« ACORN dumps documents; Breitbart has them and will release | Polls: So goes health care reform, so goes Obama »
November 23, 2009
Rep. Obey warns of 'war surtax' if Obama sends troops to Afghanistan
Would you pay more in taxes if it meant that General McChrystal could get the troops he needed to effectively prosecute the war in Afghanistan?
Democrat David Obey (WI), chairman of the tax writing Appropriations Committee, thinks you should. And he is threatening the president with a tax increase if Obama sends additional troops to Afghanistan.
Jonathan Karl of ABC News has the story:
"There ain't going to be no money for nothing if we pour it all into Afghanistan," House Appropriations Chairman David Obey told ABC News in an exclusive interview. "If they ask for an increased troop commitment in Afghanistan, I am going to ask them to pay for it."
Obey, a Democrat from Wisconsin, made it clear that he is absolutely opposed to sending any more U.S. troops to Afghanistan and says if Obama decides to do that, he'll demand a new tax -- what he calls a "war surtax" -- to pay for it.
"On the merits, I think it is a mistake to deepen our involvement," Obey said. "But if we are going to do that, then at least we ought to pay for it. Because if we don't, if we don't pay for it, the cost of the Afghan war will wipe out every initiative we have to rebuild our own economy.
Of course, those "initiatives" include wildly expensive programs like cap and trade as well as the probability of another stimulus bill, not to mention national health care. Perhaps if Obey and Obama abandoned those budget busters, he wouldn't have to tax us in order to save the situation in Afghanistan.
Obey's skewed priorities hides the desire of most Democrats to pull our troops out of Afghanistan now, and leave the fledgling Afghan government to the tender mercies of the Taliban. Such cynicism will be rewarded by Obama eventually. In the meantime, Obey's idea of a war surtax will probably not get very far unless Obama himself embraces it.
Given the Mount Everest of debt he has already piled on, the president may just go for it.
To comment on this or any other American Thinker article or blog, you must be a subscriber to our ad-free service. Login to your subscription to access the comments section. You can subscribe on a monthly basis for $6.79 a month or for a year at $69.99
Login
Subscribe / Change PwdAd Free / Commenting Login
FOLLOW US ON
Recent Articles
- From Churchill to Vance...Sounding Off About Tyranny
- Globalist Games: They Play, We Pay
- Scorched-Earth Disease Control
- NATO, Ukraine, and the War Hawks’ Pixie Dust Playbook
- On XY in XX’s Sports, Whoopi G. Opens Her Mouth—and Removes All Doubt
- Donald Trump’s Return: A Foreign Policy Reset After Biden’s Weakness
- The Danes and the Greenlanders: How They See Trump's America
- The USAID Case: Judge Amir Ali’s $2 Billion Defiance Escalates
- Terrifying Tariffs: Tax Policy as Back-Door Foreign Aid
- Dr. Marty Makary’s ‘Blind Spots’ Book Is At Odds With Established Findings
Blog Posts
- UN climate change conference to be held in Amazon rainforest, trees sacrificed
- I’m all broken up about Mahmoud Khalil’s rights
- Destuction's defenders
- Go away, Randi
- After blowing $9 billion on 'free' health care for illegals, California's Gov. Gavin Newsom asks for a bailout
- Trump throws down the gauntlet to the out-of-control federal district court judges *UPDATED*
- Ronald Reagan also had a slow economic start
- Getting the left out of the political wilderness
- Oregon selects a trans-turtle and a trans-meteor to sit on a ‘mental health advisory board’
- Fly the DEI skies...and hope that you land safely
- This 70-year-old woman is serving 9 years in prison
- Stacey Abrams really, really, wants 'her' $2 billion from Biden's EPA slush fund
- The (un)masked magician’s apprentice
- Schumer’s attempted shutdown will backfire bigly
- The Democrats are so passionate ...