The first bracket, which covers joint returns with a liability of up to $22,600, roughly corresponds with households earning up to $150,000. In this case a 1 percent surtax is levied so the maximum additional cost would be $226.

The second bracket applied to tax liability between $22,600 and $36,400 or roughly equivalent to joint returns for couples earning between $150,000 to $250,000, The third bracket applies to those earning over $250,000 with a tax liability of $36,400 or higher.

The rates in the second and third brackets would vary depending on how much needs to be raised to cover the prior year’s war expenditures. But as a rule, the added surtax above $250,000 would be twice the percentage added onto taxes incurred between $150,000 and $250,000.

So, basically, upper-middle-class families and more would be asked to pay for the war. Yglesias comments that it’s a “clear signal” from the House Democratic leadership that any “backbencher who feels like jumping on this bandwagon is safe to do so.”

What will the Republicans say? A new loyalty oath for GOP elected officials and candidates demands support for “military-recommended troop surges” but also for, of course, lower taxes, the catechism of the conservative movement. Which GOP impulse will prove to be stronger?

“Due to the high visibility of the issues surrounding the tragic event at Fort Hood, the President has instructed the National Security Council to assume control of all informational briefings. The NSC has directed that the leadership, as well as the chairmen and ranking minority members of the relevant congressional committees receive briefings first.

“I have been told that the Director of National Intelligence is still committed to providing the full membership a briefing on the activities within the jurisdiction of this Committee. I believe that this will occur, and I will push to schedule a briefing before the end of this week.”

Just yesterday, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) postponed the Senate Armed Services Committee’s scheduled briefing on Fort Hood in accordance with President Obama’s request for Congress to await the results of military and law enforcement inquiries.

Under the proposed 50/50 formula, utilities that are more coal dependent will need to purchase even more allowances than they would have if all allowances were allocated based on emissions.

Well, yeah. And under the current proposed 50/50 formula, the coal burners would also have to purchase more allowances than if Congress did nothing at all. But the whole point of the bill is to discourage the use of high-emission energies like coal by making them less affordable than cleaner alternatives. Sheppard explains further why the lawmakers’ argument makes little sense in the context of the global warming debate:

Of course, this would work against the entire logic of the proposed scheme, which is to offer utilities financial incentives to switch to lower-carbon fuel sources. [...]

Right now, the climate bill needs all the votes it can get from Democrats. So enviros worry that concessions to this bloc could ultimately result in a deal in which coal plants suffer no real penalties for the carbon they pump into the atmosphere. “Dirty coal polluters know their days are numbered and are lobbying for the largest piece of the pie they can get,” said Jason Kowalski, policy coordinator at 1Sky. “It goes against the spirit of this legislation to reward the polluters that caused this problem in the first place.”

Signing on to the letter were Democratic Sens. Carl Levin (Mich.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Russ Feingold (Wis.), Herb Kohl (Wis.), Tom Harkin (Iowa), Al Franken (Minn.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Roland Burris (Ill.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Michael Bennet (Colo.), Mark Udall (Colo.) and Robert Byrd (W.Va.).

Today’s Senate Armed Services Committee briefing on the shooting incident at Fort Hood, Texas, has been postponed. The committee will send out a notice when the new date for the briefing has been scheduled.

In the aftermath of the Fort Hood shooting, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the committee’s chairman, requested a “detailed account” on the circumstances behind Nidal Hasan’s alleged rampage. The statement from the committee doesn’t explain why the hearing was postponed, and a spokeswoman hasn’t immediately returned an email requesting elaboration. But over the weekend, President Obama asked Congress to fall back on hearings about Fort Hood until military and law-enforcement inquiries conclude. Two senators who’ve resisted the call: Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), who will begin hearings on Thursday in the Senate Government Affairs Committee.

Update: Committee spokeswoman Tara Andringa clarifies that, indeed, the postponement came “at the request of the administration.”

Our hearts go out to the families of the brave Americans who lost their lives in today’s senseless violence at Ft. Hood, Texas, and to those who were injured. For all Americans, and especially for those of us who know and work closely with members of our military, this is the saddest of days. The Senate Armed Services Committee has requested a detailed accounting of today’s tragic events.

Obey’s entire statement is more a series of hard questions posed to the Obama administration about Afghanistan than a declarative statement of policy. But it’s clear that top House appropriator is weary of the war, and even weary of the fact that Congress and the media subject domestic policy — like health care reform, for instance — to vastly more budgetary scrutiny than they give to military campaigns.

