Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., won’t support a tax to pay for the troop surge in Afghanistan.
Last month, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., called for a surtax to fund the additional 30,000 troops Obama wants to send to the region by next summer.
But the proposal won’t go anywhere in the House, it appears.
“I’m not a supporter of the proposal of Mr. Obey,” Pelosi told reporters.
But the issue is far from dead.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate are insisting on finding a way to pay for the troop increase, either by taxes or cuts elsewhere in the federal budget.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., is also calling for a war tax, this one on incomes greater than $200,000, but there there is not enough support in the Senate to pass such a proposal.
