Bush Breaks 150-Year History of Higher U.S. Taxes in Wartime

[swag]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aCg_jCpWuAXU&refer=home

By Brian Faler

Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- It was once considered Americans' patriotic duty: enduring extraordinary tax increases in wartime to help finance the fight.

Not today. Iraq is the only major U.S. conflict, except for the 1846-48 Mexican-American War, in which citizens haven't been asked to make a special financial sacrifice. President George W. Bush opposes tax increases, even as the costs escalate far beyond predictions and he calls for more troops.

``It's a reflection of either a lack of public support for the war or perhaps an unwillingness of the Bush administration'' to test its popularity, said Elliot Brownlee, an economic historian retired from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The Bush administration, which says any tax increase would harm the economy, is financing the Iraq conflict with borrowed money. That spares policy makers and pro-war politicians from riling voters already soured on the war.

Arizona Republican Senator John McCain said that while he's ``not averse to asking for more sacrifice,'' he rejects a tax increase, even one on wealthy Americans, to help pay for the war.

``I'm not sure what the point would be,'' said McCain, who supports Bush's troop buildup and may run for president in 2008. ``I would ask them to make other sacrifices, but I'm not sure I would want to raise their taxes just because we're in a war,'' he said in an interview last week.

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[Hav]

1. .

McCain has turned into such an irresponsible idiot...

[Demit]

2. "just because we're in a war." That is astounding.

I can't believe no one has focused on that remark. It reveals so much. It directly contradicts all the dramatic assertions of this being "the ideological conflict of our time." John McCain is obscene.

[Double T]

3. It is much more important to make the rich richer and...........

to redistribute the remaining 30% of the wealth that the top 10% haven't yet aquired, than to keep this country and its people solvent. mccain just ensured his failure of being nominated as the rethug presidential candidate in 2008.