Who Should Pay for the War?

Thomas Friedman says we are through the looking glass:

Charge It to My Kids, by Thomas Friedman, Commentary, NY Times: Every so often a quote comes out of the Bush administration that leaves you asking: Am I crazy or are they? I had one of those moments last week when Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, was asked about a proposal by some Congressional Democrats to levy a surtax to pay for the Iraq war, and she responded, “We’ve always known that Democrats seem to revert to type, and they are willing to raise taxes on just about anything.”

Yes, those silly Democrats. They’ll raise taxes for anything, even — get this — to pay for a war!

And if we did raise taxes to pay for our war ..., “does anyone seriously believe that the Democrats are going to end these new taxes that they’re asking the American people to pay at a time when it’s not necessary to pay them?” added Ms. Perino. “I just think it’s completely fiscally irresponsible.”

Friends, we are through the looking glass. It is now “fiscally irresponsible” to want to pay for a war with a tax. These democrats just don’t understand: the tooth fairy pays for wars. Of course she does — the tooth fairy leaves the money at the end of every month under Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s pillow. And what a big pillow it is! My God, what will the Democrats come up with next? Taxes to rebuild bridges or schools or high-speed rail or our lagging broadband networks? No, no, the tooth fairy covers all that. She borrows the money from China and leaves it under Paulson’s pillow. ...

Of course, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, the Democrat David Obey, in proposing an Iraq war tax to help balance the budget was expressing his displeasure with the war. But he was also making a very important point when he said, “If this war is important enough to fight, then it ought to be important enough to pay for.” ...

Previous American generations connected with our troops by making sacrifices at home — we’ve never passed on the entire cost of a war to the next generation, said Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, who has written a history — “The Price of Liberty” — about how America has paid for its wars since 1776.

“In every major war we have fought in the 19th and 20th centuries,” said Mr. Hormats, “Americans have been asked to pay higher taxes — and nonessential programs have been cut — to support the military effort. Yet during this Iraq war, taxes have been lowered and domestic spending has climbed. In contrast to World War I, World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam, for most Americans this conflict has entailed no economic sacrifice. The only people really sacrificing for this war are the troops and their families.”

In his celebrated Farewell Address, Mr. Hormats noted, George Washington warned against “ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burdens we ourselves ought to bear.”

I don't think that now is the right time to raise taxes given the weakness in the economy, and to the extent that spending on the war has crowded out other types of spending there has been a cost for the war, but in general the idea that we need to bear the consequences of our decisions is hard to argue against. Once the nation's decision-making apparatus, such as it is, decided to go to war, what if the rich and powerful had been told that their tax cuts would have to wait until the war ended, that paying for the war would not allow tax-cuts so long as the war was still going on? Might that have changed the support for the war the president received from this powerful coalition? The tax-cuts are hard to justify in any case, and a tax-cut on hold may not have been enough to change the outcome, but requiring sacrifice of some sort from those of power and influence is at least a step toward bringing the costs of the war into the decision making process. Being forced to pay for a war I don't support would tick me off, but that's the point -- by making the public fully internalize the cost of the nation's decision to go to war (including the human cost), it will motivate more pressure to bring this war to an end.

Comments

[esb]

Thomas Friedman must simply shut his mouth with respect to the conquest of Iraq and any and all related issues.

The man was one of the most bellicose cheerleaders of the conquest and killing from late '02 through sometime in '05.

In many ways, the Iraq war is Thomas Friedman's war.

I want to hear nothing further from the man on any aspect of it ... ever again.

"Shut your mouth" TF.

Please.

(But of course he will not shut his mouth, feeling compelled as he does to prattle on and on, perhaps out of some vague sense of guilt, perhaps hoping to bring back the essence of lost lives with words.)

[calmo]

I thought Thomas was kind and gentle with the Press Secretary, esb and whatever he said in 03 he has been redirected with this piece which I think is a strong condemnation.
This B good too from Mark:Being forced to pay for a war I don't support would tick me off, but that's the point -- by making the public fully internalize the cost of the nation's decision to go to war (including the human cost), it will motivate more pressure to bring this war to an end. and that expression "internalize" (I do prefer Callahan's bugle: "stick that up your funkenwagnel") needing expansion and as always, a look at the media's role in insulating us from the reality.
I take it Mr Hormats of Goldman Sachs International is not on any of the boards of those companies profiting from the no-bid contracts of the war. Good on him.
This B not so good:I don't think that now is the right time to raise taxes given the weakness in the economy, and to the extent that spending on the war has crowded out other types of spending there has been a cost for the war, but in general the idea that we need to bear the consequences of our decisions is hard to argue against. It seems to me that war is never worth the cost of avoiding a weak economy. I'm sure I'd feel the same way even if anne wasn't driving this point nonstop.

