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Today's
Stories
April
16 / 18, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Bush, Kerry and Empire
April
15, 2004
Greg
Moses
Follow the Families, Not the Script
Virginia
Tilley
The Carnage According to Gen. Kimmitt:
Just Change the Channel
Ron
Jacobs
They Coulda Been Champions of the World:
Hurricane Carter and Ron Kovic
Michael
Neumann
A Happy Compromise: Hate Crimes Reporting
in the Toronto Globe and Mail
April
14, 2004
Tom
Reeves
Return to Haiti: an American Learning
Zone
Reza
Fiyouzat
Japan and Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
What Bush Really Said
Diane
Christian
The Real Passion Story: We Rule; You
Die
April
13, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
The Ill, Old and Young of Fallujah Ask:
"Do We Look Like Fighters?"
Stan
Goff
The Bridge: a Rant
Dave
Lindorff
The Real Lessons of Vietnam
April 10
/ 12, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Greatest Radical Journalist of His Age
Patrick
Cockburn
Ambush, Kidnap, Murder: Another Day in "Post War" Iraq
Ellen Cantarow
Health Under Siege on the West Bank
Tariq Ali
Iraqi
Resistance: a New Phase
Werther
Pseudoconservatism Revisited: When God is Pro War & Other Delicacies
Robert
Fisk
Bush's War Lords to Their Critics: "Just Shut Up"
Gary Leupp
Indian Wars, Vietnam and Orientalist Fantasy
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Cont.
Jorge Mariscal
Perils of the Bootstrap
Phil Gasper
Defying Stereotypes About Death Row
Dave Zirin
Bringing the Black Freedom Struggle Into Sports: an Interview with Lee
Evans
Brandy
Baker
The Revolution is Playing at a Theater Near You
Mickey Z.
Underground Music is Free Media: an Interview with Twiin
Ali Tonak
Get Ready for the Million Worker March
Harry Browne
Asking the Wrong Question About Richard Clarke & 9/11
Gideon
Samet
The Sharonizing of America
Conn Hallinan
Remote Control Warriors
Website
of the Weekend
Taboo
Tunes
April 9,
2004
Robert
Fisk
This
War's Simple Truth: Iraqis Do Not Want Us
John L.
Hess
The
Non--Confessions of a Warrior Princess: Condi on the Stand
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Condoleezza's Condescensions
Christopher Brauchli
Holes in the Sky: Bush's Crazed Missile Defense Plan
Don Santina
Forget the Alamo!: Glorifying the Fight for Slavery in Texas
William S. Lind
The 4G Warfare Seminar, Cont.
Bill Christison
9/11
Commission is Bush's New Lapdog
Website of the Day
What We've Done to Fallujah
April 8, 2004
Wayne Madsen
Rice
(and the Record) Proves It: Bush Knew, But Failed to Act
Kurt Nimmo
Will
Bush Flatten Fallajuh?
Patrick
Cockburn
Guided
Missile; Misguided War
Laura Flanders
Steamed
Rice
Larry Everest
What Condi Rice is Hiding
Adam Federman
Sacred Capitalism Hits Russia
M. Junaid
Alam
The Iraqi Intifada Begins
Norman Solomon
The Quest for a Monopoly on Violence
Douglas
Valentine
Echoes
of Vietnam: Phoenix, Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
Website of the Day
Xispas: Chicano Art, Culture and Politics
April 7,
2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Those
Pulitzers!
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Deeper
into the Mouth of Hell: We Must Find the Exit from Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Tet
in Iraq: Closer to the Cosmic Disaster?
Patrick
Cockburn
Battles
Across Iraq: US Death Toll Mounts
Kathy Kelly
Pacification: Worth the Price?
Sonali
Kolhatkar
What Are You Doing About Afghanistan?
Rahul Mahajan
Report from Baghdad: Opening the Gates of Hell
Robert
Fisk
US Airlifts Saddam to Qatar
Mike Whitney
America Out of Iraq, Now!
Sam Hamod
Bush, Pandora's Box and the Tiger
April 6, 2004
C.G. Estabrook
Mercenaries
and Occupiers
William
Blum
The
Anti--Empire Report: the Israel Lobby
Col. Dan
Smith
The
Language of Disbelief: 1.3 Billion Still Live in War Zones
Dr. Bulent Gokay
The Coming Islamic Republic of Iraq?
Lynn Landes
Faking Democracy: Americans Don't Vote; Machines Do
Sheila Samples
What Would Royko Write?
Jason Leopold
Condi's Blind Spot: Rice Never Mentioned al--Qaeda
Mickey Z.
A Reality Show with No End in Sight
Robert
Fisk
Iraq on the Brink of Anarchy
|
Weekend
Edition
April 16 / 18, 2004
$2,150 Per Family and Counting
Paying
for War
By DAVE LINDORFF
Sitting
here working on my taxes at the last minute, after having just watched
President Bush’s appalling performance at his only press conference
of 2004, and having just read about the plans for an all-out Marine
assault on Fallujah and Najaf if truce negotiations break down, I found
myself wondering how much of my taxes were going to support the Iraq
atrocity.
A
call to Bob McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice gave me the answer.
About 25 percent of my income tax payment. Of course, that’s a
rough estimate, based upon the prediction that this year’s income
tax will bring in $765 billion in revenues, and that the Iraq war is
costing almost $200 billion for the year.
That’s
something to think about as you’re mailing your envelope to the
IRS tonight. For a typical family with a taxable income of $60,000,
and a typical tax bill of $8626, that works out to an Iraq War tax bill
of about $2150. For a family making $100,000 in taxable income, with
a typical tax bill of $18,614, that is a war tax of about $4650. Even
a student making a taxable income of say $7000, and paying a tax of
around $700 to Uncle Sam is paying around $175 to support the killing
in Iraq.
Oh,
but that’s not all. If you’re one of those who pays your
taxes on line, you should also remember that the federal tax you pay
on the phone line you use for your dial-up or DSL service is, and always
has been a war tax, pure and simple. Lyndon Johnson, trying to come
up with ways to pay for his own war, hit on the idea of the federal
phone tax which, once instituted, has remained with us ever since, funding
Pentagon extravagance and now, Bush’s war.
If
that information doesn’t get your blood boiling, you should go
check the Citizens for Tax Justice website (www.ctj.org)
and check out how much you’re actually saving from Bush’s
trillion-dollar tax cut plan for the rich.
According
to CPJ, if you’re in the group of taxpayers who’s family
income is in the range of about $36,000, you’ll be saving about
$827 this year. That may sound like a nice piece of change, but it pales
to insignificance when compared to the family in the big McMansion down
the road that has an income of $200,000 and that’s seeing their
tax bill drop by $6800 this year. Go figure. If it were even moderately
fair, that tax break of $827 you’re getting should be no more
than six times as great for someone earning six times as much as you,
or about $4900. And for the family earning $1 million, assuming they’re
really paying their taxes, their Bush savings is over $52,000. Over
the full 10 years of these tax cuts, the picture gets even more outrageous.
The folks earning that puny $36,000 in taxable income will save a total
of $6500, while the $200,000 family will net almost $90,000 and the
millionaires will save a whopping $665,000! It’s really another
way of pointing out who’s really paying for this war, when you
come right down to it. The wealthy don’t only get to avoid the
fighting and dying. They also get to avoid having to pay for it in Bush’s
America.
I’d
go into this some more, but as it is, I’m probably going to be
racing down to the Philadelphia main post office tonight to file my
taxes before midnight.
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