Today CNN ran a poll asking "are you willing to pay higher taxes to fund the war in Afghanistan?"

[Orrex]

Or something very much to that effect.

No clarification, no elaboration. Just a straightforward "do you want to pay higher taxes" question. No mention was made of the incremental taxation proposed by Obey, or the fact that the huge majority of Americans would pay a (comparatively) tiny amount or that the intent of the tax is to rein in eternal warfare paid for by our grandchildren. CNN in its wisdom decided to sculpt it to fit the standard "Democrats raise taxes" meme.

And this was between endless clips of that high speed chase in Florida and that woman using that Belgian guy's finger to press a keyboard.

[Postman]

1. I'm willing to pay higher taxes for a National Health Service but not for war.

[Orrex]

6. I agree with the first part wholeheartedly and with the second part in principle

But if it's a question of requiring the government/military to pay for what it's doing versus handing the bill to someone three generations from now, I think that it would be better for us to do the former.

[napi21]

2. Soo, what the result of the poll? I'm retired and living on SS, but I would be

willing to pay a bit more in taxes to fund the war. I think everybody should pay a price for what our leaders decide do. It's rarely tha the people who could really afford to pay the taxes conceed to do so.

I happen have a have a healthcare Advantage Plan and I know I'm going to have to pay more, but I'm willing to do that to help others. We live on SS alone but are doing OK. I have a real problem with the affluent being so restrictive that they won't even fork over a few dollars to help the Country!

[Orrex]

5. Actually, I'll need to look into it. It was on the air for most of the day, but I hate their website

Ultimately, I wasn't even that concerned about the results of the poll, because it was so skewed and because the amateur video responses that they aired were along the lines of "Democrats always want to raise taxes."

My beef was primarily with the framing, but now that you mention it I guess I'll try to see how it turned out.

[dflprincess]

3. How about a windfall profits tax on the companies who are making

money off the endless war policy?

[Orrex]

4. Hell, why stop at windfall profits?

I say that all personal annual compensation (earned and unearned) in excess of, say, $1,000,000 should be taxed at a rate of 95% or more. If there's an asshole out there who can't scrape by on $1,000,000 per anum, then that asshole doesn't deserve it.

[seattle_blue]

7. What the heck is a CNN

I stopped using CNN as a news source a while back. I started to notice them using very loaded questions and republican friendly talking points on their website, so I said..See ya later CNN.
Every once in a while I'll check in on them to see if there's any improvement, but there never is, so I just can't take them seriously.
I almost consider them doing oppo research against the Democratic Party.

[Orrex]

8. Good points.

I don't actually use them as a new source, but when I was out-and-about today, I wound up seated near a tv that was--surprisingly--tuned to CNN rather than FoxNews.

So I kind of absorbed the brain-dead chatter involuntarily.

[sudopod]

9. I've about come to the conclustion that they're so goddamned stupid

that they might not have even realized how skewed the poll question appeared. Al Franken and Jon Stewart are right. It isn't bias, it's teh dumb.

That said, I suppose I'd have to answer 'no' if the question is posed as is. However, I believe that if you decide that you just can't live without a war, then YES, raise taxes. If not to fund the damn thing, then to make it clear that we believe war is an ugly thing that requires some sacrifice on everyone's part, not just the military and those brown people who had the temerity to live somewhere we don't like at the moment.