Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel said if this country is willing to declare war on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), then every citizen should have to pay a tangible price.
Rangel and his constituents are not convinced arming and training Syrian rebels to fight ISIS is in the nation’s best interest, he said Tuesday on the House floor. “It’s so easy to try to bring justice to a situation if it doesn’t cause you anything or any inconvenience. Already we have lost trillions of dollars and over 6,000 lives in this area, and I don’t think we have yet to declare war.”
If Congress ever does decide to declare war on ISIS or any enemy of the United States, he continued, we should attach measures to “force every american to evaluate whether or not they believe that they’re prepared to make sacrifice.”
“One of those, of course is a war tax,” he continued. “These last wars, the only people who have suffered, were those people who had boots on the ground, or those people who know people, or those people who went to the funerals.”
“I don’t think it’s asking to much of Americans to be able to say yes and we’re willing to pay taxes for it and yes we’re ready to have mandatory recruitment of young men and women who are prepared to say that if our nation’s in trouble, we all should be doing something,” he added.
The House is expected to pass legislation giving the president authority to arm and train Syrian rebels Wednesday.
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