve the beast” works.
The tax will go to other spending after the war ends IF conservatives don’t succeed in convincing the public to cut spending. If the government is serious about spending cuts, then it’s pretty straightforward to cut taxes.
But if the public wants more money spent, there will be higher taxes, either now or in the future. And that includes war spending.
November 30, 2009, 2:17 pmRelic says:
1) “Gimmick” is the right word. If Republicans are against this tax, they’re against the “good war”. If they’re for the tax, it’s “Haha! You’re not anti-tax after all!”.
November 30, 2009, 2:25 pm2) The thought occurs: spending from, say, the stimulus could have been spent on the military instead.
egd says:
Is it really that difficult to understand the Republican’s position on opposing this bill? Is the author at the Economist really that blind about conservative political arguments?
Here’s a suggestion for the Economist to consider: cut other, nonessential spending to pay for the war.
Alternatively, since it seems that the war is the only expenditure that needs to be paid for, why not transfer money from the stimulus to pay for the war? That way, we can save or create hundreds of thousands of new jobs by claiming the entire Army would have been laid off without the program.
November 30, 2009, 2:31 pmDilan Esper says:
“Gimmick” is the right word. If Republicans are against this tax, they’re against the “good war”. If they’re for the tax, it’s “Haha! You’re not anti-tax after all!”.
But that’s part of the liberals’ point. If you favor spending (including on a war), you aren’t really anti-tax, because someone has to pay for the spending, and that means someone’s taxes are going up.
November 30, 2009, 2:35 pmDangerMouse says:
If you favor spending (including on a war), you aren’t really anti-tax, because someone has to pay for the spending, and that means someone’s taxes are going up.
Seems a bit idiotic to blame the war for the deficits, when your guys passed a Crap Sandwich stimulus of over a trillion dollars this year. Let’s see: the war, or the trillion dollar Crap Sandwich? Hmmm… Of the two, I think the Crap Sandwich is the biggest contributor to the deficit/debt right now. And should I even mention the Crap Sandwich’s upcoming younger brother, Health Care Unending Shithole of Debt?
November 30, 2009, 2:42 pmMartinned says:
Come on! That one’s too easy. The War is the trillion dollar Crap Sandwich.
November 30, 2009, 2:45 pmAndrew J. Lazarus says:
If only FDR had cut taxes after Pearl Harbor, instead of raising them to 90% in the top bracket, Tojo and Hitler would have peed in their pants and surrendered.
Yeah, this is a showboating bill. But then, the Iraq War was an entire showboat war.
By the way, how again were Bush 43 and the GOP funding that big Medicare prescription boondoggle? Borrow and spend conservatism, wasn’t it?
November 30, 2009, 3:01 pmMalvolio says:
Saddam ignored his treaty obligations under the armistice from the last war his country started, made repeated attacks on our assets, allied himself with people who made a bloody sneak attack on American territory, invaded his neighbor, an ally of ours, and committed genocide against minority groups.
Oh, wait, I’m thinking of Hitler. Saddam did all those thing, but did neighbor-invading before violating the cease-fire, rather than after. That must be what confused you.
Or was our involvement in WWII also unjustified?
Sure, that’s why we invaded Kosovo, to attack Muslims. Oh, wait….
November 30, 2009, 3:07 pmRelic says:
Dilan, egd and my second point address that. Further, this is not a convincing argument. Liberals are also attempting to pass a near-trillion or above-trillion unfunded entitlement scheme. That makes the war-tax proposal hypocritical. Back to the first argument cutting entitlement spending, rigorous anti-corruption measures, and cutting earmark spending would free up more than enough money to cover the war spending. The entire Department of Homeland Security could be cut and it’s functions folded into the DoD. The Department of Education could be cut and it’s function moved to the state or county level. There could be a freeze on salary increases for public-sector employees, or God forbid, we could fire a few hundred thousand.
November 30, 2009, 3:13 pmDilan Esper says:
Relic:
If your argument is that a lot of liberals don’t care about deficits, that’s true. (Although you need to distinguish between short term and long term deficits– you can care about deficits and feel that we need a big stimulus now even if it increases the deficit short term. But in the long term, I don’t disagree that a lot of liberals don’t care about the deficit.)
But the issue isn’t whether some of the proponents of this are hypocrites. The issue is whether bellicose conservatives who are constantly supporting wars are willing to pay for them just like any other government program.
November 30, 2009, 3:18 pmRelic says:
Dilan, short term deficits become long term deficits because politics is short term decisions that occur over and over again, year after year.
Neither the war in Iraq, nor the war if Afghanistan, was supported by just conservatives. Both received large bipartisan majorities. And, again, there is no reason to believe that the liberals currently in charge of Congress actually care about the deficit. They could pass this war tax without a single conservative vote. Thus, the war tax is more of a gimmick than an actual effort to pay for the war.
You still haven’t addressed my point about non-essential spending.
November 30, 2009, 3:36 pmDilan Esper says:
Relic:
If spending is non-essential, than would-be tax cutters should identify it and advocate that it be cut. The thing is, that isn’t as popular as handing out goodies like tax cuts, and it turns out that a lot of spending is popular.
As for short-term deficits becoming long-term deficits, the stimulus package conservatives hate is all short term spending. It all expires in a couple of years.
In contrast, the spending in the health care bill is long term, which is why there are tax increases to allegedly pay for it. (I say “allegedly” because it is perfectly legitimate for conservatives to argue that the taxes don’t cover the costs, or there are backloaded costs in the out years, or whatever.)
But short term spending doesn’t magically morph into long term spending. The stimulus package extends unemployment benefits, builds the bridge, whatever. A war, on the other hand, is an indefinite expenditure. That’s why you need to raise taxes for the latter.
November 30, 2009, 3:45 pmAllan Walstad says:
The bill is probably a hypocritical gimmick, but politics is full of hypocritical gimmicks. While Repubs and Dems joust for rhetorical points, the country sinks deeper into debt and deeper into war.
November 30, 2009, 3:46 pmbob says:
This post is asinine.
November 30, 2009, 3:50 pmDerHahn says:
Dilan – The issue is whether bellicose conservatives who are constantly supporting wars are willing to pay for them just like any other government program.
But the wars are being paid for just like any other government program. Setting aside as too obvious Social Security/Medicare, can you point to any other government program not funded from general revenues?
November 30, 2009, 3:50 pmRelic says:
Dilan, tax-cutters aren’t in charge. It doesn’t matter if they want to cut spending or not if they don’t have the votes to pass a law to cut spending, they can’t. Frankly, I haven seen any evidence to suggest that “much spending is popular”. I doubt that many people know what’s being spent or what it’s being spent on. How is Afghanistan an “indefinite expenditure”? Iraq isn’t. Grenada wasn’t. The first Iraq wasn’t. Vietnam wasn’t. Korea wasn’t. World War II wasn’t. World War I wasn’t. So why would Afghanistan be any different?
