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February 14, 2005
Article of the Day
If you read nothing else in the news today, read Thomas Friedman’s New York Times column “No Mullah Left Behind.”
The crux:
"By adamantly refusing to do anything to improve energy conservation in America, or to phase in a $1-a-gallon gasoline tax on American drivers, or to demand increased mileage from Detroit's automakers, or to develop a crash program for renewable sources of energy, the Bush team is - as others have noted - financing both sides of the war on terrorism. We are financing the U.S. armed forces with our tax dollars, and, through our profligate use of energy, we are generating huge windfall profits for Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan, where the cash is used to insulate the regimes from any pressure to open up their economies, liberate their women or modernize their schools, and where it ends up instead financing madrassas, mosques and militants fundamentally opposed to the progressive, pluralistic agenda America is trying to promote."
Posted by Alan Durning | Permalink
Comments
I couple weeks ago I computed that the Iraq war could be paid for with a $0.14/gallon tax on all petroleum products. In past wars, it has been common to ask Americans to give make some simple sacrifices in order to help preserve resources for war. Why shouldn't the current administration be asking the Citizens to do the same now? If there isn't enough political will to pay for the war now (instead accumulating debt for our children), maybe we shouldn't be fighting this war in the first place.
Posted by: Rodney Rutherford | Feb 14, 2005 11:07:31 AM
Seriously, remember when the 'president' asked us to go out and shop, implying that is how we can help? Some victory garden... What I find truly amazing are the people driving monstrous vehicles with one of those little yellow ribbon stickers suggesting that we support the troops. First of all, some of those troops are my friends and neighors so of course I support them, but bad policy is bad policy and in this case people are dying.
Posted by: Ron | Feb 14, 2005 12:04:40 PM
Rodney -
Good point. I'm wondering from your calculations how long that tax has to be in place? I get that a 15 cent tax on petroleum products gives about $44 billion per year (20.4M barrels per day * 42 gallons per barrel * 365 days per year * 15 cents per gallon = about $44 billion).
And in <2 years the war has cost about $154 billion (see http://costofwar.com/). So, basically the tax would need to be collected for at least twice as long as the war lasts, perhaps a bit more with future discounting, for a 15 cent tax per gallon to be enough to pay for the Iraq war. Does that seem right to you?
Posted by: Clark Williams-Derry | Feb 14, 2005 1:25:44 PM
My target was to pay for the war at a rate that equals the expenditures; I don't have the scratch paper that I used to pencil this out, but it seems your numbers are more accurate...which means we'd need a $0.25 tax per gallon, instead.
I think it's important to pose the cost of war in terms Americans can understand. Is this really be a sacrifice that Americans would be willing to make?
Posted by: Rodney Rutherford | Feb 14, 2005 11:17:36 PM
I hope people have a chance to hear the argument by Amory Lovins on how to get out of the oil dependency and therefore out of the need of a war for oil.
It is interesting to me that Amory's work has been financed (at least in part if I understood right) by the Pentagon: intelligent people concerned with the true security of the US would certainly seriously consider reducing the oil dependency as an important strategy.
It is also interesting that part of Amory's argument is that new technologies developed by the military (for the military) can also be recycled for good peaceful uses, like the new extra strong/extra light materials that would allow hypercars with very high gas/mileage (much higher than today's hybrids).
Last but not least, in reference to your previous note about non living wage jobs, "Amory's strategy" would create a significant amount of new well paid jobs.
Posted by: philippe boucher | Feb 15, 2005 8:09:08 AM