Grayson's Smart Calculus Makes War Cost Real for Taxpayers

Congressman Alan Grayson is at
it again. This time, the Florida Democrat who shook up the health-care
debate by saying Republicans were the real death-panel party and who
shook up the bank reform debate by leading (with Texas Congressman Ron
Paul) the "Audit the Fed" fight, is shaking up the debate about
so-called "emergency" supplemental spending to fund the occupations of
foreign lands.

Grayson's mad because the Pentagon and its allies in the White House
(be they Bush and Cheney or Obama and Biden) keep demanding tens of
billions in additional allocations to fund the occupations of Iraq and
Afghanistan. And they do so in a manner that makes debate difficult and
dissent rare.

But Grayson is out to provoke a debate - and he is definitely dissenting.

"What George Orwell wrote about in 1984 has come true. What Eisenhower
warned us about concerning the 'military-industrial complex' has come
true," the congressman argues. "War is a permanent feature of our
societal landscape, so much so that no one notices it anymore."

Grayson proposes to change this circumstance with a bill he has introduced: "The War Is Making You Poor Act."

"The purpose of this bill is to connect the dots, and to show people in
a real and concrete way the cost of these endless wars," he explains.

To make the cost of war real for working Americans, Grayson performs a simple calculus:

"Next year's budget allocates $159,000,000,000 to perpetuate the
occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. That's enough money to eliminate
federal income taxes for the first $35,000 of every American's income.
Beyond that, (it) leaves over $15 billion to cut the deficit.

"And that's what this bill does. It eliminates separate funding for the
occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and eliminates federal income taxes
for everyone's first $35,000 of income ($70,000 for couples). Plus it
pays down the national debt."

The congressman is betting - with good reason -that the key to opening
up a real debate about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is to make real
the cost of these occupations to American families.

"The costs of the war have been rendered invisible. There's no draft.
Instead, we take the most vulnerable elements of our population, and
give them a choice between unemployment and missile fodder. Government
deficits conceal the need to pay in cash for the war," explains
Grayson, with a reference to the mounting trade deficit with China. "We
put the cost of both guns and butter on our Chinese credit card. In
fact, we don't even put these wars on budget; they are still passed
using 'emergency supplemental'. A nine-year 'emergency.'"

If Americans recognize what they are personally paying to maintain
occupations of distant lands, Grayson argues that Americans will tell
Congress: "the cost of these wars is too much for us."

It's a good bet.


In the first 72 hours after Grayson introduced his legislation, more than 22,000 Americans signed an online petition endorsing it.