Dems Propose 'War Tax' to Pay for troop Increase

"The troops will supply the blood if the rich will supply the treasure. 

That's the message from two top Democrats who say they want to impose a new tax on the wealthy to finance any increase in U.S. troops for the Afghanistan war. 

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chairman of the purse string-controlling House Appropriations Committee, is calling the idea a "war surtax." He said that just as the federal government is expected to pay for its proposed intervention in the health care sector with new taxes, any escalated involvement in Afghanistan should come with a payment plan. 

"If we have to pay for the health care bill, we should pay for the war as well ... by having a war surtax," Obey told ABC News in an interview that aired Monday. "The problem in this country with this issue is that the only people that has to sacrifice are military families and they've had to go to the well again and again and again and again, and everybody else is blithely unaffected by the war." 

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is making a similar demand. 

President Obama plans to hold his ninth meeting Monday evening with his national security team to discuss options for overhauling the strategy in Afghanistan. The president has been considering requests for tens of thousands more U.S. troops from his top commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, for nearly three months. He is not expected to announce his new strategy before Thanksgiving. 

But any request would likely come with a hefty price tag. One option presented by McChrystal would bring 40,000 more troops into Afghanistan -- a proposal estimated to cost about $40 billion, according to the Office of Management and Budget. 

Obey said if an increase like that is approved without any payment mechanism, then other domestic initiatives would be wiped out. 

"On the merits I think it's a mistake to deepen our involvement. But if we are going to do that, then at least we ought to pay for it. Because if we don't, if we don't pay for it, then the cost of the Afghan war will wipe out every other initiative that we have to rebuild our economy," he said. "Ain't going to be no money for nothing if we pour it all into Afghanistan." 

Obey's proposal would be a "graduated tax" on income. It reportedly would start at 1 percent for low-income earners and rise to 5 percent for high-income earners. He's calling it a surtax because it would essentially be a tax on income that is already subject to federal income tax."

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