The voices of Tax Policy Center's researchers and staff
It is the fifth anniversary of President Bush’s dramatic landing on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln where, in front of that massive “Mission Accomplished” banner, he declared “major combat operations in
As the war drags on, the cost is apparent: 4064
Amazingly, we have not paid for a dime of it. Every cent has been borrowed from our children and grandchildren. Not only is this one of the rare wars in U.S. history that has not been financed at least in part by a tax increase, it has been accompanied by massive tax cuts.
The Urban Institute is about to publish an instructive new book called War and Taxes. In it, authors Joe Thorndike, Steven A. Bank and Kirk J. Stark argue that “this contrast—between an active war effort on one hand and substantial tax cuts on the other—has no precedent in American history.”
The authors are careful to recount that taxation during wartime has not always been a story of heroic, John Wayne-like national sacrifice. Indeed, they remind us that these tax increases were often delayed and obscured and rarely shared equally. Still, in the end, the bill was paid.
Compared to other wars,
Maybe, as Stiglitz argues, the
There is little doubt that we can afford
Posts and comments are solely the opinion of the author and not that of the Tax Policy Center, Urban Institute, or Brookings Institution.