PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR BUMPER STICKERS ARE

Though some claim that all Americans are making sacrifices for the war on terrorism, it's just not true. The few who are sent to fight and those left behind who are an intimate part of their daily lives are the ones whose mental health, finances and relationships are taking the hit.

A universal draft would certainly help spread the sacrifice. But we all know that the privileged will find a way to avoid serving, as they did by paying $300 during the Civil War or claiming college deferments during Vietnam.

What we need is a war tax, dedicated to financing the support services needed by military families and combat veterans. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a long-term costs-of-war tax. Because the tax I'm proposing, like the needs it's intended to meet, will not end when the war does.
--"Your Money at War," Kristen Henderson, New York Times op-ed, February 9, 2007


Kirsten Henderson knows a little something about the toll war takes on military families. She is married to a Navy chaplain who, when in deployments to war, goes where the need takes him, hunkering down with Marines under fire. She wrote a book about the toll war takes on military families, called, While They're at War: The True Story of American Families on the Home Front.

In the op-ed, she captures the stress of deployment beautifully:


Every morning that my husband was in a war zone, whether it was Afghanistan or Iraq, I woke up knowing that today could be the day my world might end…

This takes a toll on the families left behind. "Everyone up here is on Prozak," a wife from Fort Drum, N.Y., told me. We field phone calls from our loved ones on the frontlines. We deal with money shortfalls and anxious children. And then our combat vets come home. In the last few years, divorces among enlisted soldiers shot up 28 percent and the suicide rate of Iraq vets DOUBLED. (emphasis mine)
--ibid


Henderson's proposal for a war tax demands that no matter whether you are a war supporter or a peace activist--this is one way to put your money where your mouth is.

She points out that taxes have paid for wars since the founding of the nation--either through taxing of beverages, tobacco, utilities, income, and more. She mentions a 3 percent tax on long-distance telephone calls that was put into effect to help pay for the Spanish-American war of 1898. It was repealed and reinstated several times.

And although that tax did not hurt the telecommunications industry or the national economy, through the years, it brought in $15 billion to the government.

In the latest budget, the president is pressing for so many billions of dollars to pay for his wars that it will wind up costing this country at least one trillion dollars, if not more over the course of time. TRILLION. Not the $50 billion he and his cohorts insisted the war would cost back in 2002.

She says that, no matter what is taxed to pay for these wars, "then all Americans would wind up shouldering a least a small portion of the burden of our nation's wars. Military families would be exempt."

For peace activists who don't want their dollars to go toward war, she points out that this money would not go to buy bullets and bombs, but to support combat veterans and their families in their long road home:


Unlike the old phone tax, however, this new tax must be dedicated to financing programs that support and heal combat veterans and their families during deployment and afterward--combat trauma counseling, respite child care, part-time jobs for spouses trying to make ends meet, marriage counseling. These programs won't go away as long as America has a military.
ibid


And although she doesn't mention it specifically in this article, the Veteran's Administration is GROANING under all the wounded veterans returning from Iraq--not to mention the thousands and thousands of reported cases of post traumatic stress.

My son says that on base back in the States, signs of that stress are everywhere--domestic violence, bar fights, excessive drinking, drug use, and other problems. Many of those who are suffering have tried to get help, but my son says that the system is so overstretched that guys he knows who need help can only meet with their counselors once a month, rather than the desperately needed once a week sessions.

Never before in the history of this country has a president tried to fight multiple wars overseas on multiple fronts while, at the same time, CUTTING TAXES. The tax cuts rammed through by the Republicans and their fearless leader, combined with hundreds of billions of dollars requested for the war in "emergency spending" measures that aren't even included in the BUDGET, have come close to bankrupting this nation.

It can't go on. Something has to give.

If he is going to continue to pour troops and treasure into this quagmire, then he is going to have to start asking for a little sacrifice from the 300 million people in this country who DON'T have families deploying to war.

I submit, as long as I keep getting these "support our troops" e-mails from well-meaning war supporters, then I want to know, WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO SUPPORT THE TROOPS?

HOW ABOUT SHOULDERING SOME OF THE COST FOR THEIR SACRIFICE?

As Kristen Henderson put it so beautifully:


For those who oppose the war and spending any additional money on it, all I can say is that this isn't about financing a war. It's about reducing human suffering. And for everyone who claims to "support the troops"--peace activists and war supporters alike--put your money where your bumper stickers are.
--ibid