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David is an occasional blogger, software engineer, Nintendo fanboy, liberal, news magazine addict, voracious TiVo user, and bibliophile. He was born in St. Louis, grew up in southern Indiana, and returned to St. Louis to attend Washington University. He hasn't managed to escape yet. He's a fan of free wine tastings, too many tv shows to name, and eating out. David makes his living developing web applications used internally by his employer. He doesn't blog about work because he's heard too many stories about that causing workplace troubles. There's more on the about page. |
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13 July 2005 - 1:08 pm
I've been thinking a lot about the war on terror and how the American public will react if American deaths from Sept. 12, 2001 through the present exceed the death toll of Sept. 11, 2001. I suspect the majority will continue on as if nothing as happened, just as they've done every day since this war started. One troop dies here, another there; it's all small numbers so most people ignore it.
But I wonder how people would react if they were asked to directly foot the costs of war? If people are asked to put their money where their mouth is, I suspect most people will take a disliking to a very costly war.
So here's my proposal:
- For every death in the war on terror, tax each adult American one dollar.
- For every other casualty tax each American adult ten cents.
Assuming this tax rate were retroactive back to the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, how much would the car have cost each of us out of pocket? Here's the math based on the number of casualties on July 10, 2005:
- Iraq Deaths:
- 1,756 = $1,756
- Afghanistan Deaths:
- 212 = $212
- Iraq Wounded:
- 13,190 = $1,319
- Total:
- $3,287
Another benefit of this system is that it generates more than enough income to pay for both the war and decent benefits to the survivors. For example, if you assume there are 150,000,000 adults in the US, this system would have generated $493,050,000,000 for the war.
There are any numbers of variations on this. An intriguing one is to make the war opt-in. And if enough people don't opt in with their own dollars, the war won't happen for lack of funds.
Anyway, this is nothing more than a gedankenexperiment, but I think it provides an interesting perspective on the true cost of the "war on terror."
Posted by on 13 July 2005 at 1:07 PM
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