| Guns or Butter |
31 March 2003
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War Costs Bush His Tax Cut
President Bush is quickly learning that politics is about making choices. Given the choice between keeping his $300 billion tax cut and paying for his war against Iraq, he has opted to let the Congress cut the cut, and fund the Battle for Baghdad. His position suggests that the conservatives face a potential split, between the Tax Cutters and the Imperialists.
For a generation, the American right has held that tax cuts are good things because letting the people keep more of their money enhances freedom of choice (as an aside, it also illustrates their view that the government and the people are separate things -- so much for "of the people, by the people and for the people."). The American right has also held that national defense is the duty of the government and that America must have the best that money can buy.
While the armed forces were just for defense, even in the broadest, Cold-War sense of the word, the amounts needn't have worried the tax cut lobby. However, with the arrival of pre-emptive war, the potential military spending rises by an order of magnitude. The Pentagon has maintained for years that America needs to be able to fight two wars at once; now, there is a risk that it will have to do so, year after year. The $100 billion that pundits throw around as the cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom may be about right -- over the next twenty years, similar pre-emptive wars become budget busters.
Unless, of course, taxes hold steady, or even rise. This is a dilemma that can eventually split the right in America. Government must be funded, and taxes must rise as expenditure rises. Deficit spending can only do so much (in America's case, it can do a great deal, but there is a limit). In the end, America can only consume the amount of military activity it can pay for.