[mdm]

Almost all economic choices bear some sort of cost that is never internalized. Don't know why this isn't promulgated in teaching more often.

Wishfully, this war's cost could have been internalized, not only the obvious pecuniary costs, but accouting for, in some way, non-pecuniary losses (lives lost, productivity loses, blah blah, etc.). Though, Americans, at least the majority of voters, lack such forethought.

[Nordic Mousse]

"I don't think that now is the right time to raise taxes given the weakness in the economy"

Fair enough Mark, that's easy to follow; but there's a strong feeling that those who backed the nonsense should be made to bite the bullet - now and not later, they and not their children.

It's worth a recession just to get the message home that wars really must be the very last resort, and those who cause them will pay for them

[mdm]

Also, I wrote a longer blog post, but wasn't able to post it.

Please correct this asap.

[mdm]

Don't know why. I'm using a Safari browser.

[Mark Thoma]

I'm not sure why that would happen. What happens when you try to post it?

[anne]

Thomas Friedman, who has several Pulitzer Prizes and endless access to the media, was from before the beginning a purveyor of fear and provoker of war, and especially a provoker of occupation of Iraq or a decided colonial stance in which an American Iraq would happily Americanize the Middle East were we only willing and patient enough to bear the cost.

The morality of Friedman was the morality of war, a war to recivilize those who needed recivilizing. Beyond deposing Iraq's government, regardless whether Iraq might be threat to America, Friedman was teaching occupation when occupation was almost unmentioned elsewhere or imagined a welcoming rose strewn path provided Americans after the government was deposed.

[anne]

Now the problem is paying for the war and occupation, and the Friedman obsession of carbon burning, by Democrats tax tax taxing us just in time for an election that might finally limit Republican destructiveness from Administration to Congress. Friedman is politically nutty and extending the nuttiness of a trivial group of self-styled responsible war pushers at the expense of those who would support Democrats in the coming election.

Also, Friedman is as angrily defensive as can be imagined. War is not the problem, occupation is the the problem. The problem is agreeing with the astonishing fierceness of the Friedman morality that is amoral and has turned to Robert Hormats playing Abraham Lincoln. The price of liberty" is finally found in Iraq and we must pay.

[anne]

Notice how the new moralists understand that we must be made to suffer for the sake of the new moralists. Leaving Iraq immeiately and completely is not the issue for the supposed new moralists, rather suffering. Not that there is suffering enough for many lifetimes because of Iraq, but beyond any Catholic concept I understand we must suffer for the sake of the moralist warriors. Not suffer to realize peace, but suffer to war insanely on.

Tax us again, Daddy. The perversion of pacifism.

[anne]

Mark Thoma should notice that I am deeply grateful for this post as for the others, for the posts and complaints I may have allow me to think through critical issues. Please know I am thoroughly grateful, and thinking how to complain more at a time when complaining is sorely needed. As though American idealism, as though a Martin Luther King had never been; so we are led to forget who we had hoped to become.

Thank you, Mark Thoma.

[ilsm]

If the occupation cannot be pay-go, then it is not worth doing.

The opportunity costs are immense.

End the occupation now.

[zinc]

Whatever moral transgressions Mr. Friedman may have committed along his journey to sanity, he has it about right now. That's the point, welcome aboard.

Now, let's talk about a national draft.

[pgl]

Over at Angrybear, I welcome Thomas Friedman to the High Order of the Shrill. As far as Dana Perino, she's nothing but Bush's blonde bimbo.

[bakho]

How about "Declare victory and go home. That would help pay the bill by reducing costs. At least $100 Billion could be cut from the Pentagon budget by cancelling unnecessary projects.

[bakho]

Mark worries that raising taxes will hurt the economy. I worry that failure to raise taxes will starve the US from making necessary investments in health care reform and other projects that will stimulate our economy going forward.

[lonesome moderate]

In Friedman's defense, he has been saying virtually the same thing since before the invasion. I don't see any particular reason why he should stop saying it now, though raising taxes at this particular moment would be pretty awful.

[anne]

"As far as Dana Perino, she's nothing but Bush's blonde ----."

"As far as Dana Perino, she's nothing but Bush's blonde ----."

