WASHINGTON -- Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said Tuesday that Congress should consider a special tax to pay for the nation's war against terrorism.
Such a tax could help ease the squeeze that military and security spending is putting on "critical domestic programs," said Lieberman, whose support for the Iraq war has come under fire from anti-war Democrats.
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Lieberman favors President Bush's plan to send 21,500 more U.S. troops to Iraq.
"I think we've got to start thinking about a war-on-terrorism tax," Lieberman said during an Armed Services Committee hearing on Bush's defense spending proposals. "I mean, people keep saying that we're not asking sacrifices of anybody but our military in this war, and some civilians who are working on it."
Lieberman, an independent who usually votes Democratic, asserted that a war-on-terror tax would make it clearer to taxpayers how their money would be used.
"When you put together the (Pentagon) budgets with homeland security budgets, we need to ask people to help us in a way that they know, when they pay more, will go for their security," Lieberman said.
Lieberman does not have a specific proposal for such a tax, an aide later said, but the senator believes that a new tax should be considered in Congress as the budget process moves forward.
Lieberman's comments came one day after President Bush unveiled his new spending plan for the budget year that begins Oct. 1.
The $2.9 trillion Bush budget calls for a massive boost for the Defense Department. It also seeks an additional $245 billion in spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for this year and 2008.
Bush's spending plan also curbs many domestic programs. Democrats who control Congress have already vowed to oppose many of Bush's proposed reductions on the home front.
Lieberman was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000. He won re-election as an independent last fall when Democrats backed Ned Lamont, an anti-war candidate who won the party primary. Lieberman was assailed by Lamont for his pro-war views during the race.
