{"id":1358,"date":"2009-11-30T15:46:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-30T19:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/11\/30\/yes-we-should-pay-for-the-surge-in-afghanistan\/"},"modified":"2009-11-30T15:46:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-30T19:46:00","slug":"yes-we-should-pay-for-the-surge-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/11\/30\/yes-we-should-pay-for-the-surge-in-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Yes, we should pay for the surge in Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A long-overdue debate has finally erupted over how to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>Representative David Obey (D-Wisconsin) has proposed a war surtax to pay for the surge now being contemplated in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s drawn support from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.  (View his debate with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on ABC <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=uh5sP8HX0KY\">here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>President George Bush has been excoriated for launching a war of choice in Iraq, without taking the time to prepare a post-invasion plan.<\/p>\n<p>But Mr. Bush&#8217;s other blunder was cutting taxes at the same time that he was ratcheting up a massive global military operation.<\/p>\n<p>It now appears that President Barack Obama has decided to support a similar war policy to Mr. Bush&#8217;s, by escalating military operations in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>My hope is that Mr. Obama won&#8217;t propose to carry out this war &#8212; estimated to cost $1 million per year per soldier &#8212; with even more borrowed money.<\/p>\n<p>Put bluntly, Americans should share the sacrifice, through cuts to domestic programs and through increased taxes.<\/p>\n<p>Any other course is irresponsible and dangerously short-sighted.<\/p>\n<p>War is serious business.<\/p>\n<p>If we choose to send our men and women into harm&#8217;s way, we should at least be willing to open our wallets to support them, on the battlefield and when they return home.<\/p>\n<p>Without a surtax, my fear is that we will rack up another pile of promises &#8212; VA benefits, post-deployment therapy, GI bills for education &#8212; that America can&#8217;t keep.  <\/p>\n<p>Your thoughts?  Comment below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A long-overdue debate has finally erupted over how to pay for the wars in Afghanistan [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}