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Tuesday, Dec. 01, 2009

Chambliss: Proposed war surtax “difficult for me to understand”

In a phone interview Tuesday from his Washington office, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R.-Ga., threw his conditional support behind President Obama’s troop increase in Afghanistan while scolding House Democrats for proposing a “war surtax” to pay for the escalation.

“The Democrats passed a $780 billion stimulus package back in the spring that’s done absolutely nothing to stimulate the economy of this country, and yet now they’re saying the Federal government shouldn’t do one thing that the Constitution specifically says the federal government should do, which is to protect the people of the United States,” Chambliss said.

The proposal, introduced by Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wis., would place a one percent net income tax increase for taxpayers paying more than $11,300 in federal taxes in one year. The surtax would not be applied until 2011 and would allow the president to delay enactment one year if he deems the economy to be too weak to handle the tax.

Chambliss joined the unanimous GOP opposition to the proposal, saying that Federal spending in Afghanistan “should come well in advance of any spending on domestic programs.”

“It will be a very interesting argument and difficult for me to understand how a Democrat can stand up with a straight face and say, ‘OK, we’re going to spend two and a half trillion dollars on a health care bill, but we’re not willing to protect the American people,’” Chambliss said, citing the disputed Republican pricetag of Sen. Harry Reid’s proposed health care bill.

President Obama is expected to propose much of what his top general in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, asked of him earlier this year. The senior Georgia senator said he would support an increase in troops, pegged to be around 34,000 by the end of 2010 according to a McClatchy report, but criticised the President for not announcing the increase sooner. “[McChrystal] made his recommendation to the president on August 30th and we’ve been kind of in a holding pattern since that date, waiting on the president to make a decision,” Chambliss said.

Last week, Chambliss led a Georgia delegation to Afghanistan that included Rep. John Barrow, D-Savannah, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Sharpsburg, and Rep. Tom Price, R-Roswell. The delegation spent Thanksgiving in Afghanistan with the 48th Brigade of the Georgia National Guard, spent another day in Pakistan, and returned to Washington on Sunday.

Chambliss repeated his complaints about the Afghan government, urging the Obama administration to continue to push Afghan President Hamid Karzai to clean up rampant corruption in the country.

“It starts at the very bottom levels,” he said. “For example, if someone rides on Highway 7 that goes from one side of Afghanistan to the other, they’re likely to be stopped any number of times by bad guys, by security police, even by [Afghan] soldiers and fleeced for money or bribes.”

Chambliss will have a chance to press the Obama White House further from his chair on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The committee is set to hear testimony Wednesday on Obama’s war strategy from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

To contact military writer Thomas L. Day, call 744-4489.