“The Congressional Budget Office has had four committees twisting themselves into knots in order to fit healthcare reform into that limit,” Obey said in the statement. “CBO is earnestly measuring the cost of each competing healthcare plan. Shouldn’t it be asked to do the same thing with respect to Afghanistan?”

Obey’s full remarks:

“When the Appropriations Committee approved the supplemental request for Pakistan and Afghanistan funding earlier this year, we made it quite clear in the Committee Report that the Administration needed to evaluate the tools available to implement whatever strategy the United States decided to follow.

“The point we tried to make is that the United States government could have the most coherent policy in the world, but if it did not have the tools to implement it, that policy would be futile. Unfortunately, the only tools available to the United States in that part of the world are the Afghani and Pakistani governments.

“In Pakistan, we have virtually no boots on the ground, so whatever we seek to achieve, in the end, has to go through the Pakistani government. The disadvantage of that is that the Pakistani government, up to now, has been a mighty weak reed to lean on. The advantage of that is that we will probably encounter less resentment targeted against the United States then we would encounter if we had a larger military footprint; and that is a good thing. And if the Pakistani government is belatedly focusing on the dangers presented to regional stability by the Taliban instead of being distracted by their previous focus on India, then hooray – perhaps we have a chance to achieve some degree of stability in that country. The odds are against us, but the recent change in Pakistani attitudes may give us a chance.

“In Afghanistan, the situation is even bleaker. There are two issues that we confront immediately in that country. The first is whether the number of American combat troops in Afghanistan should be increased substantially as General McChrystal has apparently recommended. The second is whether or not a counter insurgency approach (in plain English, nation building) has any real chance to succeed.

“The problem with increasing the number of troops is that we become the lightening rod, and our presence runs the risk of inciting more anti-American sentiment that can become a recruiting tool for the very forces we seek to curtail. The threat to the American homeland is posed by Al Qaeda, not by the loosely-defined Taliban. Yet the more U.S. troops we send to Afghanistan to fight the insurgency, the more we risk hardening them into an implacable enemy. If any adjustment is made in U.S. troop levels, it would be much better if those troops were focused on the job of training Afghani troops and police to take on the job of securing the population and maintaining law and order. But even there, we have to ask what is achievable. My understanding is that there have never been more than about 90,000 troops under the sway of the central government. Now we are told that the goal is to train up to 400,000 soldiers and police personnel. I think it is reasonable to ask whether that is a realistic and achievable goal. It is imperative that, even on this issue, we keep our expectations realistically modest.

“The second issue is whether we should in fact engage in the kind of counter-insurgency nation-building that the General is apparently proposing. Intellectually, that might be the most coherent approach; but if we do not have the tools to accomplish it, that policy would be futile. And my honest assessment is that we don’t. Our primary tool, the Afghani government, is bordering on the useless in that regard.

“The other huge disadvantage to this approach is that, in my view, it is highly unachievable. If we were to engage in that kind of strategy, even its advocates tell us that it would require the willingness to make a commitment of a good ten years, and maybe double that. And the cost would be astronomical. The military cost alone would approach a trillion dollars or more. And that does not count the cost of economic and civilian aid to either Afghanistan or Pakistan. I simply do not believe that that kind of long term commitment is sustainable in this country. I do not believe the American people will buy it. A policy that is not sustainable is no policy at all; it is a Hail Mary pass that even Brett Favre would be highly unlikely to complete.

“And there is a third disadvantage to this approach. Because it would drain the spirit of the country over that long period of time as well as drain the U.S. treasury, it would devour virtually any other priorities that the President or anyone in Congress had.

“I wish I did not believe what I believe on this matter, but I was in Russia when the Russians were mired down in Afghanistan. At the height of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, they had 100,000 troops on the ground – which is what we would have if General McChrystal’s reported recommendations are approved. I was shocked at how openly Soviet leaders would admit that the very fabric of their political system was being devoured by their misadventure in Afghanistan. I saw what it did to their country. We are a much richer and a much stronger country then they were, but we would still pay a price that is far too high.

“That’s why I believe we need to more narrowly focus our efforts and have a much more achievable and targeted policy in that region, or we run the risk of repeating the mistakes we made in Vietnam and the Russians made in Afghanistan.