"As far as Dana Perino, she's nothing but Bush's blonde ----."

What is it about stupidity, that it makes us terminally unable not to insult women as women? What is it about such stupidity?

[anne]

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E2D91030F937A35755C0A9659C8B63

June 4, 2003

Because We Could
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

The failure of the Bush team to produce any weapons of mass destruction (W.M.D.'s) in Iraq is becoming a big, big story. But is it the real story we should be concerned with? No. It was the wrong issue before the war, and it's the wrong issue now.

Why? Because there were actually four reasons for this war: the real reason, the right reason, the moral reason and the stated reason.

The ''real reason'' for this war, which was never stated, was that after 9/11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world. Afghanistan wasn't enough. Because a terrorism bubble had built up over there -- a bubble that posed a real threat to the open societies of the West and needed to be punctured. This terrorism bubble said that plowing airplanes into the World Trade Center was O.K., having Muslim preachers say it was O.K. was O.K., having state-run newspapers call people who did such things ''martyrs'' was O.K. and allowing Muslim charities to raise money for such ''martyrs'' was O.K. Not only was all this seen as O.K., there was a feeling among radical Muslims that suicide bombing would level the balance of power between the Arab world and the West, because we had gone soft and their activists were ready to die.

The only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers, men and women, to go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house, and make clear that we are ready to kill, and to die, to prevent our open society from being undermined by this terrorism bubble. Smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been fine. But we hit Saddam for one simple reason: because we could, and because he deserved it and because he was right in the heart of that world. And don't believe the nonsense that this had no effect. Every neighboring government -- and 98 percent of terrorism is about what governments let happen -- got the message. If you talk to U.S. soldiers in Iraq they will tell you this is what the war was about.

The ''right reason'' for this war was the need to partner with Iraqis, post-Saddam, to build a progressive Arab regime. Because the real weapons of mass destruction that threaten us were never Saddam's missiles. The real weapons that threaten us are the growing number of angry, humiliated young Arabs and Muslims, who are produced by failed or failing Arab states -- young people who hate America more than they love life. Helping to build a decent Iraq as a model for others and solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are the necessary steps for defusing the ideas of mass destruction, which are what really threaten us.

The ''moral reason'' for the war was that Saddam's regime was an engine of mass destruction and genocide that had killed thousands of his own people, and neighbors, and needed to be stopped.

But because the Bush team never dared to spell out the real reason for the war, and (wrongly) felt that it could never win public or world support for the right reasons and the moral reasons, it opted for the ''stated reason'': the notion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat to America. I argued before the war that Saddam posed no such threat to America, and had no links with Al Qaeda, and that we couldn't take the nation to war ''on the wings of a lie.'' I argued that Mr. Bush should fight this war for the right reasons and the moral reasons. But he stuck with this W.M.D. argument for P.R. reasons....

[John Morrison]

Paying for aggressive war? Ideally, those in the US who drove us to invade would pay for doing it. Of course, what I mean by paying for it is different from the sense apparently under discussion.

When one talks about paying for a murder, one might talk about the gun and bullets, the price of gasoline and depreciation of the car used in the murder, and a few other incidental expenses. Or one might talk about the proper penalty for murder, or reimbursing the victim for being murdered -- an amount on the order of a quadrillion dollars.

So when we talk about paying for the war, we should be talking about more than the incidental costs of committing the crime. We should be talking about paying the penalty, punishing the guilty. Admittedly, that penalty is still considerably lower than Avogadro's number of dollars.

But as I said in an earlier post on the cost of war, the penalty should be in blood.

[calmo]

Thanks for that background anne, and I do take his Oct 7 2007 missive 'Charge it to our kids' in a different light now. [Alright rdf, I do need to read more than the article...I'm tryin. You guys cover for me...somewhat.]
Does Thomas have kids in Iraq? How gracefully does he handle the disgrace (Webb aside) of our representatives...not corporally representing "our troops" in Iraq/Afganistan?
Would you say Friedman has made a good turn with this piece, rescuing his reputation somewhat?
Or would you expect Friedman to turn again to earlier positions should events conspire (like this) against him?
Can we tolerate the possibility of a genuine (no return) salvation?
Recall everything is different now, since 9/11.
Ok, 10 7...and amen.

[anne]

What is it about being violent? We are too stupid, too lacking in self-consciousness or understanding our language not to write and speak in terms of violence.

