A Quick Way to End the War in Iraq

The fastest road out of Iraq would be for Congress to simply not pay for the war. At some point, Bush would blink and then the troops would come home.

Not quite so fast, but still quick, would be for Congress to impose an income tax surcharge to pay for the war. For example, after all the computations to arrive at the final tax, add one more: multiply the tax amount by 1.3 (a thirty percent surcharge).

If this war is really necessary, then it ought to be worth actually paying for. After all, Congress, in effect, has been asking young people to die for the benefit of Iraqis. So Congress should ask other (generally older) Americans to pay for the war with higher taxes. Otherwise, we are asking our young to pay for the war twice: first with their blood, and later, when the money borrowed from China and Saudi Arabia has to be paid back, with higher taxes.

This means that we should pay for the war now, as opposed to borrowing the money (as the Republicans prefer to do).

OK. So what does this have to do with ending the war? The very people who got us into Iraq and don't want to "cut and run" are the ones who would mostly have to pay higher taxes. This puts them in a bind: they hate taxes, but they want us to stay in Iraq.

I am guessing that their fiscal ideology of "borrow and spend" (i.e., "no new taxes") would outweigh their neocon ideology of nation-building. In other words, when faced with the prospect of higher taxes, the Republicans would vote in favor of ending our war in Iraq.