A “tax increase of ten times the size recommended by the president would still not begin to equate the sacrifice of our courageous young men fighting and dying in the swamps and jungles of Vietnam with Americans who are enjoying income and prosperity greater than they have ever known.” – Sen. Russell Long, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee during the Vietnam War
“Nothing is more important in the face of war than cutting taxes.” – Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, March, 2003*
Even after weighing the often-overlooked history of U.S. resistance to wartime taxation, Thorndike, Bank, and Stark find no historical precedent for the billions of dollars in tax cuts secured by President George W. Bush while the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue.
“Like the events of December 7, 1941, the attacks of September 11 triggered a strong ‘rally ’round the flag’ effect as Americans readied themselves for the sacrifices of war. Unlike Pearl Harbor, however, there was virtually no talk in the wake of the September 11 attacks of a need to increase taxes in order to mobilize for war,” the tax historians write.
Just as earlier leaders appealed to Americans' sense of patriotism to raise taxes, some politicians used the same tack to argue for cutting them during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. One commentator quoted in the book wrote in an April 2003 op-ed “by keeping tax rates too high and ‘sacrificing’ economic growth, we don’t help the war effort, we hinder it; we don’t get more revenue, we get less.”
Earlier generations may have witnessed debates over the right form and magnitude of tax increases for fighting wars abroad, but so solid a rejection of the increases, the authors conclude, is truly unprecedented in American history. War and Taxes considers whether the absence of a military draft, political acceptance of budget deficits, or declining concerns over inflation are behind this generation’s wartime tax cuts. Whatever the political and economic conditions that make these tax cuts acceptable to lawmakers, the book’s authors are clear: “the Bush-era tax cuts … plainly constitute an extraordinary episode in the history of American war finance.”
Steven Bank is a professor of law and vice dean at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, where Kirk Stark is a professor of law. Joseph J. Thorndike is the director of the Tax History Project at Tax Analysts and a scholar in residence at the University of Virginia.
The reality of U.S. troops killing and dying for Iraqi oil hit U.S. public consciousness hard on June 19, 2008 when it was announced that the occupied government of Iraq intended to award no-bid oil service contracts to ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron and Total. These are companies wo for the past two years have been making record quarterly profits as well as having received huge subsidies from the U.. S. government, but which have contributed noting toward the costs of this war. "They" have already "won the war". one that the American people will never win, one for which their children and grandchildren will be paying throughout their lives. This is the corruption of a corporatocracy where the lobby own the legislative bodies and the corporate CEO's own the elected officials and justices. Corporate control of government is as close to fascism a country can go without adopting the name. Under George W. Bush, and his fist six years in Congress where he had a majority in both houses of Congress, and a majority on the Supreme Court- most of whom were ideologues, this country was not far from being totalitarian. It was George W. Bush who- most of whom were ideologues saaiud- most of whom were ideologues in December, 2000 George W. Bush said that things would be easier if he "was a dictator," - and he was for xix long years.
John McCain, and a few other wealthy and greedy Americans, who think moa about themselves than of their country have been unwilling to pay for the wars we are currently engaged in, and will leave to future generations, not yet born, to bear the burden. This seems the only "right to life" they're entitled to, one of debt and more debt. The wealthiest one percent in this country have no worries about paying medical bills, purchasing prescriptions, buying new cars and paying inflated prices for the groceries, but because they amount to only 1% of the population, American car manufacturers are going belly-up, retail stores are closing, restaurants are hurting and the entire economy is in decline - because one percent of the population cannot support all the industries of this country, nor do they want to - but the greed for those extra few thousand dollars of tax cuts, they are now suffering in the stock market - a result of their support for an administration that favored the special interests over the people's interests, deregulated, obstructed congressional oversight , appointed unqualified heads of government agencies, which failed to perform their responsibilities, either intentionally or because of their ineptness.
There will be no difference between a George W. Bush administation and a John S. McCain administrsation, because they are both the tools of their advisors =George W, Bush (by KARL ROVE); John S, McCain (by STEVE SCHMIDT, a Karl Rove Protege) Under John McCain, the wars will continue to be financiced by our children and grandchilkdren, and national debt will grow to higher record levels, with moneys borrowed from Communist China - and others.
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