The Iraq war gas tax

If the president had decided to pay for the war in Iraq through a tax on gasoline, how much would that have cost the U.S. consumer?

The Iraq war is costing U.S. taxpayers around 229 million dollars per day.

U.S. drivers purchase about 400 million gallons of gasoline per day.

By my calculations, this means if Bush had had the guts to actually pay for the war from the outset, he could have done so with a tax of 67 cents per gallon. It would have been a bitter pill to swallow, but he could have called upon Americans to bear the burdon as necessary sacrifice at a time of war.

Unfortunately, Bush gave his cronies a tax break instead, and paid for it and the war by mortgaging our children's futures.

More doubletalk from Bush

I just listened to a speech by U.S. president George W. Bush. The president entreated the congress to continue to fund his disatrous war in Iraq. The president's speech was full of the same sort of distortion and fearmongering to which the world has come accustomed. But even by his abysmal standards, this speech set a new low.

The president claimed that if the congress failed to pass a generous funding bill, this would actually result in U.S. troops staying longer in Iraq, and in more troops being sent back to the front lines. He seems to want the public to believe that the U.S. congress has no real power, and that the best Congress can do is delay the inevitable continuance of his costly war:

The bottom line is that Congress's failure to fund our troops will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines. And others could see their loved ones headed back to war sooner than they need to. That is unacceptable to me, and I believe it is unacceptable to the American people.

If you buy the president's line, it's the Democrats in congress who are preventing the fighting men and women from returning safely to their families.

This is bullshit.

The legislators want the troops to come home sooner, not later. The only power Congress has over the war is over funding. Therefore making funding contingent on conditions that ensure the troops are removed from danger is the only way the Democratic-controlled congress can rein in the presidents war.

U.S. toops are surely better off safely at home than in the middle of a foreign civil war.

Congress has the power to control the legislation that funds the president's war. If Bush follows through on his threat to veto any bill not compatibile with his political ends, this action will be what puts U.S. troops in danger.

I can't wait for 2008.