President Obama is preparing to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, and liberals in the House say the government better be ready to pay for it. Led by Rep. David Obey (D-WI) they’re proposing a war tax, which would be levied on wealthy Americans.
At least one key senator says no way no how.
“Some people jumped right out and said you need a war tax, and I said, Whoa! We didn’t have a war tax in the Second World War,” Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) told reporters. “Fortunately or unfortunately I’m old enough to remember some of that.”
Nelson was born in 1941. In fact, tax revenue increased, during World War II, thanks to a consensus that rates should rise and the base should broaden–though not as much as President Franklin Roosevelt wanted.
“The fact that we had bonds, war bonds, and people invested in their country in that fashion made a lot of sense back then. I don’t know why it might not make sense today, certainly in lieu of jumping to a tax.”
Perhaps Nelson’s correct on the narrow question of whether there was ever anything called a “war tax” back in the early 1940s. In any case, war bonds, like all bonds, have to be repaid, and, like deficit war spending, kick the pay date down the line. But with a growing demand that the continued war effort be paid for, expect to hear more about this throwback idea in the near future.