November 30, 2009, 3:52 pmDilan Esper says:
But the wars are being paid for just like any other government program. Setting aside as too obvious Social Security/Medicare, can you point to any other government program not funded from general revenues?
That begs the question. If I proposed a big new entitlement program and you asked “how do you propose to pay for it?” and I said “out of general revenue”, you wouldn’t be satisfied with that answer, or at least you shouldn’t be.
Wars cost money, and people who propose wars, just like people who propose any other government program, should tell us how they are going to pay for them.
Dilan, tax-cutters aren’t in charge. It doesn’t matter if they want to cut spending or not if they don’t have the votes to pass a law to cut spending, they can’t.
For six years, you had the votes to pass spending cuts. Instead, you passed Medicare Part D.
November 30, 2009, 4:11 pmcatchy says:
“If it is a good idea, the benefits will accrue to the inhabitants of the future, who will be protected from terrorists and other baddies, not us. We perform a benefit for the future, and we charge them for our costs; what is there to object to? Deficit spending for what is in effect a capital investment—as opposed to spending on current consumption—is justified. If the War Tax is imposed, we simply transfer additional wealth from ourselves—including the soldiers and others already making the sacrifices—to the future.”
Perhaps we may wish to leave this ‘future’ you speak of w/out debt and more or less structural deficits related to the WoT?
You or I may be even be around in this future, may anticipate it, and may even prefer our debts partially payed off and large deficits reserved for emergencies. You know, for the future’s sake.
These arguments are so bad one suspects E. Posner simply manufacturers rationalizations where he hates taxes, especially a war tax on the wealthy.
November 30, 2009, 4:13 pmThe Truth Is Out There HAHA says:
In response to Malvolio’s post above:
I thought we went after Saddam because he had WMDs, and because he had links to Al-Qaeda. And because Saddam posed a reasonable and imminent threat to our national security. We had to take him out before he took us out.
On second thought, I thought it was so that we’d have a war for Cheney’s friends at Halliburton to get rich off of.
Oh wait, the reason we attacked him was for all of the post-hoc-Bush-apologist reasons given by Malvolio above. Sure.
But on an even more serious note, the distinguishing factor between H and Saddam was that H & his allies actually posed a serious imminent threat to us (and actually attacked us–see Pearl Harbor), had we done nothing. The world is better off w/out Saddam, but that doesn’t mean that it was a “get Saddam before he gets us” kind of situation. Or anything even close to that.
November 30, 2009, 4:13 pmSuperSkeptic says:
I’m no peer-reviewed historian, but I think the tradition you advocate (tax & draft aside) used to be our Constitutionally prescribed tradition. Going back to the War Powers Clause, I agree, would be a step in the right direction as far as a “precaution against ill advised wars.” The gulf of tonkin business and subsequent war powers resolution has things backwards. The Court views things like this as a political question and will not overrule two “co-equal” branches. It’s popular constitutionalism in action!
November 30, 2009, 4:14 pmRelic says:
Dilan, that doesn’t change anything. Try again.
November 30, 2009, 4:18 pmtheobromophile says:
Bama 1L: maintenance of the roads are paid for via a gas tax and the revenue from the rest stops along the turnpike. No need to toll us for that which we already pay for.
I’ll presume by your moniker that, although you’re probably no longer a 1L, you aren’t entirely familiar with the MA situation. Basically, the tolls were put in place in the ’70s (IIRC) to pay for the Pike. Once that was paid for, the tolls were kept. Now, the Turnpike Authority doesn’t actually make any money from the tolls – its costs are about equal to what it takes in every year – but the tolls remain. Essentially, the citizens of MA (especially in the Metro West area) are paying for a make-work programme; they don’t actually get much of a benefit from it.
Dilan: not really. The eternal issue with the people is that they want more services and lower taxes. If the taxes are already high (to pay for one thing that no longer needs paying for), it’s rather unlikely that the government will actually end that tax, to which people have become accustomed, rather than increasing spending, thereby buying votes.
To put it another way: government is in the business of satisfying infinite need with finite resources. The end of one need is not the end of all needs; it merely reduces that infinite amount by one. With the tax in place, the government (in theory) will have a surplus, and anyone who opposes helping children, grandmothers, or oppressed people in foreign countries during a time of surplus will be regarded as the epitome of evil.
November 30, 2009, 4:20 pmDilan Esper says:
Theo:
The problem with your position is it is empirically disproven. We have tried starving the beast, and it doesn’t work. The deficit just explodes.
You are correct that people, if they have their druthers, prefer low taxes and high spending. The only way to counter this, however, is to make would-be tax cutters identify what programs they would cut and would be spenders identify what taxes they would raise.
If you are concerned about the tax outlasting the spending, fine, put a sunset provision on it– the tax lasts until the cessation of hostilities, or whatever. But you should be equally worried about war continuing on with no mechanism to pay for it– it isn’t as though this concern acts in only one direction.
The bottom line is that conservatives have invested a lot in the notion of “no new taxes”. And that’s a fundamentally stupid position, because government– including the parts of government that conservatives like– costs money. Saying “well, the liberals won’t let us cut spending” is a cop-out. If you can’t muster public support for your spending cuts, then you need to find another way to pay for your wars. Or don’t fight them.
November 30, 2009, 4:28 pmtheobromophile says:
It only begs the question if you are being deliberately obtuse. You may propose a programme that is revenue-neutral (i.e. that will pay for itself). You may propose to re-allocate funding from one bad programme to the shiny new one you dreamed up; in doing so, you may claim that your new programme will supplant the older, less efficient, one. (For example: a congresscritter could easily divert funds from abstinence-only education to comprehensive sex ed.) If there is a related programme in place, but rife with overspending and fraud (e.g. Medicare), a politician could propose to overhaul that programme and use the cost savings to fund this one. Perhaps a particular cost-sharing scheme (with the private sector or with states) could be revamped to pay for new entitlements.
Oddly enough, none of those things would actually necessitate a new, direct tax on the people for the particular programme put into place.
November 30, 2009, 4:29 pmtheobromophile says:
Um, Dilan, wars are not an inherently conservative thing. Wars, unlike other government programmes (Medicare, etc.), are inherently federal, inherently unpredictable, and are often necessary for the very existence of our country. Therefore, they should be first, not last, in line for government money. The current proposal – and most of the liberal commentary – assumes that military spending should only happen after everything else has been paid for – after earmarks, handouts, stimulus bills, ethanol subsidies, pet initiatives, etc etc. Some of us happen to disagree with that notion.
