Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. https://watson.brown.edu
Essay on economic costs of war.
Linda J. Bilmes, Harvard University: The Credit Card Wars: Post-9/11 War Funding Policy in Historical Perspective.
"President Truman raised the top marginal tax rate to 92% during Korea. He believed it was morally right to "pay-as-you-go" – a term he coined and repeated in more than 200 speeches. President Johnson was more reluctant, but in 1967 he imposed a Vietnam War surcharge that raised top tax rates to 77%.
By contrast, in 2001 and 2003, Congress cut taxes – the "Bush tax cuts" as we went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Since then, we have paid for these wars by piling up debt on the national credit card. No previous US war was financed entirely through debt. I refer to these wars as the "Credit Card Wars.”
Steven Aftergood, (saftergood@fas.org) directs the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists: The Costs of War: Obstacles to Public Understanding.
"The posture of US Special Operations Command is likewise becoming harder for the public to discern, even as its global activities are being ramped up. Last year, according to testimony presented before the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) personnel were deployed to “80 plus” countries. This year, the SASC budget authorization hearing for SOCOM was closed to the public. But a statement to the House Armed Services Committee indicated that SOCOM deployments now covered “90 countries.”
Source: (2017 SASC hearing (open): https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/17-05-04-united-states- special-operations-command ; 2018 SASC hearing (closed): https://www.armed- services.senate.gov/hearings/17-05-04-united-states-special-operations-command ; 2018 SOCOM statement to the HASC: https://armedservices.house.gov/legislation/hearings/evolution-transformation-and- sustainment-review-and-assessment-fiscal-year-2019)