magnet
3315
The problem is that we don’t ever declare war, so the tax would never occur.
Yes, that’s true no matter how you dress it up.
magnet
3317
Even if we don’t declare war, soldiers are injured. And their injuries are already being tallied. Which is why I think it is more effective to tie a tax to disability than to “war”.
Beto’s plan calls for the trust fund to be created and the tax to be imposed upon the start of any war.
* At the start of any newly authorized war, a new trust fund will be established within the General Fund of the Treasury for future veterans of that war.
So, it has the same problem: No actual triggering event.
magnet
3319
I know. That’s why I said that I think the general idea might work, but I’m not sure about Beto’s proposal.
I’d be fine with a war tax if servicefolk and those with honorable discharges were exempt. All too often military service is just on a small caste of the population;.
That said, I think the idea is pretty stupid and regressive.
This idea is dumb as hell. I’m all for taking care of vets, etc - I am one! Please use some portion of our current outrageous military spending to do that.
I think this seems like the most reasonable way to accomplish this idea. And I do like the idea for a number of reasons.
First, it actually forces us to take care of our veterans. Yes, our military spending is too high and it’s easy to say “just take it out of the current military budget”, but we’re clearly not doing that well enough and it continues to hurt our veterans. I see this same attitude from Republicans in Michigan when it comes to raising taxes for infrastructure spending “We already pay enough taxes, just take that money out our current budget”. So now they are going back and forth trying to take money from other things to hit a total well below what the tax increases would bring in, all the while our shitty roads get shittier.
Second, Timex is right that it would actually take an argument away from then lowering the defense budget. You can no longer scream that decreasing the defense budget is an attack on our troops and veterans.
Finally, I think there is a lot of truth to the argument that a volunteer military places the burden of war onto a very small(and largely poor) percent of our population. This would at least be a direct and visible price that the rest of us would pay, even if it doesn’t come close to being our fair share. Psychologically this would increase the barrier for people to support military action as well.
Timex
3324
The same could be said for basically anything in the federal budget. “We already spend a ton of money, just use some of that to pay for X.”
I’m honestly not understanding the staunch opposition to saying, “If we’re going to war, everyone not in the military is going to pay a direct price, and that money is going to be set aside to care for those who serve.”
Just seems like a weird thing to oppose.
Cormac
3325
I think its been pretty clear, that the label “war” is just not going to really work. Either things will be classified as “skirmishes” or something else to avoid triggering said tax. Also when is a war officially done? Would it be enough to just have a banner say “mission accomplished”?
There is just waay too much grey area in this plan for it to ever be feasible, as many have already pointed out in this thread.
Timex
3326
Well this is an entirely separate problem… but really, this tax would actually help avoid that, since you’d be able to say, “Hey, if you don’t declare a real war, the guys fighting aren’t going to be taken care of.”
So it’s actually an argument in support of this tax.
Menzo
3327
Lol, the guys fighting our wars already aren’t being taken care of and nobody cares.
The framing of the plan is a bit weird too, with the further separation of military and civilian communities. It has kind of a Starship Troopers, service guarantees citizenship vibe to it. And just to further harp on the logistics of it, he’s making this weird new edge case in tax law where people have to have documents to show which class they are in, and the IRS needs to verify it, and who knows what else, all for this ~$200 fee. When we already have a perfectly good way to collect and distribute funds. It reminds me a bit of Toll Roads; we could all just pay taxes like normal, or we could make this completely separate system with tags for your cars and separate bills and logins and billing services and billing errors and etc. etc. etc.
Anyway! For a better example of policy, I think this is much more deserving of attention:
Timex
3329
The inefficiency of adding another small tax is a legitimate argument, although it also highlights how ridiculous our tax system is, since that kind of stuff really should be crap that the government can have check automatically.
MoveOn’s latest Straw Poll is great news for Warren, less so good news for the candidate with more name recognition that she’s competing with most directly for votes on the Left/Progressive wing.
Every time we start talking federal budget I just want them to get a dude in there with YNAB and figure that shit out!
Last week inside my social media bubble, I was told that Joe Biden’s remarks about working with a segregationist to get things done was finally the start of his tipping point, and part of a very bad week for him. He might even have to drop out.
This week:
Not a Biden fan by any means. Just…be careful with reality out there. Lots of folks trying to sell alternate versions of it.
RichVR
3333
If only there was a catchy two word description that morons would embrace.
