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Next Hurdle for Afghan Surge: Paying for It

Dems don't want to pony up for Obama's plan

By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff

Posted Dec 1, 2009 9:16 AM CST
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(Newser) – Getting Congress to fund Barack Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy might be as arduous a process as the strategic review that devised it. Democrats, cold to the idea of sending more troops, don’t want to foot the bill; some are proposing a war tax to cover it. “If the president intends to go in over our objections,” explains Rep. Mike Honda, “he should have to bear the burden of asking for a tax to pay for it.”

Republicans, meanwhile, want to send the troops, but object to the tax, preferring to borrow the money or raid other parts of the federal government. The White House estimates that sending the 30,000 troops it’s asking for would tack $30 billion a year onto the Afghan war tab, while the Pentagon thinks it’ll cost half that. The cost is so high—$500,000 to $1 million a head—because sending supplies through Pakistan is so treacherous.

US helicopters of the International Security Assistance Force, arrive in Badghis province, Afghanistan, Nov. 30, 2008.
US helicopters of the International Security Assistance Force, arrive in Badghis province, Afghanistan, Nov. 30, 2008.   (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 12 comments
tomodachi
Dec 2, 2009 12:41 PM CST
I bet it's more of a democracy than they have now.
Spudsy
Dec 2, 2009 1:58 AM CST
Since the Afghans insist on cramming religion into their government, I don't think you can really call it a democracy that we are supposedly trying to build.
Spudsy
Dec 2, 2009 1:57 AM CST
Uh, reader? Obama quadrupled the deficit to try to save us from the financial ruin that Bush set us up for with his unpaid vanity war and his VP's secret energy meetings that ensured decades of high energy prices going off to the middle east. And don't forget his policy of allowing Walmart and its kind to export all of our jobs to China.

 
Afghanistan • Barack Obama • Pentagon • taxes • defense spending • federal budget • Afghanistan war • Obama administration • David Obey • war tax

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