Nationalist Socialism

How and why the Bush regime still refuses to come clean with the American public about the real costs of the disaster in Iraq, even as they demand escalation:

For some who continue to support the war, a substantial increase in the tax burden might diminish their support. In fact, taxes have not byeen raised at all since the war began and the cost of the war has been heavily deferred to future taxpayers. Thus, the Bush administration’s tax policy insulates consumers from a truer sense of the cost of the war they are buying.

We can think of this tax policy as a form of artificial government price control that deprives consumers of the price information needed to decide how much to consume of a product. In this case, the product is war. Artificial price (tax) control makes the war seem relatively cheap to the consumer, so war will be over-consumed. The result is a shortage of war supplies, and more specifically, a shortage in the number of troops needed to wage this war.

Hat tip: ZB.