Make Them Pay For It!

Commentary By Ron Beasley

I have said for years that the best way to end foreign misadventures like Iraq and Afghanistan was to make the millionaire pundits and neocons pay for them.  Let's see how enthusiastic Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes are when their wars are being paid for by them.  So they want to wage war in Afghanistan?  Carl Levin says says make them pay for it.

Higher-income Americans should be taxed to pay for more troops sent to Afghanistan and NATO should provide half of the new soldiers, said Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

An “additional income tax to the upper brackets, folks earning more than $200,000 or $250,000” a year, could fund more troops, Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt,” airing this weekend.

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag has estimated that each additional soldier in Afghanistan could cost $1 million, for a total that could reach $40 billion if 40,000 more troops are added.

That cost, Levin said, should be paid by wealthier taxpayers. “They have done incredibly well, and I think that it’s important that we pay for it if we possibly can” instead of increasing the federal debt load, the senator said. 

I think a surcharge so they can actually see how much their wars are costing them personally might dampen their enthusiasm a bit. 

Comments

[geoff]

The down side is that it may give them a larger appetite for the game as it is only money they'd be losing and if they partake in the adventures as war profiteers they may win really big. Yes an extremely high surtax but also a unique draft to which there are no exclusions and to apply to only the rich, their children, grand-children, great grand-children & great great grand-children and only for ordinary combat roles.