Also, it would be easier to cut spending (or halt its increase) if your side didn’t scream “EVIL!!!” and “Hitler!!!!” every time a conservative proposes to make people who earn $80,000 pay for their own children’s health care. Just saying.
By the way, what on earth do you mean by “empirically disproven?” Citations, please! (Have fun cherry-picking your data; I know I intend to have a blast taking it apart. :) )
November 30, 2009, 4:35 pmMark Field says:
While I agree with your economic and political points, referring to Afghanistan as “your” war no longer seems fair. Once Obama escalates it, it’s his war too. Not mine — I’m opposed to it — but unless conservatives “opt in”, it’s not necessarily “theirs” either. Of course, I expect they will mostly jump on this particular sinking ship (just to weight it down some more)….
November 30, 2009, 4:38 pmLessinSF says:
The term “war tax” is a misnomer. There is no war. Rather, this is simply another police action destined to be as successful as the Russians’. Obama’s troop “surge” will be a big step towards a one-term presidency.
November 30, 2009, 4:39 pmRPT says:
Many of the commenters are forgetting one of the fundamental axioms of modern neo-conservative economics: Wars and tax cuts are free; they do not need to be funded through taxes because they pay for themselves. If they are not funded through taxes, they do not increase deficits. They are “off the books”, i.e., “emergency supplementals”. Only “social programs” and “entitlements” cause deficits. This is really pretty basic.
November 30, 2009, 4:41 pmMark Field says:
I think you meant to say “occasionally”. We’ve fought just 4 such wars in our history.
I’m sure you know this isn’t true. What liberals generally believe is that we overspend for the military, far beyond our true interest in simply defending the country. The cost of that isn’t zero, but it’s far less than such spending has actually occurred since the end of WWII.
November 30, 2009, 4:43 pmAllan says:
In retrospect, the Republicans should have cut, cut, cut spending. They did not do so because they thought that it would lower their chances of being re-elected. And they thought that the way they were doing things would keep them in power. The thinking was wrong. They went against their base and alienated everyone else.
Bottom-line: if the Republicans had reduced government, it would be reduced, but there would be no political difference.
On the same basis Democrats should really support this war tax and health care. They will end up with a larger state and health care and will be no worse off politically.
A pretty good case can be made for campaigning from the middle and governing from the fringe.
November 30, 2009, 4:48 pmRPT says:
“Theo:
Um, Dilan, wars are not an inherently conservative thing. Wars, unlike other government programmes (Medicare, etc.), are inherently federal, inherently unpredictable, and are often necessary for the very existence of our country.”
To the contrary, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are entirely elective neo-conservative wars. They are of course federal, but the results were entirely predictable and predicted, and the deficits created thereby, as with the 2001 tax cuts, are what was intended. Some of the most interesting history in this area is now being written in Britain.
November 30, 2009, 4:49 pmDilan Esper says:
Um, Dilan, wars are not an inherently conservative thing. Wars, unlike other government programmes (Medicare, etc.), are inherently federal, inherently unpredictable, and are often necessary for the very existence of our country.
Medicare is a lot more necessary than 90 percent of wars.
But you miss the point. Just because conservatives (and it is conservatives who were the driving force behind the current conflicts) believe wars are necessary doesn’t absent them from the normal principles of budgeting. My rent payment may be necessary, but I still have to set aside the money to pay it.
Therefore, they should be first, not last, in line for government money. The current proposal — and most of the liberal commentary — assumes that military spending should only happen after everything else has been paid for — after earmarks, handouts, stimulus bills, ethanol subsidies, pet initiatives, etc etc. Some of us happen to disagree with that notion.
Theo, if it’s worth cutting all those other programs to pay for the war, conservatives had SIX YEARS to do it. Instead, they slashed taxes and enacted Medicare Part D.
Indeed, the right wing is now criticizing Obama’s health care plan on the ground that it CUTS Medicare!
In any event, it isn’t saying that war is less of a priority than those other things to say that it has to be paid for. War has to be paid for because it is expensive. It can be a really important priority– you still have to pay for it.
By the way, what on earth do you mean by “empirically disproven?” Citations, please!
Um, Theo, one of the major advanced rationales for both the Reagan and Bush tax cuts was starving the beast. Both times, spending and deficits exploded anyway.
November 30, 2009, 4:50 pmRelic says:
Dilan, you’re edging into complete denial. Like I said, which you chose not to refute, Afghanistan and Iraq were authorized with large bipartisan majorities.
Why is medicare more necessary than 90 percent of wars? Is there any proof for this assertion? Is there any proof that Medicare is necessary at all? It seems like it’s one of those programs that only exists because people are dependent on it. It’s rife with fraud. It’s constantly being cut. Doctors often refuse to treat patients on Medicare. Presumably, I’m going to get something akin to “it helps the poor” but that’s not all that convincing since what would really help the poor is a good paying job. But the more it costs to hire somebody the fewer people get hired.
November 30, 2009, 5:07 pmBaseballhead says:
Um… so what? If we were ever so fortunate as to cut out the deadwood in the federal budget, that money shouldn’t go to stuff you like, but back to the taxpayers in the form of tax cuts. Since, as you say, wars are inherently unpredictable, funding for wars must be raised independent of whatever else is happening in the budget.
And FWIW, the most important part of Obey’s bill isn’t the tax, but the revealing of how much the costs are per taxpayer. My guess is that cost control would be a lot easier to come by if the costs were shoved in front of voters’ faces.
November 30, 2009, 5:15 pmRelic says:
Baseballhead:
November 30, 2009, 5:21 pmWhy? If money gets freed up, why should it not be used to pay for outstanding debts? What is the logic behind giving money you don’t have away?
Baseballhead says:
It SHOULD go to outstanding debts. I don’t consider war to be an outstanding debt. Wars are new expenditures.
November 30, 2009, 5:26 pmRelic says:
Existing wars are outstanding debt. We aren’t talking about starting a new war. We’re talking about a tax to “fund” a war that’s somehow gotten funding for eight years.
November 30, 2009, 5:30 pmDangerMouse says:
Theo, if it’s worth cutting all those other programs to pay for the war, conservatives had SIX YEARS to do it. Instead, they slashed taxes and enacted Medicare Part D.
Ok, time to make up for lost time. Let’s cut those programs now, eliminate Medicate Part D, and throw the proposed Health Care Plan in the garbage.
I’m sure you would agree that cutting those programs now is much more acceptable than increasing taxes in this kind of economy.
November 30, 2009, 5:33 pmegd says:
And on a completely unrelated note, this is why the so-called “Oxford Comma” is part of traditional grammar. If it weren’t for the anti-oxfordcommanists, this sentence would be perfectly clear. Instead, I had to read it several times over to figure out that Relic wasn’t talking about Dilan, myself, and his [Relic's] second point. Also took some time trying to figure out whom Relic was addressing, and how on earth he had read our posts to address the same point.
