ANOTHER GREAT ECONOMIC IDEA - AT 9:19 A.M. ET:  The creativity of certain Democrats in Congress never ceases to amaze.  From The Politico:

Call it “pay as you fight.”

After months of listening to conservatives caterwaul over deficits and health care, senior House Democrats want a graduated surtax on individuals and corporations to pay for another big drain on the treasury: the Afghanistan war.

That'll certainly help us get out of the recession.

Three full committee chairmen — including the House’s top tax writer, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) — are backing the initiative together with the chair of the party caucus, Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), and close allies of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The speaker has been silent thus far, and many dismiss the idea as more rhetoric than real legislation. But with President Barack Obama due to make a final decision soon on adding more U.S. troops, the initiative testifies to the growing restlessness among Democrats over the costs of the American commitment in Afghanistan.

Amazing how the Dems have suddenly gotten so concerned about paying for things - but only when it concerns national defense.  These are the people who voted themselves a trillion-dollar "stimulus" package that was mostly pork.

“We’re not trying to insult anybody. We’re just trying to keep in the forefront what the financial costs are,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) told POLITICO. “We felt conscience bound to speak up”

Oh, please.  I can just see these guys wrestling with their conscience.  Must have taken ten seconds for their conscience to lose.

“It’s conditional, but if we’re going to add 40,000 troops, people ought to know what the costs are,” said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.). “It’s important for people to understand how these wars are adding to our deficits.”

As if that's how you decide whether to go to war.  Frank, a flake, must think that war is a hobby of some kind.

One of the things that some Dems are pushing is the idea that wars make it impossible for us to do anything else because of their cost.  Well, of course there's some truth to that.   But Americans, mature Americans, understand that sometimes we must fight.  Whether we should fight is, of course, the primary decision.  But, once made, we must bear the cost.  It's pretty arrogant, though, for a party that has broken the bank so many times in the last year, and is ready to break it again over health "reform," to suddenly sound oh so sober when it comes to the cost of national defense.

November 24, 2009