Make Bush Pay For The War With Higher Taxes

Indeed, why not?

Exxon reaped the highest profit for a corporation in American history--toppping its own "Biggest Profiteer in the World" status last year!

Yet the rest of us (the other 99%!?) are getting nothing except a reduction in social-net programs (even returning vets) and rising health care costs!

So yes--

Make Bush Pay For The War With Higher Taxes: "There are a lot of ways to force a 'pay-go' provision. My own favorite: when the appropriation reaches the Ways and Means Committee, Charlie Rangel, the chair of the committee (who has also pushed legislation to re-institute a military draft), could attach an amendment stating that every dollar has to be paid for by hiking the taxes of the top one percent of the country, effectively rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the very rich. As I've pointed out before, the top 1 percent--those who pull in at least $1.3 million a year--will pocket more than $347 billion in the next four years if Congress does not roll-back the tax cuts. According to data from Citizens for Tax Justice, if Congress just rolled back the tax cuts on that top 1 percent for just 2007 and 2008, it would reap $136 billion--probably enough to cover the costs of the emergency supplemental request for this year (a stunning number on its own). In fact, the White House's new budget proposal seeks to--surprise!!!--preserve the tax cuts for the rich.

What would the president and Republicans say then? No, we won't ask the richest people in the country, who have carried virtually none of the sacrifice of the war and occupation, to pay up? Indeed, while working-class and poor American of all races have been dying and suffering grave wounds on the battlefield, the top one percent has been pocketing staggering amounts of money. Under such a condition for passing the supplemental, I'd wager the authorization for that money would be dead in the water."

HT--Daily Kos