November 30, 2009, 5:33 pmbartman says:
LOL. Wars are fought because the (generic) President has a giant standing army that he occasionally can’t resist using for some political reason. This is pretty much the reason why the Founding Fathers were vociferously opposed to the establishment of a standing army, because they knew that unnecessary use of same was too great a temptation for any mere mortal occupying the seat of power.
Any worthwhile country will have no difficulty raising an army in times of peril. If such an army cannot be raised, then either there is no true peril, or the country in question is not worth fighting for.
November 30, 2009, 5:37 pmPLR says:
At least based on my understanding of the word “indefinite” (which is different from infinite or perpetual), Afghanistan absolutely qualifies.
I would also note that spending is ongoing for virtually all of the listed conflicts, in cases that are obvious (current expenditures for Korea) and not so obvious (veterans benefits for the sole surviving WW I veteran Frank Buckles).
November 30, 2009, 5:45 pmegd says:
4? Where do you get that number?
I can only think of one war that was necessary “for the very existence of our country,” or at least the capitalist expansion of our country as an economic power. A defeat that would have turned the U.S. into little more than a vassal state of another nation. And that war took place nearly 200 years ago. The rest were unquestionable acts of aggression against legitimate sovereign nations.
Perhaps you could explain at what other times our nation was at risk.
November 30, 2009, 5:46 pmBaseballhead says:
I was speaking of war expenditures in the abstract. WRT Afghanistan, we’ve been essentially paying for it (and Iraq) by funding it with money we don’t have. If we cut costs elsewhere, those savings should go directly to paying the debts we’ve incurred in the past. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq should, going forward, be paid for in a manner other than ones we pull out of our collective arses, like we’ve been doing.
November 30, 2009, 5:49 pmBaseballhead says:
The time for doing what’s right is always when it’s someone else’s responsibility to do them.
November 30, 2009, 5:51 pmRelic says:
Baseball:
We’ve been doing a lot with money we don’t have. The two wars strike me as the least of it. We’ve got the massive healthcare bill, to be paid for with money we don’t have. We had the stimulus, still being paid for with money we don’t have. We had the bailouts, also paid for with money we didn’t have. Why is the war special in this regard?
To the post below that: That doesn’t change anything. If the deficit is a problem, the time to fix is now, regardless of whose in office. The fact that Republicans weren’t deficit neutral doesn’t change the fact that the Democrats are spending more than they ever did.
November 30, 2009, 6:07 pmSarcastro says:
[Good thread. Some serious debate, without too much craziness (Obey? Really?)
For me, the problem with attaching tax increases to every war is a national security one.
War has the potential to be an existential necessity. To impose a cost beyond the obvious would likely make the populous risk averse when it comes to war. That's a bit of a gamble. On the one hand, wars of conquest or convenience would be punished electorally, and would therefor be less likely to occur. On the other hand, wars of necessity might be delayed for too long.
To me, the existential risk, however remote, is sufficient to override concerns about the US spending it's blood and treasure on being an international bully.
Taxes, spending, debt and hypocrisy are an important debate as well, though. Well, except for the hypocrisy part. That's just partisan wankery.]
November 30, 2009, 6:13 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Telling, politically, yes, but so what? You can only raise the objections the mob will react to, I suppose…
Right, but not because of the rationale, but because they never really employed the rationale “anyway.”
Do I smell a principled man afoot? You aren’t actually suggesting we revert back in time to a practice employed during the lives of those primitive, naive, unsophisticated founding fathers, ARE YOU?*
*italics for sarcastic disdain
November 30, 2009, 6:14 pmKen Arromdee says:
Doesn’t work. They can just repeal the sunset provision (and it’s a lot easier to repeal a sunset provision than it is to add a new tax from scratch). Not to mention that you’ll probably never get a sunset provision in the first place because to get the war tax, you’ll need the support of politicians, and those politicians won’t want a sunset provision.
November 30, 2009, 6:14 pmPLR says:
Shouldn’t have been bracketed.
November 30, 2009, 6:20 pmBama 1L says:
theo, I’ve been accepting your facts about Massachusetts all along. You’re the one who said the tolls were earmarked for maintenance, which is probably pretty significant in Massachusetts. Now you say they are not and they just pay the toll-takers’ salaries. Whatever.
Elsewhere tolls do, in fact, cover road maintenance and are thus a use fee.
November 30, 2009, 6:31 pmBaseballhead says:
We’ve been doing a lot with money we don’t have… and you’re okay with this? Then you’re really part of the problem, aren’t you. Say what you want about the stimulus or the health care bill (I’m actually opposed to both), but there’s at least the argument that they were motivated out of economic necessities and will pay for themselves in the long run. The war, not so much.
I agree, which is why I think Obey’s bill is a good one. I’m merely wondering where all the deficit hawks were during the years when it was declared that “deficits don’t matter.”
November 30, 2009, 6:37 pmPerseus says:
If the idea is to make people more aware of the costs of the war and force them to sacrifice, one could just as easily designate a current tax (or portion of the some tax) as the Afghan War tax instead of increasing taxes. Perhaps it could be called the Afghan War Tax Lockbox.
November 30, 2009, 6:42 pmXanthippas says:
Well, perhaps the fact that “the future” isn’t around to ask for the benefit, and might not approve of the transaction if they were.
November 30, 2009, 6:43 pmGabriel McCall says:
To me, the existential risk, however remote, is sufficient to override concerns about the US spending it’s blood and treasure on being an international bully.
You’re suggesting that I will be safer if I walk around punching everyone else in the face than if I just wait for someone else to do it to me first. I think you’re failing to consider that being an international bully carries its own additional weight of existential risk.
Any worthwhile country will have no difficulty raising an army in times of peril. If such an army cannot be raised, then either there is no true peril, or the country in question is not worth fighting for.
Kudos to Bartman for this.
November 30, 2009, 6:51 pmPerseus says:
Any worthwhile country will have no difficulty raising an army in times of peril. If such an army cannot be raised, then either there is no true peril, or the country in question is not worth fighting for.
That was essentially the argument of the Anti-Federalists.
November 30, 2009, 6:53 pmRPT says:
“Relic:
Is there any proof that Medicare is necessary at all? It seems like it’s one of those programs that only exists because people are dependent on it.”
Like food, clothing, shelter, and so on, for those covered by it. Another vote for the “then die quickly” program.
November 30, 2009, 7:02 pmSuperSkeptic says:
False dilemma/false dichotomy. This is the classic social darwinist ad hominem argument against those who oppose an expansion (or favor a contraction) of the welfare state/”safety nets.” Just because one opposes the state’s actions in the matter does not necessarily mean that they want people to die. The state is not the only solution to these problems, although reasonable minds may differ as to whether it is the best.
