Paying the bills

An “additional income tax to the upper brackets, folks earning more than $200,000 or $250,000,” could fund more troops, Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. White House Budget Director Peter Orszag has estimated that each additional soldier in Afghanistan could cost $1 million, for a total that could reach $40 billion if 40,000 more troops are added.
That cost, Levin said, should be paid by wealthier taxpayers. “They have done incredibly well, and I think that it’s important that we pay for it if we possibly can” instead of increasing the federal debt load, the senator said.

I wish I can say that $40 billion for an Afghanistan troop surge sounds like a lot of money, but after the $700 billion TARP bill last fall, the $787 billion stimulus bill in February, the $400 billion omnibus bill in the spring and the record $1.4 trillion deficit for the 2008-2009 fiscal year as well as the looming $800+ billion climate change bill, the looming $800+ billion health care reform bill and the $12+ trillion debt, $40 billion is peanuts. I'm happy to hear that the senator is concerned with increasing the federal debt load, but isn't it a little too late for fiscal responsibility? Does the cliche "stepping over a dime to save a penny" come to mind?

Unemployment is already high; raising their taxes won't help. What concerns me more is that eventually someone will have to pay for all of these new bills and programs, as well as the old existing ones, and the politicians will need more than just these wealthy taxpayers to do it. Will there come a day when we will be forced to turn over all of our wealth to them? If so, we will be slaves of the state.