America is a country that is continually at war, though, it likes to spin such, as something other than war, through the use of semantics such as “fighting terrorism”, “counterterrorism”, “conflict”, or “combat.” Nevertheless, whether such is or is not called war, and whether such is or is not a Congressional declared war, the truth of the matter is, that America is at war, typically on multiple fronts, which necessitates the active involvement of the war industry, alongside necessary arm forces personnel.
There was a time, when America did battle in which the general population had to make sacrifices during a war, such as in the rationing of sugar, coffee, gasoline, tires, and the like: as well as being obligated to purchase war bonds to help financially support that war as well as to demonstrate their patriotism. In today’s America, with its all-volunteer force, the call for rationing, and the call for men or for women to enlist, as well as the buying of war bonds, pretty much doesn’t exist, which thereby makes it far easier for the average American, to not be especially concerned about such warfare engaged in by America; along with the salient fact that because those that the United States so does battle with, are located far overseas without the necessary means to inflict any meaningful or consistent damage upon the continental United States, those wars, thereby, seem remote and distant.
Yet, the one thing that seems to be missing from the equation, is that wars are very costly, of which, it would seem that this government, rather than making those that are amongst the living today, pay the debt and the expense of such wars in real-time, has instead a rather bad habit of passing such a debt onto posterity; so then, for its failure to properly tax the living, in the here and now, future generations are instead, unfairly burdened with this huge war expense. It would seem, therefore, that the best and fairest proposal to be made in order to pay that war debt, should be to add such onto the payroll expense of each person so working, as well as onto each employer so employing; thereby, to be designated as a temporary war tax, which would be in its effect, the equivalency to the mandatory social security tax, that each so pays at the present day. The percentage of such a tax would be up for debate, of which, as a reference point, it is estimated that in fiscal year 2020, with a social security tax of 6.2% on employees as well as 6.2% on employers, that a total of $1.24 trillion was collected by tax authorities.
No doubt, if such a tax was mandated, the hue and cry about it, would be absolutely tremendous. But what of it? For if this is indeed the necessary cost to bring perpetual safety for all those that are American, then such a war tax should best be seen as the appropriate cost of the defense of this nation. Of course, it might well be successfully argued, that perhaps all the wars that America insists upon involving itself in, aren’t all that necessary, and further that these wars need not be fought at all, for those wars seemingly have little or nothing to do with the proper defense of this nation, and a heck of a lot more to do, with empire, instead.