November 30, 2009, 7:14 pmMark Field says:
I was being generous to theobromophile’s point. I counted the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and WWII. That’s an absolute maximum of the times our nation was at risk.
November 30, 2009, 7:18 pmRPT says:
Has anyone who supports the Iraq and Afghanistan yet asserted that there should have been a plan and/or vote to fund them before they were commenced? Any comments re the “off the books” accounting? No problems?
“Skeptic:
False dilemma/false dichotomy. This is the classic social darwinist ad hominem argument against those who oppose an expansion (or favor a contraction) of the welfare state/“safety nets.”
Well, a good deal of the war funding has gone to pay for safety nets in the countries involved. Why spend the money there but not here? And, yes, I do believe that there is a social darwinist/Randian kernel of truth in the hearts of many who profess to be concerned about non-war spending. If the young, old and/or infirm do not have enough resources to pay for their own care then there is no moral obligation to have the government help them. I understand this view; it is “women and children first…after me”.
November 30, 2009, 7:27 pmtheobromophile says:
egd: I spent a few years in the South, absolutely love it, and still think that the Civil War was worth fighting.
I seem to remember some part of history class in which the Japanese bombed our military bases. There was also this War of 1812 thingie that was on American soil. I also remember this time in the none-to-distant past in which a bunch of terrorists killed people in my extended family. Which one of those, egd, are not necessary wars? Aren’t you straining the definition a bit?
Moreover, many of our other international conflicts have arisen because the rest of the world can’t seem to defend itself against aggressors (e.g. the first Gulf war, WWII in Europe, etc).
Perhaps if other stable regions of the world were to contribute more substantially to the effort, then we would not have to debate whether current Americans or those yet to be born should have to pay for these wars.
Someone may have mentioned this above, but there is also a preventative issue with going to war. If the benefit is measured purely in terms of the current conflict, you tend to miss out on the fact that dictators, terrorists, and whack jobs are a lot less likely to start a conflict with America or with American allies when the United States will bring down fire and brimstone upon their heads for even trying. As lawyers, we understand when companies will litigate one matter, when the cost of the litigation exceeds the amount in the controversy, in order to discourage future litigants. Why no one can also see that advantage to other situations is beyond me.
Dilan, is that what passes for a citation in your world? Aside from the fact that the tax cuts, especially from the Reagan years, enabled long-term economic growth (obviously, the technological revolution of the 1990s would never have happened with pre-Reagan tax rates, which discouraged long-term capital investment), you’re also ignoring other factors, such as underlying economic conditions. Moreover, you forget that your Commander in Chief ran on a platform of tax cuts for 95% of Americans. Yet you obviously support him, at least a bit. Why is that?
Moreover, as anyone with student loans or a mortgage can tell you, deficits themselves don’t matter. It’s our ability to service the debt that matters the most. On a micro level, taking out $300,000 in loans for med school isn’t a bad idea if you’re going to become a brain surgeon, but taking out $50,000 in loans for undergrad is usually regarded as fundamentally stupid. The problem with the Obama administration’s deficits is that we are getting to the point at which we cannot even pay the interest on the loans – good debt or bad debt, it’s too much debt.
–
On a side note, there are fluctuations in the cost of war, but some costs are (or should be) fixed, such as for R&D. I find it tremendously ironic – and not a little frightening – that the Obama administration intends to cut (or has cut) the DoD’s budget for research. If someone attacks us, we can certainly rustle up an army to fight them; what we cannot do is come up with cutting-edge military technology in a few months. Furthermore, if any part of the military enterprise convinces other nations that it’s not a good idea to attack us, it would probably be our technology.
November 30, 2009, 9:46 pmtheobromophile says:
Thank you… but why is that “generous”? First of all, why was our country not at risk, short-term or long-term, after 9/11?
More importantly, you can list off the wars that you find to be necessary, but that makes it appear as if there are too many absurd or bad wars to even list. Well, that wasn’t my point; my point was that often, war is necessary.
My other point, which was roundly trashed, was that the military should feed first from the federal trough. Somehow, Dilan and his ilk read the same Constitution that I have beside me and find that the point of the federal government is to pay for abortions, not for a central army. Uh huh….!
November 30, 2009, 9:53 pmRhymes With Right says:
I took this issue on a couple of years back over at my blog, in a piece about an earlier Obey effort to create such a surtax. I said it was a bad idea then, and still think it is today. The essence of my argument boils down to this — national defense and the military are a core function of the federal government and should be funded out of general revenue BEFORE social programs and transfer payments, which do not so qualify. Indeed, it is those other programs that should be funded by a surtax to cover their cost, given that they are not central to the function of government under our Constitution. And if the argument is that everyone should be sacrificing to pay for the war, then start by repealing the Bush tax cuts that took many Americans off the federal income tax rolls altogether — and then go a step further by extending the “war tax” to include every American whose income is above the poverty level, not just the wealthy or those who the current tax code requires to shoulder the burden of runaway spending.
http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/295288.php
November 30, 2009, 10:10 pmBob from Ohio says:
We spend about 100-120B per year on the wars over our regular large budget. A large part of this is extra [National Guard] salaries and allowances, purchase of supplies and replacing weapons/trucks/Humvees etc. that are destroyed or worn out.
These purchases are largely made in the US. Very little is actually spent overseas. Iraq reconstruction is less than 50 billion of this spending.
War spending is to a large extent, no different than a stimulus bill that spend its money on grants to the states for police, teachers etc. and “shovel ready” projects. Except that the spending is more gradual, not 750B at once.
I don’t see Obey proposing a “stimulus tax” to pay for the 750B bill that equals 6-7 years of the wars. After extra spending in one year what the GOP overspent in 4 years, its time to play the fiscal prudence game so as to try to diffuse the bad political effects of the lukewarm at best stimulus and the rest of the orgy of spending.
November 30, 2009, 10:11 pmOwen H. says:
theobromophile : Just so you know, the War of 1812 started when we declared war on Great Britain, and the first fighting was us trying (and failing) to invade Canada.
November 30, 2009, 10:41 pmMark Field says:
It was generous because you claimed that wars which put our nationhood at risk happen “often”. By coming up with 4, I made the best case I could for you.
But such wars don’t happen “often”; in fact, they’re quite rare. There has been just one in the lifetime of any person now living (WWII).
We do need a military, and we certainly should fight wars which put our nationhood at risk. Such wars are very rare now, and we can protect against them even more by reducing our overseas commitments and dedicating our military budget to its true purpose, namely defense.
I think the burden is on you to show that it was. But it was not, IMO, because ObL and his ilk have no ability to occupy the US or change our borders or change our fundamental laws. Killing people in random terrorist attacks does not put our national existence at stake.
