Congress Split Over Afghan Escalation

War Tax Meets Resistance, Obama Seeks GOP Support for War

by Jason Ditz, December 01, 2009

President Barack Obama has announced his 30,000 troop escalation of the war in Afghanistan, but exactly how he will sell the war to Congress, and where the $30 billion in additional war funding will come from.

House Democrats had been backing a “war tax,” euphemistically called the “Share the Sacrifice Act of 2010,” but that is said to have been met with opposition among more conservative Democrats.

For many of the more liberal Democrats, the prospect of a war tax was one of the few things that made continuing the war through 2017 palatable, and as the Democratic Party splinters over the continuation of the war, support from Republicans will increasingly be key for Obama’s plan.

But Obama’s escalation was well short of the massive, open-ended commitment sought by many Republicans, and getting them to endorse the war plan such as it is might not be easy either.

With criticism mounting over the corrupt Karzai government, the rising cost and the ill-defined goals of the war, ensuring Congressional support for the war will likely be an ongoing task.

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