More on the Share the Sacrifice Act

The Share the Sacrifice Act, otherwise known as the Obey/Murtha/Larson war tax, has received a fair amount of attention in the blogosphere.  Foreign Passport’s website has been one of the best sources for news on the bill, and they make it clear what the bill really was: a stunt permitted by Democratic leadership to appease the base.

The juicy details are here:

But as with most bill introductions in Congress, House leadership has no plans to actually move the bill and most insiders recognize it as a way for those Democrats who oppose escalation to stake out a semi-critical posture while also seeming to be fiscally responsible.

As FP’s Passport blog explains today, the tax wouldn’t even raise that much money: it would pay for the Afghanistan war from here on forward, which is a big improvement but does nothing to address the cost of the war(s) to this point.

I understand that taxes are politically dangerous, but war is so popular that one would hope it would be the one endeavor for which taxes could be raised.  It’s a sad statement about our economic rot if even our liberal politicians cannot raise taxes to fund one of the few expenditures that most Americans can agree on.  As Matt Yglesias summarizes, “Nobody seems to really think there are national interests at stake that are critical enough to be worth paying slightly higher taxes for. But if a war’s not worth paying for, how can it be worth fighting? And if we don’t pay for the war in the FY 2010 budget, we still need to pay back the loans.”  What a freedom-hating communist.