As long as you’re willing to limit “the military” as I suggested above, I don’t necessarily disagree (though many of the Founders might have). But even if the military comes first, that doesn’t mean it comes only. Nor does it mean that we shouldn’t raise the taxes necessary to pay for the wars we do fight (and the same applies to the health care benefits we vote for, etc.).
In a war in which our national existence is at stake, we shouldn’t hesitate to borrow the money to fight it and pay it back later. That’s not what’s going on here. The war in Afghanistan is purely voluntary (and, pace Prof. Posner, is not an “investment”); that means it’s no different than any other federal program and we should have to pay for it the same way.
November 30, 2009, 11:01 pmDilan Esper says:
Dilan, is that what passes for a citation in your world? Aside from the fact that the tax cuts, especially from the Reagan years, enabled long-term economic growth (obviously, the technological revolution of the 1990s would never have happened with pre-Reagan tax rates, which discouraged long-term capital investment)
Really? REALLY? For your information, Theo, they had a technological revolution all over the world, including many places with really high tax rates.
Further, for your information, Reagan INCREASED capital gains taxes and taxed them as ordinary income under the 1986 Tax Reform Act. It was Clinton who restored (partially) the differential. So if you really think that the tax code discouraged capital investment, your hero should be Clinton, not Reagan.
Moreover, as anyone with student loans or a mortgage can tell you, deficits themselves don’t matter.
Again, Theo, your economic ignorance astounds me. Long term, deficits certainly do matter– they crowd out investment. This is why the bond market responded so favorably to the 1993 Clinton tax increases (and, to be fair, the Gingrich spending cuts of 1995).
Short term, deficits don’t matter that much, but that’s why President Obama is quite correct to be spending like a drunken sailor in the short term to stimulate the economy.
On a side note, there are fluctuations in the cost of war, but some costs are (or should be) fixed, such as for R&D. I find it tremendously ironic — and not a little frightening — that the Obama administration intends to cut (or has cut) the DoD’s budget for research. If someone attacks us, we can certainly rustle up an army to fight them; what we cannot do is come up with cutting-edge military technology in a few months.
Theo, we have the strongest, most techologically advanced military in the world, and by quite some margin. Our biggest danger is hawks who expose us to the risk of terrorist blowback with ill advised wars. No state can launch a credible attack on us without swift and certain retaliation, and no state is going to do so.
I don’t think some cuts to DARPA are going to make us vulnerable.
Somehow, Dilan and his ilk read the same Constitution that I have beside me and find that the point of the federal government is to pay for abortions, not for a central army.
Theo, that’s just an ignorant smear. I don’t think the Constitution requires us to pay for abortions (though it is excellent public policy) and I do think the Constitution is quite explicit in Article I Section 8 in empowering Congress to raise and support armies.
November 30, 2009, 11:10 pmDilan Esper says:
I took this issue on a couple of years back over at my blog, in a piece about an earlier Obey effort to create such a surtax. I said it was a bad idea then, and still think it is today. The essence of my argument boils down to this — national defense and the military are a core function of the federal government and should be funded out of general revenue BEFORE social programs and transfer payments, which do not so qualify.
Again, you can say this, but that doesn’t mean that the military is suddenly cost free. Something can be your first priority and you still have to pay for it and raise the money to do so.
As I said, let’s say rent is my first priority, and I decide to move into a more expensive apartment. Saying that I now have to raise more money to pay my rent each month is not a denial that it is still my first priority.
I think a lot of conservatives would love to live in a world where saying the military is our first priority is the equivalent of saying you never have to collect a tax to pay for it.
November 30, 2009, 11:13 pmRhymes With Right says:
Wrong — paying for the military becomes the first priority out of general revenue, from whatever taxes are currently being collected. As a core function of government, it has first claim on the general tax revenue. The non-core functions of government can then be funded from the remainder of general revenue, or by a surtax such as Obey is proposing.
To use your example of getting a more expensive apartment — the first thing you do in that case s cut out the non-essentials in the budget (cable television, dinners out, etc). Only after you have eliminated the non-essentials do you go out and get that second job, and then with the understanding that the second job is funding those non-essentials, not the rent.
November 30, 2009, 11:31 pmRicardo says:
This is wrong, though. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the power “[t]o raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years.” The Constitution places no such two-year restriction on appropriations for anything else. That’s why the defense budget is always classified as discretionary spending while SS and Medicare are classified as mandatory spending.
This is leaving aside the point that money is fungible anyway. “War tax” is a nice way to sell what would actually be a “deficit reduction tax.” The meme I agree with that I’ve seen quoted at DeLong’s website is “Lord, give us fiscal responsibility but not yet.” Fighting the recession is the first responsibility of Congress. In 2011 or 2012 after there has been a full recovery, that’s the time to start proposing taxes or spending cuts to balance the budget.
November 30, 2009, 11:37 pmtheobromophile says:
Quite untrue.
Our point is simple: if the military feeds first from the trough, there’s enough money for it (so long as the trough is big enough); the government should then go down through the line and decide what to pay for and what to not pay for. If the government feels the need to raise money for discretionary programmes, it may do so; but it should be clear that the money is for those things, too. By allocating the tax to the military, you’re pretending that the military has no fundamental right to the revenue stream; you implicitly put everything else before it.
The other points that you (willfully?) misunderstand: deficits per se do not matter. You absolutely must put qualifiers on the statement of “deficits matter” in order to make it true. Deficits in excess of the ability to service the debt (as we have right now) always matter. Long term, deficits matter. Deficits in relation to GDP or revenue or next year’s revenue matter.
As for the 1990s: there’s two related issues – developing technology and finding someone to sell it to. If people are giving all of their money to the government, they aren’t investing it in private enterprise (locally or internationally), nor are they purchasing all those new products. (As I keep hammering away on: R&D is expensive. Someone has to pay for it.)
Random question: was your complaint that Reagan cut taxes or that he increased them? Seems like once I argued that tax cuts helped, you returned with the exact opposite argument. Typical Dilan inconsistency, though.
But as I’ve said, you seem to willfully misunderstand my points; I communicate clearly, but this is not the first occasion on which you’ve taken a rather clear point, turned it on its head, and declared me ignorant. One would think that you actually had a stake in such a declaration….
As for all of Dilan’s other b.s.: biggest thing is that you cannot distinguish between causes and effects. The effect of our spending on military technology is that we have a tremendously advanced military (although not as good as we would like). By cutting that spending, you will, long term, erode that advantage. Also, it’s not merely a comparative advantage issue: it’s a technology issue. I worked in military technology for five years; trust me, Dilan, I understand this far better than you do.
Finally, Dilan, you had said that Medicare was more important than the military. Yes, I slightly exaggerated your point, as I did not literally keep it to “Medicare,” but, given your affinity for ending unborn life, knew that it was true.
