E. J. Dionne, Jr.: A War Bush Wouldn't Pay For

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/14/AR2006121401364.html

A War Bush Wouldn't Pay For

By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, December 15, 2006; Page A35

Believe it or not, winning the war in Iraq was never the Bush administration's highest priority. Saving its tax cuts was more important. That was once spoken of as a moral problem. Now it's a practical barrier to a successful outcome.

Until recently President Bush's refusal to scale back any of his tax cuts was discussed as the question of shared sacrifice: How could we ask so much from a courageous group of Americans fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan but not ask even the wealthiest of their fellow citizens to part with a few extra dollars to support an endeavor supposedly central to our nation's security? On the contrary, even after we committed to war in Iraq, the administration pushed for yet more tax cuts in dividends and capital gains.

Now we know that the decision to put the war on a credit card is not simply a moral question. The administration's failure to acknowledge the real costs of the war -- and to pay them -- has put it in a corner.

The president's options in Iraq are severely constrained because our military is too small for the foreign policy he is pursuing. Sending more troops would place even more excruciating burdens on members of our armed forces and their families. And the brass fears that an extended new commitment could, quite simply, break the Army.

Yet, instead of building up our military for a long engagement and levying the taxes to pay for such an enterprise, the administration kept issuing merry reports of progress in Iraq. Right through Election Day this year, the president continued to condemn anyone who dared suggest that maybe, just maybe, we should raise taxes to pay for this war.

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[Up2Late]

1. Good stuff, I like E.J. most of the time and points like this are important...

...and worth quoting: "...By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, since 2001 we've offered $2 in tax cuts for every $1 we have spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And conservatives wonder why we have deficits. At least the libertarians, who are against both high taxes and an interventionist foreign policy, have their philosophical story (and their numbers) straight...."

By the way, my former ReThuglican House Rep. Bob Barr announced today he's switching parties to Libertarian.

[Stargazer99]

2. It is long past time to resind those tax cuts

and the well off need to start sending their children to the front lines like they have allowed the low income and middleclass children to pay with their lives and the poor to pay with the "entitlements" being cut, cut. It is time for those who this system has blessed with their talents to belly up to the bar. The poor and middleclass are not your cannon fodder. When is the common man going to put his foot down?

[babylonsister]

3. No joke. nt