Desmond Tutu could win a Nobel Prize as a peaceful voice against Apartheid and set South Africa on a course to the peace of truth and reconciliation, but we are stupid beyond stupid and write blood blood blood blood blood.

[wogie]

Does paying the cost of the war include restoring Iraq's broken infrastructure -- after we leave?

[baileyman]

I'm wondering what would have happened if Tom Friedman was beating the drums for the President of the independent nation of Massachusetts to invade a foreign land, how would he have made his argument? And would the President of Massachusetts have mobilized our people to do it? Would our people have demanded she do it? Or would she have been able to do it anyway, though most of our people objected, perhaps because our legislature nevertheless supported the invasion?

[DB]

Friedman carried water during most of the walk up to the edge of the looking glass, which consisted of a continually receding horizon of Friedman units -- he should go away. Seriously, he should go away, in shame and mortification.

[DB]

Also, I agree with anne about the inept way women in public affairs are referred to (which includes how they get insulted). With women, there's always a first name, maybe a last name. Perhaps for a while women should get the last name only treatment, and men the first name -- Clinton, and Bill; Pelosi, and Harry; etc

[donna]

Friedman's mistake was thinking we were actually fighting for the freedom of the olive tree loving people instead of for the oil under their sand to drive our Lexus.

I don't know why everyone wasn't just shouting this from the start instead of fussing about freedom and democracy and WMDs. What a farce this entire charade has been.

[John Morrison]

Martin Luther King advocated nonviolent protest and resistance in fighting against apartheid in the US. Malcolm X retorted that he would adopt nonviolence as soon as the Ku Klux Klan and their ilk adopted nonviolence. Who was right? Who was better for the civil rights movement? In my view, both were needed. Malcolm X allowed people to say, "Thank God for MLK."

South Africa is on the road to redemption not only because of Nobel Prize winner Tutu, but also because the last of the apartheid-era leaders (eg. de Klerk) knew the right thing to do and set about ending apartheid.

Sometimes, pointing out the right thing is sufficient to get people to do the right thing. Unfortunately, there are other times when we can talk and persuade all we want, and they will just ignore us. That's why we have actual laws against crimes, and punishment for them.

It is comparably easy to force war on someone. It is very difficult to force peace. Doesn't that sound like a contradiction of terms?

Stop the war. Returning our troops home. Dump the pro-war faction from government. Maybe finance Iraq reconstruction. Is it really that easy? Especially with the media infested with war enablers? Do we really want to limit it to that? Say, "All is forgiven?" Or should we have some kind of severe penalty for waging aggressive war?

Do we really want to be stuck in a position where we are not allowed to do anything, but our opponents can do what they want? Ever imaging being in a position where you are trying to persuade a bully not to beat you up? Or explain to a parent that it's unfair and wrong to hurt you? When you're explaining, you're losing. Reason and fairness sound like whining.

With aggressive war, things have gone much too far to limit ourselves to nonviolent persuasion.

[2slugbaits]

Mark,

You said that you didn't think a war tax was a good idea right now due to the soft economy. In other words, without the additional war spending the economy might slip into recession. But suppose peace broke out tomorrow and Iraq miraculously turned into Sweden. Would you still argue that we should maintain the same level of wartime spending just for the sake of avoiding a recession?

[anne]

John Morrison, thank you, and I understand, but I wish to think as a pacifist even while I am learning what that may mean. We are after all passing through a time when Desmond Tutu is not to be allowed to speak at a college in Minnesota.

says...

I think we should have a surtax on the pundits, media and politicians who supported the war. Friedman is worth over $1 billion (through his wife, so a large tax on him alone would make a measurable dent in the debt. The Bush family fortune and Cheney's Haliburton payoffs could also payoff a small but noticeable amount of the debt.

[John Morrison]

Thank you, Anne, for understanding. "We are after all passing through a time when Desmond Tutu is not to be allowed to speak at a college in Minnesota." Ouch! Probably (black-)listed somewhere as a potential terrorist.

[STS]

It's good to see some Democrats in Congress attempting to draw some attention to the fact that "sacrifice" is now something reserved exclusively for military personnel and their families.

[NLS]

The war will not be over until people here start tipping over cars. That's the truth. People have to get pissed enough, and as Anne pointed out, humans think in drastic, violent terms.

[real person from the real world]

I say, tax the hedge fund managers and the CEOs of all these consulting companies that contract to do things for the government, like handle security.... e.g., Blackwater. TAX BLACKWATER ET AL, to pay for this F@#$ing war!