So, Dilan: would you propose a special “abortion” tax? If not, is that because you think that the military shouldn’t get funding unless via a special tax, but that a totally elective surgical procedure should?
November 30, 2009, 11:38 pmtheobromophile says:
Um, Ricardo? Please don’t use the Constitution to justify paying Medicare before the military.
If you have to ask why, take a perusal through that lovely Article I, Sec. 8 again, and see why I made the point that I did. M’kay?
November 30, 2009, 11:39 pmRhymes With Right says:
If one reads Article I, Section 8, one will discover that Social Security, Medicare, and many of the other programs that liberals want to fund first are not even included within the scope of the powers delegated to Congress.
November 30, 2009, 11:42 pmAndrew J. Lazarus says:
And I am not the first to point out that this “argument” is really a statement of your opinion. Now, I would agree that defense against, say, Japanese invasion makes national defense a first priority, but it is very far from clear that the invasion of Iraq was a core function of the federal government, except on your say-so.
November 30, 2009, 11:48 pmRicardo says:
If you want to argue that Medicare is unconstitutional, why don’t you just go ahead and do so rather than engaging in this subterfuge about which agency gets money “before” another?
While the arguments that Medicare or SS are unconstitutional have long been rejected by all three branches of government (and most of the American people), the clear language of Section 8 is that the military’s funding must be explicitly renewed by Congress every two years. That is the way things work in the real world and nobody disputes the obligation of Congress to explicitly renew the military’s funding. The concept of mandatory spending is accepted as constitutional by everyone who matters.
Anyway, the argument you appear to be making is based on a fallacy since money is fungible. If you want to argue that military funding should be prioritized above everything else, that’s fine. But arguing that the military “has [a] fundamental right to the revenue stream” [a fair inversion of the claim you were attacking] is simply false. The constitution makes clear that the military is subservient to civilian government and must go hat-in-hand to Congress every two years to renew its funding. That’s the law. M’kay? :-)
December 1, 2009, 12:12 amTweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Against the War Tax -- Topsy.com says:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ryan McCarl, PostRank – Law. PostRank – Law said: Against the War Tax http://bit.ly/6b9Kc0 #postrank #law [...]
December 1, 2009, 12:43 amtheobromophile says:
Ricardo: to clarify my argument – I am not saying that the military goes before SS, Medicare, etc. because the latter are unconstitutional; I’m saying that the military goes before non-core functions of the federal government. (If you want to argue that non-core = unconstitutional = recognised as such by a majority of sitting Supreme Court justices, be my guest; just don’t impute that to me.)
You, however, brought the Constitution in there; I just had fun smacking that particular canard down.
As for the actual Art. I, Sec. 8 issue of military funding: yes, but that doesn’t mean that you and your cohorts are correct. Yes, Congress does have to renew funding every two years, but your conclusion – that the military feeds last – in no way follows from that. Guess what? Congress submits a budget, each and every year, to the President. Nothing gets funded in perpetuity. If you’re funding the Army in a particular year, then fund the Army and feed it first. Not a hard concept.
December 1, 2009, 12:54 amrpt says:
All I can say about the trough issue is that there has a really really big plate for the Middle Eastern fare over the last few years. No wonder conservatives use the “starve the beast” metaphor. Would that they loved the troops as much as the hardware.
December 1, 2009, 1:38 amRicardo says:
You keep on saying this as if you are saying something meaningful. Budget priorities are entirely at the discretion of Congress. If you want to say federal spending should be prioritized above other spending, as I already stated, that’s fine. That’s just your opinion but it’s a valid opinion. Trying to frame the argument about “who feeds first” or who has “a fundamental right” to revenue is fallacious from both an economic and legal perspective, though. Interest on the national debt, to take one example, has a much higher priority than military spending and indeed it should.
And these fallacious arguments are also not relevant to the issue of whether the military gets funded out of general revenue or out of a special surtax. Since military appropriations must be renewed every two years, there is nothing inherently wrong with a tax that also gets renewed every two years that is set level to the amount of military spending. There’s also nothing wrong with actually balancing the overall budget, either. All the same, I’m not in favor of any new taxes right now because of the recession.
December 1, 2009, 1:43 amAndrew J. Lazarus says:
And I’m saying that “non-core” is simply a projection of your opinion of relative importance. “Core” and “non-core” do not appear in the Constitution. I could argue that the anti-counterfeiting squad in the Department of the Treasury is a core responsibility of the Government, but I don’t think anyone could argue it deserves to stand at the head of the queue for limited financial resources.
December 1, 2009, 2:13 amegd says:
I understand if you were being generous, but the political left likes to declare wars as either “good wars” or “bad wars.” WWII was a “good war,” Vietnam was a “bad war.” Afghanistan (until recently for some reason) is a “good war,” Iraq is a “bad war.” The difference between either of the two sets is unclear.
The war of 1812 was the only war in which the sovereignty of the nation was arguably at risk, even if the risk was de facto rather than de jure. In WWII, the Japanese merely attacked our armed forces at a military installation. If that’s the basis for a “war of self defense” then the Mexican-American War, Vietnam War, Iraq War (part II), and Afghanistan should be classified as wars of self defense.
The Revolutionary War wasn’t a war to preserve our nation, it was a war against the legitimate sovereign, a war for independence. While the reasons and results are preferable, there’s no basis for arguing that it was a war of self defense.
The Civil War, likewise, was a war of independence, not a war between sovereign nations. The Civil War was not a war for control over the nation, but rather a war to establish a new state. The United States was never at risk during the conflict, any more than the United Kingdom was at risk during the American Revolution.
Yes, I am straining it a bit. In fact, I’m straining it a lot. Anyone who wants to label WWII as a “good war” really has very little to support their position, at least distinguishing it from unpopular wars like Iraq II or Vietnam. WWII was about protecting American interests, particularly remaining a naval presence in the Pacific and . . . whatever the hell Europe was about.
Someone who opposes Iraq II because it’s not a war of “self defense,” under a narrow definition of threat to our sovereignty, should likewise oppose all wars under the same rhetoric.
December 1, 2009, 9:27 amMark Field says:
Two comments:
First, I think everyone distinguishes “good” wars from “bad” ones. The only alternatives are (a) pacifism (opposing all war); or (b) indiscriminate support for all wars. Much as I snark at conservatives about war, I don’t think they actually favor all war all the time. I just don’t agree with the distinctions they make between “good” and “bad” wars.
Second, I wasn’t making a value judgment of “good” or “bad” in my response to theobromophile. I was trying to identify those wars in which national identity could reasonably be said to have been at stake. I think it’s possible to argue against all 4 examples (e.g., that we needn’t have entered into it), but I was making the narrower point that such wars did not happen (as she said) “often”, but were quite rare even on a fairly broad definition.
