Who will pay the high cost of the war on terrorism?

President Bush has pledged to do "whatever is necessary" to bring peace to Iraq, and has said he'll ask for an additional $87 billion for the war against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's probably on the lowside of what will be needed, and Congress has little option but to go along.
But what the president has not addressed -- and address it he must -- is from where the money will come.
"This will take time and require sacrifice," President Bush said during his Sunday night address to the nation, "Yet we will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom and to make our own nation more secure."
Yet Monday morning, White House spokesmen said there are no plans to call for any spending offsets to pay for the additional funding or to delay any of the president's tax cuts. That can mean only one thing, the administration plans to simply add the additional spending to the deficit.
Growth spurt
Already this fiscal year, the cost of the war in Iraq has helped drive the budget deficit to a projected $455 billion. The deficit for fiscal 2004 was already estimated at $475 billion, and these added expenditures will drive the deficit to more than $525 billion.
In just two years, $1 trillion will be added to the national debt.
The president spoke admiringly of the sacrifices being made by our fighting forces in Iraq and their families at home. And he made the passing reference quoted above to the need for sacrifice. If he believes sacrifice is in order, he should define the ways in which he intends to attack the budget shortfalls that are being exasperated by the cost of the war.
Instead, the president seems to be continuing to send a message that is getting very old and very tired: that the American people can have it all -- higher defense spending, expanded social programs, tax cuts and a sustained standard of living.
To the extent that that is possible, it can only be done by mortgaging the future of the next generation and the generation after that. That $1 trillion debt will not evaporate. It will be paid by our children and grandchildren.
It is simply unfair to shift the financial burden of pursuing a war on terrorism on children. Perhaps the administration should adapt a new slogan: leave no child indebted up to his or her neck.
Historical precedent
Referring to the need to rebuild Iraq, President Bush said the United States has "done this kind of work before. Following World War II, we lifted up the defeated nations of Japan and Germany and stood with them as they built representative governments. We committed years and resources to this cause."
True enough. But it is also true that President Harry Truman spent considerable political capital in getting the Marshall Plan through Congress. Had he suggested putting the whole cost on the nation's tab, Europe would have never been rebuilt.
When the Republicans took control of the House in 1995, the first legislative priority on their "Contract With America" was a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. They didn't get their amendment but they did get their balanced budgets, four of them from 1998 through 2001.
Last year, the budget went back into the red, by $159 billion. That's being almost tripled in 2003 and more than tripled in 2004. Those are alarming figures, and the president should stop pretending that they aren't.