Modulator

War Tax and Draft?

In an interview at Antiwar.com author James Bamford, A Pretext for War, suggests that a war tax and a mandatory draft are a sure way to assure full public involvement in the war making process:

The key problem is massive public apathy and extremely poor press coverage. I think the only way to prevent such wars in the future would be to make every citizen an equal shareholder in the war – not just the families of the 140,000 troops currently in Iraq. This would require legislation mandating a draft upon the deployment of a certain number of troops to a combat environment. Also, legislation forbidding deficit spending for a war should be enacted. The cost of a war would have to be paid as a surcharge on all taxpayers in the year the fighting takes place. In this way, nearly every citizen would have both a personal and financial stake in a war.

Well, I fully support the idea of no deficit spending for a war which seems to imply that there could be no deficit spending at all during war years.

The other suggestions need just a bit of modification. A draft is never acceptable so I'd modify his tax and draft ideas just a bit with something filched from Heinlein¹. It goes like this:

1. a majority must support the war,
2. support of the war includes volunteering to both pay for and fight in the war.

Want another $82 billion...collect the surcharge directly from those who voted for the war. Need soldiers: you have a list of volunteers. This should assure that those who support the war are the full stakeholders in the war.

Via Hit & Run.

¹This may not exactly match Heinlein's depiction.

Posted by Steve on May 25, 2005