December 1, 2009, 10:40 amBryan Price says:
If there were extra taxes being taken for these wars, if there were rations going on for these wars, if the general population truly had to deal with the costs of the war instead of those troops and their families (raises hand), Bush would have only been a one term President.
As far as explaining the wars, I don’t know of any tax that explains anything. Does my income tax explain anything? Does my sales tax?
And as far as the current troops being volunteers, that’s true. But when the recruits started getting prepped for deployment to those two hell holes as soon as they got out of boot, recruitment dried up tremendously. That’s why we had Stop-Gap in place. You know what Stop-Gap is, and what that was about don’t you? And I’m not going to comment on the wages and benefits.
And while, yes, revenues would be raised, that’s exactly what needs to be done. “The war will go on, however the revenues are used.”? Really? Let’s stop all the other taxes and see how much further this war goes on.
Afghanistan WAS a bad idea. The only goal for invading Afghanistan was to get OBL. We failed. And yes, we need to end the war. But you’re going to have to raise taxes anyways to pay for the deficit spending that went on to support that war. There are no benefits that will accrue. How many years have we been fighting The War on (some) Drugs? Kicking over the ant hill that is Afghanistan is not going to stop terrorism in the world, nor will it even stop terrorism against the United States. We are performing no benefit, and exactly who are we charging with our costs? Our children? This is not capital investment!
If a war is to be waged, the means to pay for it also has to be considered. The only possible exception is if the war is on your door step, but you’re still going to have to figure out how to pay it even then. Not borrow, pay.
December 1, 2009, 11:18 amArthurKirkland says:
I believe any rational person distinguishes ‘good wars’ from ‘bad wars.’ Does a counterargument exist?
A reasonable person could argue (or even believe) that invading Iraq could be labeled an of self-defense, but that person would hold the far shorter end of the forensic straw.
December 1, 2009, 11:38 amJaimeInTexas says:
OMG, someone actually stated that [the Afghanistan] war is “in effect a capital investment” ???? If that is true, let just tell China to face their Navy in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, along with ours, sink each other’s EMPTY ships, so that we can build more and stimulate the economy and increase our wealth.
1) It is in dispute if Mexico’s attack was on uS soil. Didn’t Saint Lincoln even question that?
December 1, 2009, 12:00 pm2) Did the North invade the South due to existancial danger? Who then won the war, Canada?
3) And prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor FDR did all he could to antagonize the Japanese into attacking first… successfully. Stinett still, at the time of his writing (Day of Deceit), has not been able to get information through FOIA requests.
Dilan Esper says:
so the right wing position is that any tax increase would be an implicit concession that other things are as important as the military. the only ways to show that the military is important are either to not pay for the war at all or to cut medicare or social security to pay for it.
December 1, 2009, 12:19 pmegd says:
Well, that’s certainly one view.
A contrasting view might be that if the Democrats had supported the Iraq war, instead of giving comments that sound like enemy propaganda (and were in fact used for that purpose), our troops would be home today, with a successful Iraq behind us.
I think that is really the heart of the problem, theobromophile defines “good” wars one way and you define them another. I was pointing out that the distinction between “good” and “bad” is ultimately subjective. By my count there was only 1 “good war”, by yours there were 4, and by theobromophile’s there may have been more than that, even using the same standard.
And I agree that there are certain universally “bad” wars, such as Vietnam, although individuals will disagree as to what makes them “bad.” I don’t think there are many others in our history that are universally considered “bad,” including the current Iraq war.
December 1, 2009, 12:24 pmBryan Price says:
What support was/is missing from Iraq? The Democrats didn’t take over Congress until 2006! What was going on while the Republicans held all the power? Are you suggesting that we should rescind the 1st Amendment because there’s a war going on? That Congress has no right to debate anything that the President talks about? Would you like today’s Congress to shut up about everything that President Obama is doing now?
And then we could go into a discussion of what “win” or “success” is in Iraq, and if we do come to a consensus of what that is, then we still have to face the stark reality that it still may be out of our grasp because it’s more up to the people of Iraq than it is us. And have everybody home today? McCain was talking about having our troops over there for fifty to one hundred years. That’s not today, is it?
December 1, 2009, 2:08 pmLN says:
Do you think the Iraq generals take into account anti-war comments when they draw up war plans? “OK we’ll send in some troops into this area… and then cut off the enemy’s retreat using these troops… we’ve been destroying their supply lines so the enemy can’t hold out… it’s the perfect plan… the only thing that can stop us now is that pesky commenter 8isenough on Daily Kos. I’ve sent some pro-war supporters into the blogosphere… hopefully their firepower will intimidate the opposition there… but I don’t know if it will be enough.”
December 1, 2009, 8:48 pmtheobromophile says:
FYI: I used “often” for the simple reason that I didn’t care to say “a majority” when, depending on what one counts, it may be a minority; nor did I want to say “a plurality”, thus implying that there are several classes of wars. “Sometimes” was too vague. “Often” seemed sufficiently relative to get my point across; I erroneously assumed that whomever was reading it would understand that it’s a relative term – i.e. relative to how frequently we are in wars.
Apparently, I should have counted them all up and done a statistical analysis before posting anything. Crikey.
December 2, 2009, 3:39 amtheobromophile says:
Keeping the snark down to a dull roar with this one, here is the definition of my oh-so-inappropriate word: often. Now, those who are quick to declare me to have made a quantitative error are more than welcome to find some quantitative basis for that. Have at it, kids.
December 2, 2009, 3:44 amJordan Rosenberg says:
Money is fungible.
December 3, 2009, 4:21 pmThe war tax is a healthcare tax.
Henry Massingale says:
12/9/2009
I wish to be allowed to share a concept with you people United States Of America.
From the date of September 11, 2001 I have watched this Nation slowly die and this war has taken on a thought, a concept, that makes me feel unsafe.
December 9, 2009, 7:33 pmI asked the big what if and why, and this is it, ” Why do the people of the United States Of America grow weaker because if a dollar and the Arabic Drug Empire grows stronged to the point that now another 40,000 men and women of the United States Military is leaving for the war, why is there a hands off policy, that will not allow the destruction of these popy fields ?”
The people we are at war with seek the death of every last man, woman and child in the world in order so that their chosen few can re-populate the world.
These people such as this looked for bio- war fare within the shippment of their drugs to full fill the laws of their god.
This is so hard for my mind to understand that, why ? comes to me all the time.
Join Us in the International Boy Cott Of The Arabic Drug Empire
Henry Massingale
FASC CONCEPTS
for main page click on this link below
http://www.fascmovement.mysite.com or look for page1 american dream on google.com and see the thousands of stories all over the net and our Supporters that are now friends.