John McCain's campaign website claims on the issue of taxation that "John McCain will fight the Democrat's crippling plans for a tax increase in 2011. Left to their devices, Democrats will impose a massive $100 billion tax hike, almost $700 per taxpayer every year." However on the issue of Iraq the website asserts that "A greater military commitment now is necessary if we are to achieve long-term success in Iraq" and later that "The American people also deserve to know that the path ahead will be long and difficult". Estimates for the total cost of the Iraq war now range between one and two trillion dollars and the cost of the war are estimated to be roughly $200 million per day.

If the point is not already made, I will make it explicit. The same candidate that is pushing for the continued spending of $200 million dollars a day is blaming the party that widely opposes the war in Iraq for wanting to increase taxes to a "crippling" level, as if hurting America is part of its political agenda. When the Republican Party was deciding whether or not they wanted to go to war in the Middle East, it seems that they would have to have decided whether this was worth no longer being able to tote small federal government and low tax levels on their platform structure. Instead it seems they decided that the federal budget is essentially a credit card account, and luckily they could arrange the end of the month to come after the next election period.

It has been bound to happen ever since Americans discovered that payments could be made with a plastic card rather than with actual dollar bills. The contradiction inherent in John McCain's platform is not just an isolated incidence of a marked disconnect between the link of causation connecting the actions of spending and paying. It forms the basis of the new Bush Doctrine foundation for the Republican Party; it is present in the sub prime mortgage crisis that is plaguing our country with real fears of recession; however it begins when you swipe your MasterCard and feel as if you aren't really spending as much because no bills have passed from your hand to the register.

I agree with John McCain on one point "the path ahead will be long and difficult" because America is addicted to the idea of credit, and we have allowed that infatuation to become the keystone of our economic policy. The fix is not going to be easy, because the American people don't want to pay higher taxes, and we do fear what effect higher

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