Alan Grayson, the quirky progressive Democratic Congressman from Florida, has introduced a piece of legislation in the House of Representatives with that title: The War Is Making Your Poor Act. It eliminates separate funding for our two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so citizens can actually see how much those wars cost. Of course, for the past nine years the wars have been funded through special, “emergency” supplementals, rather than laid out in, and included in, the normal budgeting process. In case you are curious, the Independent Media Institute in San Francisco has figured next year’s cost of the two wars at $195,000,000,000.
The War Is Making You Poor Act not only ends the dodgy emergency supplemental funding for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, but also eliminates federal income taxes on the first $35,000 of income ($70,000 for couples) and pays down the national debt. What could be wrong with that? Well, it could be the industrial-defense complex might prefer taxpayers did not know what our military interventions cost us, so Congressman Grayson needs the help of concerned citizens everywhere to support his dandy little The War Is Making You Poor Act, so Don Hazen (Executive Editor at AlterNet.org) sent around an e-mail with a petition from Change.org you can sign, supporting the Act
here
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