It’s Time for the War Profiteers to Pay Up!

[struggle4progress]

By Ann Schneider
April 5, 2008

... From World War I through the Korean War, this country had a tax on excess profits. Harry S. Truman once called war profiteering “treason.” He’d hardly recognize this nation now ...

During World War II, the FDR war emergency agencies authorized an excess profits tax of 90%. According to Ann Fagan Ginger of the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute in Berkeley, California, by the end of the First World War, an excess profits tax on war contracts accounted for 59% of U.S. government revenue, and during World War II, it brought in about 23% of the total federal revenue.

Congress enacted a similar tax in 1980 during the gasoline shortage, called the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax. It raised a half-billion dollars in the four years it was in effect.

The fastest way to end the war would be for Congress to reassert domestic priorities over the oil and war profiteers.

http://www.indypendent.org/2008/04/05/its-time-for-the-war-profiteerrs-to-pay-up/

[angrycarpenter]

1. yes

and retroactive to the start of the war! Then they would know shock and awe firsthand.

[sam sarrha]

2. the war would be over in a week....

[flor de jasmim]

3. Oooh, yes, retroactive!