Bruce Bartlett has written another must-read column in Forbes about House Appropriations Committee Chair David Obey (D-Wisc.)'s demand that any expansion of the war in Afghanistan be paid through a tax increase and not by adding to the national debt.
Bartlett reminds us that the Bush Administration became the first in U.S. history not to ask its citizens to sacrifice to aid in a war effort. Instead, we were told to go shopping and to enjoy tax cuts that, like the wars, were funded through large increases in the national debt.
The same people who cheered on these policies have returned the balanced budget religion now that a Democrat is in the White House. Yes, it only matters when a Democrat is president. How convenient.
Wars that cannot be supported through the sacrifice of a large proportion of the American people, and not just the few families of people who volunteer for our armed forced, should not be fought. As Bartlett writes:
"If Americans aren't willing to follow John F. Kennedy and "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship" to fight a war, then we shouldn't be fighting it."
Indeed. And it is well past time for the Republican supporters of these wars to be called out on their budget deficit hypocrisy. If these wars must be fought, we should pay for them -- not future generations.
Let's see them vote on this and watch these fiscal responsibility converts conveniently lose their newly found religion.
Leave a comment