Three members of Congress propose a war tax.

The right-wingers love war. Let them put their money and children where their mouth is!

I would not fight in any war that is not defensive in nature, and certainly not fight a war for Israel.

LOL. You two should get a room!! I am glad I could bring you two together.

 

Lorien:

Good and credible ideas on your part. Frankly, I simply read about the proposal and posted it. I haven't yet thought about alternatives.

Take a look at the outcomes at this stage. This is purely hypothetical.

Suppose one payed $40,000 in Federal Taxes and suppose the surcharge was 6%. (purely hypothetical-I have no idea how this proposal is structured).

The surcharge would take $2400/year out of your pocket this year and for the near future years so long as the war continued.

Suppose you eliminated pork barrel spending or eliminated waste, as you suggest. Nothing extra out of your pocket.

But what spending is eliminated? Might you care? Don't know.

Suppose the government continues to do what it is doing. None of us really have a feel for how much of our taxes are going to the war--and what if anything of government spending is not being pursued.

Suppose one used one of the alternative taxing forms Guerilla suggested.

Something approximating $2400 would come out of your pocket based on stuff like VAT or POS consumption taxes. I'd guess the more you spend the more would come out of your pocket.

It would not be direct $2400 directly attributable to paying as we go for the war.


Guerilla:

It appears to me to be a proposal to directly highlight the cost impacts of the war on a current basis.

I think the proposal would do that. There is immense public dissatisfaction with Congress. Since Congress is primarily composed of 2 parties it is probably dissatisfaction with many elements, including the specific parties and the processes.

I think this would address concerns with the processes.

They probably have an agenda. But it is a very straight forward proposal. I think that makes it worthwhile to bring up.

Btw. Lorien's suggestions and suggestions would probably rise to the forefront. I'm sure that would be similarly worthwhile.



Lorien: Additionally, I agree that porkbarrel spending is way out of hand. Congressional addons are at a recent crazy all time high. Lots of waste there. Still those costs are dramatically low compared to entitlements like Medicare, etc. That is actually where the real budget issues will be faced in the future.

With regard to pork barrel spending I read some things recently with regard to Congressional addons that were specifically for items to further protect the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq against IED's.

That kind of stuff looked good to me. I think there were 4 or 5 members of Congress (from both parties) that proposed the follow through on efforts to improve protection against IEDs.

Then I further read through the long pieces in the Washington Post that documented 4+ years of trying to protect soldiers against IED's.

Fascinating and frustrating process. Amazing description of the complexity and widepspread efforts to combat this issue. Descriptions of successes, partial successes, and failures in coming up with many ways to defeat the process. Incredibly wide ranging efforts.

Some portions of the article described Congressman's Hunter's efforts to enhance and speed up the protection process.

When I first read about the 4-5 members of Congress doing this stuff, my first impression was that his efforts were the best of the lot. After reading about the broad effort to tackle and overcome IED's I got the impression that some of his efforts were less than great.

So after reading all that stuff my feelings on pork barrel Congressional spending is that some might be worthwhile and some might not. So additionally we might want to install a way to evaluate the pork barrel stuff as to "acceptability".

It is complicated, no doubt.

 

Like Lorien, I agree that we should cut the pork, and then the war would be paid for...while they are at it, why not cut out all the countless hours congress spends doing nothing but "non-binding resolutions". What happened to all those promises Nancy P made when she took over? Besides, I am against it for one reason, that being I don't want any new taxes.

 

I'm all for cutting the pork before anything. Also for clamping down on those who abuse such services as Social Security and other social programs. I have no problem with helping a fellow american who needs support, I however am sickened when those who do not need it abuse it.

In any event I would prefer to pay for the war now and not force my child and his children to pay for it down the road.

 

You are under the false assumption that your taxes would go where promised. See my first post in this thread. A carbon tax (to help the environment) going to pay for totally unrelated things. It's typical.

And therein lies the problem. You are under the same false assumption that Grim is having. That the extra taxes would go where promised. In the history of our government and taxes, has this ever been the case?

It's just an excuse to increase spending. Nothing more. Be serious.

 

No you actually took what I stated incorrectly. Of course taxes can be shifted to other venues, I am simply stating whatever it takes I would like to see the War paid for now, not in the future. Did I say I am for the war tax as outlined? No I did not, I stated I would like to see it paid for so my child and his children do not have to pay for it.

--edit
Also please see the rest of my post, the beginning part.

I'd like to see the pork taken out, social services clamped down on before anything.

 

Lorien: I just took the proposal on face value. It just came out yesterday and I scanned about it in a couple of news pieces.

But you could incorporate something in the proposal, if there was a direct tax, as suggested in the proposal.

The cost of the war in Iraq on a current basis is somewhat unclear--I've seen stuff where it is ranging between $108 billion on up. Say you made surcharge tax income tied directly to the war--give or take 10%. If the surcharge was more than the cost of the war--you refund the excess on a basis that reflected what tax payers paid....or you applied it to the following year. You could easily address excess funding being used for other functions. That stuff is done all the time. good points.

 

This is the reason I am against a national healthcare program...we can't control what we have now, much less anything that is bigger...

this war is for our children. It is to protect them from radical islam and terrorism. Terrorism will never go away, it has always been around and always will be. Radical Islam is something that I don't think will go away either. It to, like terrorism, has been around for a long time. Technology has given them a new way to fight.