“There are some fundamental questions that I would ask of those who are suggesting that we follow a long term counterinsurgency strategy:

1. As an Appropriator I must ask, what will that policy cost and how will we pay for it? We are now in the middle of a fundamental debate over reforming our healthcare system. The President has indicated that it must cost less than $900 billion over ten years and be fully paid for. The Congressional Budget Office has had four committees twisting themselves into knots in order to fit healthcare reform into that limit. CBO is earnestly measuring the cost of each competing healthcare plan. Shouldn’t it be asked to do the same thing with respect to Afghanistan? If we add 40,000 troops and recognize the need for a sustained 10 year or longer commitment, as the architects of this plan tell us we do, the military costs alone would be over $800 billion. And unlike the demands that are being made of the healthcare alternatives that they be deficit neutral, we’ve heard no such demand with respect to Afghanistan. I would ask how much will this entire effort cost, when you add in civilian costs and costs in Pakistan? And how would that impact the budget?

2. Do we really believe that there is an international consensus for such a long-term endeavor, or will we in fact, with the exception of some tokenism, be going it alone? Are we really prepared to “go it alone”?

3. What policy is in fact achievable? We should be asking not what policy is theoretically the most intellectually coherent, but which policy is actually achievable given the only tools we have in the region; the Afghani and Pakistani governments. Is there sufficient leadership, popular support, and political will, not in the United States but in Afghanistan, necessary for effective governance to take hold?

4. What makes us think that a much more aggressive and expansive role for U.S. troops will not harden elements of the Taliban and make them a more potent force, forcing them to stand up to the “occupier”?

5. Does it all add up? The so-called COIN, or counterinsurgency strategy, calls for a certain number of troops and police based on a country’s population. In Afghanistan that equates to 600,000 people in uniform. But the Afghani government has never maintained more than 200,000 before. Can they really sustain a three-fold increase?

6. Do we really have the tools to overcome language, culture, history and a 90% illiteracy rate to sufficiently transform such a country?

“Our military personnel have always responded with what we have asked them to do with dedication and distinction. We owe it to them to bring hardnosed realism to whatever we ask them to do.

“Lastly, after the healthcare reform effort is completed, this country still has four huge long-term challenges that will require a sustained national effort:

1. The need for further action to repair the fragility of our own economy and rebuild the capacity of our economy to provide desperately needed job growth;

2. The need for a long-term commitment to strengthen our national security by dramatically reshaping our energy policy – an effort that will require sustained and meaningful sacrifice by all elements of our society;

3. The need for long-term action to restore fiscal soundness by reining in the federal deficit; and

4. The need for long-term action to extend the fiscal soundness of Social Security and Medicare.

“All of those efforts will require incredibly skilled leadership and a long-term willingness of the entire society to face hard facts.

“Will we really be able to sustain sufficient long-term public willingness to attack those problems if our national determination is drained by ten more years of what is already the second longest war in American history?”

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“People talked about how good of a commander he’s got in the field and [Obama] agreed. People said he ought to put a lot of stock in what that commander says, and he agreed with that. Of course, others pointed out that there’s a chain of command above McChrystal that he ought to listen to, and he agreed with that as well,” Levin said.

But Levin said that story was overblown and that the president and his field commander are on the same page.

“There’s no rift with McChrystal,” said Levin, “[Obama] said he picked McChrystal and he wants McChrystal to be direct … He reiterated that McChrystal is very supportive of the deliberative process and getting the strategy right before focusing on the troop levels or resources.”

In the absence of having a credible Afghan partner … it makes no sense to ramp up. On the other hand we cannot afford to pull out. … At this point, no surge. … [W]e also don’t have unlimited resources and unless those troops can secure an area in a way that then Afghan partners, the government, the Afghan army, the Afghan police can come in and fill in after them, we’re going to be there as an occupying force for a very long time and that to me doesn’t make sense.

That’s been a critique — if not necessarily a prescription — endorsed by, among other people, Andrew Exum of the Center for a New American Security, one of the advisers to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s strategy review. And it’s at the heart of the current White House debate over changing strategy. Cue the speculation about whether Galbraith was trying to influence the administration’s decision making on behalf of someone in the White House meetings.

I also notice that the chyron used by Diane Sawyer in this clip is “Surge Or Leave?” Absolutely no one within the Obama administration is arguing that the U.S. needs to leave Afghanistan. Galbraith’s substantive recommendations are closest to those of Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who has not ruled out a counterinsurgency strategy and leans most heavily on more Afghan troops to prosecute it.