Republican Congressman Peter Roskam seems to be gearing up to run for re-election focusing on the enormous national debt amassed during the Bush Administration and in cleaning up in the aftermath of his failed Presidency. Roskam’s campaign recently launched a new website, www.americasnationaldebt.com, featuring, among other things, one of the best photographs of Roskam I have seen. (So sad he’s aligned with the bad guys – we need more cute Democratic candidates). There is some solid information on the site, and Roskam is correct in identifying the growing debt as a serious issue.
Roskam speaks of the need for bipartisan efforts at dealing with this enormous problem:
This is a problem created by both political parties, and as such, both political parties need to come together to decrease the national debt with the same vigor and enthusiasm with which Congress indebted the American people.
Roskam, of course, doesn’t mention the role the irresponsible Bush tax cuts and military adventures played in incurring all this debt, nor does he mention the enormous costs we are incurring in cleaning up after the financial crisis resulting from Republican de-regulatory policies. But Roskam is right in saying that we need to work together to fix the problem.
And Roskam now has a perfect opportunity to put his money where his mouth is.
If we are to take Mr. Roskam seriously about the nation’s debt – if this is not merely political posturing – then Roskam must sign on as a co-sponsor of H.R. 4130, the “Share the Sacrifice Act of 2010″. This bill amends the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to establish a temporary surtax to offset the costs of the Afghanistan war.
This bill’s sponsor, Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, lays out the rationale:
“For the last year, as we’ve struggled to pass healthcare reform, we’ve been told that we have to pay for the bill – and the cost over the next decade will be about a trillion dollars. Now the President is being asked to consider an enlarged counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan, which proponents tell us will take at least a decade and would also cost about a trillion dollars. But unlike the healthcare bill, that would not be paid for. We believe that’s wrong,” said Obey. “Regardless of whether one favors the war or not, if it is to be fought, it ought to be paid for.”
“The only people who’ve paid any price for our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan are our military families,” Obey added. “We believe that if this war is to be fought, it’s only fair that everyone share the burden. That’s why we are offering legislation to impose a graduated surtax so that the cost of the war is not borrowed.”
Working on the principal that if the President and the nation decide that the war is important enough to fight, then it ought to be important enough to pay for, the Share the Sacrifice Act of 2010 requires the President to set the surtax so that it fully pays for the previous year’s war cost. However, the bill allows for a one year delay in the implementation of the tax if the President determines that the economy is too weak to sustain that kind of tax change, and it exempts members of our military who have served in combat since September 11, 2001 along with their families, and the families of the fallen.
“As presidential historian Robert Dallek reminds us, ‘war kills off great reform movements’,” Obey said, noting that World War I ended the Progressive Era, Korea ended Harry Truman’s Fair Deal and Vietnam ended Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. “If we don’t address the cost of this war, we will continue shoving billions of dollars in taxes off on future generations and will devour money that could be used to rebuild our economy by fixing our broken health care system, expanding educational opportunities and job training possibilities, attacking our long term energy problems and building stronger communities. We cannot allow the war to derail that potential”
Under the bill, a 1% surtax would be imposed on families with incomes of $150,000 or less. Higher surtaxes would be imposed on more well-to-do taxpayers. Military service members and their families would be exempt.
Even the rather conservative news magazine, The Economist, has endorsed the plan:
The “Share Our Sacrifice Act”, the proposal by David Obey, a Democratic representative from Wisconsin, to institute a “war tax” to fund America’s war in Afghanistan, is a bill that probably should have been passed eight years ago. The Bush administration’s decision not to increase taxes to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was likely taken with the view that hiding the costs would increase public support. In fact, it undermined it.
As Spencer Ackerman writes, Yoking the war to the public in whose name it is waged will allow for a healthy public pressure to be placed on the Obama administration. Anyone who has covered the military during the past eight years—and especially those of us who’ve been to Iraq and Afghanistan—has heard endlessly the military lament that only a select and small proportion of the country is actually at war. The war tax ends all that. I won’t be revealing any confidences when I say that one military listserv I’m on is mightily impressed by the idea for that reason. You want to support the troops, right?
The proposal presents Republicans with a defining choice. If they are serious about deficit reduction, and serious about pursuing the war in Afghanistan, it is impossible to imagine under what logic they could oppose this bill. If it garnered substantial Republican support, it would be sure to pass. (To the extent that mainstream commentators are sure it will not pass, that seems to reflect extremely low expectations of any sort of sensible behaviour from Republicans.) If it passes, that would be good news for America, and for America’s war efforts in Afghanistan. A thousand calls to war have cited Kant’s maxim: To will the end, you must will the necessary means. That goes for the means of payment, too.
So, Peter, if you are serious about doing something about the debt, you’ll sign up tomorrow as a co-sponsor. If you’ don’t, then we’ll know for certain that this noise you are making about the debt is just more of the scare tactics and partisan obstruction that have defined your tenure in the House. Tonight you endorsed war without end in Afghanistan at the same time you were denouncing government spending as “generational theft”. There is only one way you can reconcile those positions and that is to support H.R. 4130.
Related posts:
- Roskam Spends Tax Dollars on Another Political Mailing to Scare Constituents
- Peter Roskam Votes to Cut Medicare Payments to Physicians
- Peter Roskam Mails Over 3 Million Pieces of Propaganda in 3rd Qtr at Taxpayer Expense
- Peter Roskam and Misogynistic, Homophobic Republicans Vote to Defund State Department, Peace Corps
- Peter Roskam’s Fear About Guantanamo Transfer is Misplaced