 

The war in Iraq does not = the war on terror. If anything we created Iraq to be a terrorist haven. This does not equate to it being for our children, if anything it makes our children have more dangers come from it if the fuxx up isn't corrected.

Same opinion for the most part on the health care system as well. It sounds nice and all but wow would it be expensive, plus I hate the gov having that kind of power.

 

It does more now than ever. What we can't do is say that we could take it all back...intelligence was wrong, now we are there, lets finish the job.

incorrect, Hussian made it a haven. Those links have been proven time and time again.

exactly...glad we can agree on some things.

 

Incorrect, most 'terrorists' were in the North, an area not controlled by Saddam

But yes now that we are there we need to fix it otherwise it will be a Terrorist haven for future generations, there is no denying that. How to do it though is the question.

 

I have d16man on ignore, but since you quoted him, I think he should know that actually Saddam hated Islamists, most likely killed many of them because they were a threat to his power

 

As if the tax will be implemented on war supporters only...

 

Cutting pork domestically would be a step. Cutting pork internationally is another logical step, perhaps it should come before domestic spending cuts.

But the war and recent inquiries into the DoD, State Department and Pentagon have shown that these arms of government are hemorraging cash in an irresponsible manner, particularly related to the war. Perhaps instead of being concerned for how we can tax to pay for (example only) $35 paper plates from Haliburton, we should be questioning why we are paying $35 for a paper plate in the first place. Or why we are paying over $300,000 for foreign mercenaries from groups like Triple Canopy and Blackwater.

It's flawed thinking to address the spending issue by increasing revenue before a complete audit on how money is being wasted. I think many of us would be willing to contribute if we knew that the money was being spent ethically, but we know it isn't, and that is why straight up direct funding by the people is merely another money grab.

Americans need to get out of this line of thinking that taxes are only temporary. They very quickly become permanent. It's like surrendering a right. Once it's gone, it's nearly impossible to win back without a complete system overhaul.

Thank you. Now you are thinking like a Libertarian.

To understand terrorism, one has to go beyond the rhetoric about this current situation. Terrorism, as proven by many experts, is most often and most likely bred during (1) war, and (2) occupation. If we were to remove these two conditions, history proves that terrorism would decline. It is possible to win, because if it isn't, then fighting this war is pointless. But a military solution has never worked to eliminate terrorism, and I challenge anyone to show an example that it has.

This is something else I have issue with. Intelligence was wrong, and yet we are still continuing down the same path, for many people it seems, more in an emotionally driven desire for closure, or to mitigate a sense of guilt about what has been done to the Iraqi people in the name of liberty, than by a rational examination of the facts.

Saddam Hussein ran a secular society. He suppressed the Mullahs and Imams. A lot of this has been glossed over. Sure Iraq was not a democracy, but it was certainly no theocracy. They had a high standard of medicine, a very good educational system by regional standards, and much more relative wealth and infrastructure than that country can hope to attain again in the the next 25 years.

 

Actually, Saddam didn't support the the people who are hostile to the US (Like Al Qaeda). Osama always hated Saddam as much as he hated US.

Saddam was more concerned about gaining the control in the ME, that he lost after the Opp Desert Storm. This is the fact that Saddam wasn't the typical radical Islamist..

 

that's a god idea, they should have checklist on the tax forms, don't support whatever , check this box and the taxes go down

 

I tried to find out how much is going into "pork barrel" spending. Its not easy to find.

I sourced two documents that try and define congressional earmarks. These are the specific items that members of Congress stick into legislation.

One source...reclaimdemocracy.org. said it found about $27 billion in about 13,000 separate earmarks for 2005 (fy05 or calendar 05-I'm not sure).

The Congressional Research Office came up w/ a widely different figure for earmarks. I sourced this document fas.org/sqp/crs/misc/m012606.pdf.

It didn't total up earmarks but broke it down by department. Total - about $52 billion for fy 2005. (I quickly totaled it up by department- pain in the arse-I might have made a mistake)

Pretty big differences. There are debates about what constitutes an earmark.

Of the $52 billion significant amts already go to defense related items so some of them are targeted toward Iraq war spending.

In any case even if you eliminated every single item on the high end of the calculation for any expenditure that might be considered an earmark at best that only covers 1/3 of the estimated cost of the war in Iraq, per the proposal. (Remember the costs are increasing--exactly what they are are subject to discussion.)

If you eliminate a lower number of earmarks....say $30 billion....you still have $120 billion to cover.

According to Lorien's suggestion --cover the costs through elimination of waste and pork barrel spending. According to these numbers it looks like you have to find between $100-120 billion in waste.

Anyone know if there is any information on total values or estimates of federal government waste? Is it anywheres near $100-120 billion?

 

You are of course, talking about waste outside the war itself...

 

how about we stop giving people tax credits for shitting out babies, that alone would could pay for a big part of the war

 

Sure, you could audit the crap out of the Iraq spending and find ways to make it tighter.

But seriously.....anyone have ideas on where there is $100-120 billion.

Cutting out every single pork barrel/congressional earmark eliminates roughly 1/5 to 1/3 of the annual cost of the war.

Where does the rest of the funding come from?