The Empire 138

'Bush Breaks 150-Year History of Higher US Taxes in Wartime.
By Brian Faler
Bloomberg

It was once considered Americans' patriotic duty: enduring extraordinary tax increases in wartime to help finance the fight.
Not today. Iraq is the only major U.S. conflict, except for the 1846-48 Mexican-American War, in which citizens haven't been asked to make a special financial sacrifice. President George W. Bush opposes tax increases, even as the costs escalate far beyond predictions and he calls for more troops.
"It's a reflection of either a lack of public support for the war or perhaps an unwillingness of the Bush administration" to test its popularity, said Elliot Brownlee, an economic historian retired from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The Bush administration, which says any tax increase would harm the economy, is financing the Iraq conflict with borrowed money. That spares policy makers and pro-war politicians from riling voters already soured on the war.
Arizona Republican Senator John McCain said that while he's "not averse to asking for more sacrifice," he rejects a tax increase, even one on wealthy Americans, to help pay for the war.
"I'm not sure what the point would be," said McCain, who supports Bush's troop buildup and may run for president in 2008. "I would ask them to make other sacrifices, but I'm not sure I would want to raise their taxes just because we're in a war," he said in an interview last week.
Payback With Interest
At the same time, using borrowed money pushes the cost onto future taxpayers, who will have to pay it back with interest.
The war "is being fought on our children's shoulders," said Judd Gregg (news, bio, voting record), the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. "You're probably talking about around $750 billion that is going to be spent on this war that will end up not being funded."
Bush is likely to ask Congress next month for $100 billion more in emergency war spending this year. That would bring fiscal 2007 spending on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to $170 billion, and push spending on the war on terror to more than $600 billion. The federal debt increased by $2.8 trillion from 2001 to 2006.'

Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011407Y.shtml