I thought what our Democratic Congress should have done the last time around when they "had" to vote to approve the additional war funding was at least spend the money in a "fiscally responsible/sharing the sacrifice/pay as you go" way. That is to add a War Tax to pay for the war instead of just increasing the deficit. If the Republicans want this war so bad then they should at least vote to pay for it.
It is not too late to make this happen for this coming year.
The simplest and fairest way to have a War Tax is to add an X% additional tax to the income, dividend and capital gains taxes each taxpayer pays. Figure out how much you owe in taxes and then multiply that amount by the War Tax percentage to figure out how much more you should pay to help cover the cost of this war of choice.
A nice benefit to the War Tax is that each taxpayer would now have to take the time to figure out how much this war is costing them.
For example if the war cost $150 billion in 2006 and income tax revenues were about $800 billion (CBO individual tax figure), then each tax payer would be required to multiply their tax owed by 18.5%. If you owed $1,000 in taxes before, now you would owe an additional $185 for the War Tax for a total of $1,185 in taxes owed.
A even better way would be to make the War Tax retroactive so the X % is the cost of the war from the beginning.
At least propose this fiscally responsible solution and let all of the resulting screaming from the Republicans demonstrate the huge financial cost of this war and its negative effect on our people and our economy.
And don't forget to include the equipment replacement costs and increased benefits that have been incurred.
Yet another tax idea:
A gas/carbon tax should be imposed, but this tax should be revenue neutral. The proceeds of the gas/carbon tax should become a rebate divided equally among each tax filer (multiplied by dependents so a family of four would get four times as much back).
If a citizen wants to waste their money on carbon so be it. The responsible Americans that have a smaller carbon footprint would get a rebate and the Democrats didn’t raise taxes.