Still No Appetite to Share the Burdens of War
Tax cuts in the middle of two wars are OK, but tax hikes to pay the freight of those wars would be irresponsible. That’s the message coming from Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), head of the Republican Study Committee, who told CNN this morning that a war surtax being proposed by Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) is “as cynical as it is irresponsible.”
“„There’s all sorts of money that has been ill-spent to date. I would propose to the president that he begins to decrease spending in non-defense areas, non-defense discretionary areas in Washington where you can save significant amounts of money. A penny on the dollar will get us hundreds of billions of dollars in order to accomplish the priorities that we ought to have for the American people. And one of the priorities absolutely has to be and must be the protection of our land and degrading the resources that Al Qaida has.
And it’s not only Republicans dismissing the war-tax proposal. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” yesterday that it’s not realistic that Congress could push through such a tax in the middle of an economic downturn.
“„In the middle of a recession we’re probably not going to be able to increase taxes to pay for it. There should have been, as far as I’m concerned, tax increases for upper bracket folks who did so well during the Bush years — that’s where the tax increases should have taken place. But that should have happened some time ago.
Hat tip to The Hill.
