Crossposted from Brothers Bob Blog
With the looming budget showdown the President and Democrats are standing steadfast in their assertion that we can not make any budget “cuts” without what they call “increases in revenue”, or in layman’s terms, “higher taxes on the people who actually create real jobs”. I had written previously about my own tax increase proposal, but where it differs from Democrats’ suggestions is that rather than punish activity that creates jobs, mine would punish activity that destroys jobs, and in turn lead to hiring and greater economic growth. Since we know that my proposal has no chance of seeing the light of day I started thinking along the lines of the current debate – entitlement reform, increased revenues – and then it hit me.We have a serious entitlement problem. What would you say if I told you that we have an entitlement program that is being enjoyed by over 6.5 billionpeople who contribute nothing in tax dollars to fund it? That’s right, I am talking about the US military budget. Despite the fact that according to the U.S. Census Bureau only 4.5% of the world’s population lives in the United States, Uncle Sam is responsible for 43 % of the world’s military spending. You read correctly; nearly half of all expenditures to keep the world safe are being funded by fewer than one out of every 20 global citizens. Whether it’s taking down terrorist regimes, rebuilding countries ravaged by war, keeping shipping lanes safe, it’s American treasure and lives that shoulders most of the burden. So to borrow the vernacular that the left likes to use in referring to America, “Isn’t it time that the world paid its fair share?”
The best part is that there is something for everyone to love:
- Other countries wouldn’t even have to pay directly – it can be paid to the US by increasing their dues to the United Nations, which can then be disbursed to the U.S.
- U.N. bureaucrats will jump at the chance to launch any program that allows them to become middlemen with plenty of graft opportunity
- Tax levels can be worked out by per capita GDP, and include extra penalties for countries that contribute to the need for global military (read: Iran, North Korea)
- The US government has found more revenue!
- The biggest beneficiaries, such as Europe, Canada and South Korea will be thrilled to pay this tax – really! If you listen to the likes of Tom Friedman or Joe Biden, paying taxes is one’s patriotic duty and increases ones appreciation for for being an American, or in this case, Global citizen. This will naturally give the rest of the world a greater appreciation for the United States!
- Any countries that don’t like the idea of this tax can receive tax credits by increasing their own military spending. Discounts would be determined by a DC bureaucracy that would weigh how much the spending increases would improve global security (eg: the United Kingdom) or detract from it (Somalia,
LebanonHezbolah) to determine the amount of the tax credit, or in the cases of the latter, tax penalty.
- Further tax credits can be granted to nations that actually put their own soldiers in the line of fire in places like Afghanistan, which will further complicate the tax code to the delight of our bureaucracy, not to mention giving more muscle to our diplomats who deal firsthand with these countries.
- The US military might not like this since the scope of its mission will decrease as nations decide to start fighting for themselves, but these changes would not happen overnight. It will be easier to retire obsolete weaponry and as the need for soldiers decreases we can allow them to retire to private life or use them to oversee the massive bureaucracy that will be needed to administer this new tax code. Or more spending can go toward high tech weapons that will allow the US to maintain its superiority thanks to the combination of increased revenues along with the need for fewer bases and soldiers. Of course, their mission won’t go away completely since…
- More countries around the world undergoing military buildups will inevitably lead to more wars, for which the US will be needed to eventually intervene. To many leftists a few countries being destroyed and their civilian populations slaughtered would be a small price to pay for not having the US military standing over the world’s shoulder.
- Defense contractors may be unhappy at first as they lose lucrative contracts that they had spent cultivating with our military, but with more countries competing for power we can expect greater demand for weaponry to prepare their now necessary armies!
- The libertarion wing of American politics will love pulling back US intervention, and we can finally get an honest look at how well foreign countries’ generous entitlement programs really work when paying for their own defense gets factored into their budgets.
I know what you’re thinking – “This will never happen in a million years!” You are right, and I know that some of these assumptions are over the top. No, I don’t think that a global military buildup or more wars will be good for anyone. But the world has taken the American security blanket for granted for too long, and given our steady economic decline toward a Greek-style culture of dependency, to use a favorite term of the left, it is not sustainable.
I have no delusions that my proposal would ever see the light of day, but it would be a good starting point for a conversation that is just as inevitable as it is overdue.
