Time for WEPT: War Excess Profits Tax
by G. Duff
During the Civil War, there was an uproar about the dishonorable act of getting rich off war. By World War I, it was national policy to tax Excess War Profits. During World War II, President Roosevelt pushed thru three measures to tax war profits. We also taxed excess war profits during the Korean War. Taxing war profits has a long precedence in the US and has been seen as "fair", restricting profits while soldiers are dying in battle.
However, with a war going on year after year that seems to most sensible people to have been started just for the business of bilking the taxpayer, nothing is being done. If anything, things seem to be going the other way.
With skyrocketing oil prices and skyrocketing war profits pushing us into bankruptcy and pushing the dollar into the category of "third world" confetti, bilking the taxpayer to enrich war profiteers has become a spectator sport in Washington. We have borrowed so much to fund this massive theft that our great grandchildren will actually be suffering a significantly lowered standard of living. Our grandchildren will be paying for the endless "no-bid" contracts and sweetheart deals for Washington political insiders.
What we seem to have is an administration blind to any concern and oversite as long as the companies doing the stealing are donating enough money or owned by the right people…
Our biggest bill, of course, is the oil bill. War has pushed oil prices to nearly 100 dollars a bbl. Anyone that thinks that OPEC controls oil prices without the full cooperation of the oil companies is living in a dream world.
Did you ever ask yourself why, when oil prices rise, profits don't stay the same or get lower? Why would a cost increase in a basic commodity like crude oil, especially during wartime, bring about massive increases in profits? No economic theory can support this other than "price fixing" or massive fraud. When the oil companies and the government operate as one in the same, as they have during this administration, should anyone be surprised at hundred dollar a barrel crude oil?
For those of you who don't know, a barrel is 42.5 gallons. Crude oil is largely sludge and slop. Unrefined "slop" crude oil is now selling for more than gasoline or even milk, a year ago. Do the math. This is the same stuff we have to use detergents to clean off our wildlife. Are you getting the joke yet?
This week, we learn that two brothers, one acting as the Inspector General of the Department of State, meant to oversee all spending related to our mission in Iraq and the other, "advisor" to AMWAY/Blackwater Corporation, the "Apocalypse cult" owned Bush administration "sacred cow" have come into the news.
Seems that one brother "oversees" the Blackwater disaster and the other works for Blackwater. The fun part is that each brother doesn't know what the other one is doing, or so they tried to tell us before they got their stories mixed up. With luck, they may have years together in lockup to work on those communications problems.
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/11/Krongard-Blackwater-State-Department-Brother.html
Everyone knows that Blackwater was created by top Republican party politicians to funnel money meant to build Iraq and defend the US into extremist hands here at home. To accomplish this, a company was set up that we now find has bribed government officials, wasted billions in taxpayer dollars, sold guns to terrorists and has gotten dozens of Marines killed thru "wild west" gameplaying in Iraq.
The private armies of Blackwater and Dyncorp, all "NeoCon" controlled paramilitary/political operations, some with "domestic" capabilities suck billions of dollars away from our real military and into the hands of "half million dollar a year" mercenaries who we now find have become our own worst enemy in Iraq.
The money to pay these "millionaire" mercs comes from the same budget that pays for the troops we send into combat without decent body armor. We even hire these same corporations to feed our troops spoiled food and to supply them with disease ridden water, all at "Park Avenue" prices.
The billions going into the hands of these "NeoCon" corporations is the same money that could have been spent on our wounded who are being warehoused in "rotting corpse" hellholes like Walter Reed.
The billions we have borrowed from China to fund failed projects in Iraq, overseen by Bush Administration officials now awaiting indictment for corruption and lying to congress, will have to be paid back eventually. Mortgaging our future to China to enrich a few friends may be a policy that Bush can live with but not one that will help keep America strong or free.
China is now holding a trillion dollars of Bush Administration debt that allows them to dictate policy in Washington. Is turning America into debtor puppets of a corrupt Chinese regime a way of keeping us free and strong?
Imagine the influence excess war profits has had on America. We now fight wars against enemies we didn't have when the wars began. Can someone please explain this to me?
While our soldiers are dying, billions in excess profits are gathered by "friends" of the most corrupt and unpopular administration in US history. Taxes on war profiteers are not raised, they are lowered. War is paid for by borrowing from our potential enemies, building generations of political instability and economic disaster.
Making everyone pay equally for war is the only way to stop war, not real war, but phony war for profit. Is this the kind of war we are fighting now? Ask yourself. 90% of our war is in Iraq, a country that never attacked us, fighting people who were never our enemies.
We can't get medical care for our own troops but we can get 600 million dollars to build a new embassy in Iraq that is already falling down before it is finished. This is only one of a hundred similar "boondoggle" projects meant to enrich Bush family friends and Cheney partners.
As has been said so many times in the past, no foreign enemy can ever destroy America. Why would we need one. Our real enemies parade around, draped in our bloody flag while loading their foreign bank accounts with money borrowed from our enemies to keep us safe from people we attacked for no real reason. America took its biggest "hit",not on 9/11 but at the hands of "patriots" using a ballot box and "touch screen voting".
Rigging an election in America can be done with a laptop. With five "deluded" Supreme Court members, why would they bother?
The only way to stop any of this is to make those who play pay. Tax the profiteers, the adventurers, the thieves until it makes them cry for "mama".
Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.
Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.
Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.
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