President Obama’s speech on a new strategy for Afghanistan and what resources will be provided to support it is coming this week. Congress, whose power over war comes through the power of the purse will have to decide whether to provide supplemental support to cover any increases beyond what’s already budgeted. On the whole, Congress often involves itself with acquisition decisions but tends to be more reticent in dictating war spending. However, there’s presently a rather new idea raised by Rep. Obey being debated when it comes to budgeting the war: raise funds to cover expenses.
Estimating the cost of an escalation would be difficult. Cristi Parsons and Julian E. Barnes have an article in the L.A. Times that covers the range of opinions (via Matthew Yglesias and Spencer Ackerman). Standard estimates run between $500 thousand and $1 million per troop, with the specifics obviously dependent on what the troops are doing what’s being included in the calculations. A memo by the Pentagon Comptroller “said the yearly cost of a 40,000-troop increase would be $30 billion to $35 billion -- at least $750,000 a person. An increase of 20,000 would cost $20 billion to $25 billion annually, it said -- a per-soldier cost equal to or greater than the [million dollar per soldier] White House estimate.”
Key House Democrats, including three committee chairs and the chair of the party caucus are supporting a graduated surtax to pay for war in Afghanistan according to David Rogers of Politico (via Yglesias). It isn’t yet clear how Speaker Pelosi feels about this approach and I haven’t read anything describing similarly united heavy hitters in the Senate. Also, the tax wouldn’t kick in until 2011 and could be delayed another year if the President deemed the economy still in weak shape. Nonetheless, the tax would be broad based and include the middle class, with the exception of those who served or lost an immediate relative in the war.
Will it pass? I don’t know, Ackerman argues that Congress is interested in exercising more control and Yglesias notes that if a large portion of Democrats obviously support the tax than Republicans will be in position to demand their own chance to influence war policy. In either case, the consequences may prove important not just for Afghanistan but for future U.S. military engagements.
