Obey Raises the Specter of War Tax

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House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (D-Wis.) hates this "misbegotten, stupid, ill-advised" Iraq war. He won't even consider President Bush's latest war funding request until next year. And he wants to tax Americans to pay for it.

The positions surprised many of his colleagues. But not House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Obey's friend for decades.

"I went to Nancy a week before we did it, and I told her: 'Nancy, I'm gonna do two things. One of them you're gonna like, and one of them you're not," Obey said. He told her he wouldn't take up Bush's funding request for Iraq until next year. "And she said: 'I like that. What won't I like?' "

She doesn't like that war tax. "We don't go forward lightly when we're talking about a tax on all the American people," Pelosi said. No problem -- Obey will introduce the tax proposal anyway on Tuesday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/18/AR2007101802315.html