The Democrats want to end the Iraq war, so they put together a spending bill that would have US troops out in about 18 months.
What if they also solve the deficit at the same time? Can they institute a $1 tax per gallon of gasoline sold in the US? Make it proportional to the amount spent in Iraq.
If Bush somehow manages a troop surge, the tax goes up. If we reduce the deployment in Iraq, the spending goes down, and so does the tax.
Justify it as a “support the troops tax”. Economy should be able to bear this (hopefully temporary) cost, as gasoline taxes in Europe are much higher and they seem to be doing fine.
Conservatives ought to support this, after all, the Iraq war was supposed to be about WMDs and establishing a Western-style democracy, not about cheap gas, right?
Democrats get to shift the budget showdown to the public. If the people support the Iraq war, they shouldn’t gripe about paying for it.
Environmentalists will be happy with the incentive to reduce gas consumption and lower CO2 emissions.
Assuming your $1 per gallon tax represents an approximate 33% increase (based on 2.50 - 3 dollars a gallon), you’re going to completely torpedo the budgets of hundreds of schools, which rely on gasoline and diesel fuel to power the school busses they use every day to get students to school. Schools everywhere are already strapped for cash in this somewhat recessive economy, they don’t need any help going further down the tubes.
Does the OP have any example of a time that Republicans have supported tax increases that would cost the average family thousands of dollars each year?
Does the OP recall how people really didn’t like $3 a gallon gas after Katrina? Why would Democrats vote to make people so angry?
A gas tax, like any sales tax, is regressive in its effects – i.e., it takes its proportionally biggest bite out of the budgets of the people least able to pay.
Agreed, gas taxes are a terrible idea. They are regressive, tax what for many people is an essential cost (most people need to drive to work/school), and don’t actually result in people buying less gas (recall that when prices spiked a few years ago, gas consumption actually went up). Upping CAFE standards are a far better idea if you want to cut back on CO[sub]2[/sub] emissions.
That said, passing a special tax to pay for the Iraq War isn’t a terrible idea (and was used in previous wars, I belive). It’s certainly better then the current policy of borrowing to pass the cost of the thing down to future taxpayers.
If people don’t like the tax, then presumably they aren’t supporting the troops or supporting the war? So end the war and the tax ends as well. Easy peasy.
But this tax will never be enacted, because no congressman will vote for it. The tax has nothing to do with the troops because it will never exist, the reason being is that nearly everyone on the political spectrum (except those who like higher gas taxes under any circumstances) will find nothing to like about the proposal.
Some of the citizenry actually do care about deficits and balancing the budget. It might not be possible to do it with this war, but maybe if enough unpopular wars are started, we could have something like this in place to discourage future wars.
So what is the purpose of the tax? To pay for the war or to make the war so unpopular that it will end sooner? If the first, then how about tightening up the budget first? Why charge me an extra $15 per fillup and spend $150 million on studying sandpipers on a beach or bridges to nowhere. If the second, how exactly will the extra tax make THE WAR more unpopular than it already is? Won’t it just make CONGRESS unpopular?
The latter, in the way it was phrased by the OP. The convoluted logic is:
Enact a tax to pay for the war, it’s supporting the troops and everybody wants to do that, right!?
Outrage over said tax and anti-war sentiment increases, and it gives the anti-war people something to point to because suddenly the cost of the war is foisted very obviously on the average joe, who suddenly doesn’t like it anymore
I wouldn’t describe it as “convoluted”… 3 steps seem pretty straightforward to me.
Make the costs of the war “real” rather than something put off for your children and grandchildren to pay for. And we’re already seeing the outrage… an extra $15 to support the troops? That’s outrageous, right? But if someone asked you nicely to pony up 15 bones to help soldiers, suddenly it doesn’t seem so outrageous.
Nope . . . still confused. So the defense budget is paid by taxes during peacetime but during war, the added cost is charged to individual Americans?
But it’s really not about financing the war? It’s to make to war so unpopular that the voters (the same ones that voted Demo in '06) take steps to end the war. I guess we’re just waiting for Pelosi to wait for the right time for strike.
I’ve actually heard of this strategy somewhere else:
[QUOTE=Underpants Gnomes
]
Step 1 - Raise taxes
Step 2 -
Step 3 - End the war
[/QUOTE]
It’s about responsibility and paying for what you spend on. Since war in the middle east is supposed to stabilize oil prices, the cost to keep that stability should be built into the same oil prices.
People shouldn’t get something for nothing and people shouldn’t pass cost burdens to future American generations.
If someone asked me for a $15 donation maybe once a month I’d be happy to give it. But that $1/gal tax is going to be everytime I go to the gas pump which will soon be 3x a week. That’s $45 extra a week/ $180 a month/ $2,340/yr. That’s a huge amount out of my budget. I’ve been against the war since before it started.
I would not trust that this type of tax would be rescinded in a timely fashion, if at all.
So maybe instead of a tax on everyone, we “garnish” the wages of the congress men/women who refused to stand up to the president until it was too late? We tax the media corporations who let the administration walk all over them and didn’t pursue any real reporting? Maybe just tax the people who voted for Bush in 2006?
Right, but in reality, the more feasible solution is:
Enact a gas tax to pay for the war
Outrage ensues
Gas tax is eliminated due to outrage
Back to square one
Controvert, the thing you are still failing to address is, why on earth would Congress want to piss people off by enacting/not getting rid of what would be a horribly unpopular tax? When a congressman comes back home and people yell at him, “Get rid of this tax! We’re working class people and you’re saddling us with huge taxes that we have to pay to get to work while millionaires continue to benefit from huge tax cuts!” what is the congressman supposed to say? “My platform for re-election is to make you miserable until the President decides to withdraw our troops! We’re all mad at the President, so I’m going to take my frustration out on you, the voters, the working class people! You, my constituents, are going to suffer because of the poor decisions of the President!”