Is a War Tax Really for War?

Want this war? You better get ready to pay for this war.

Leading Democrats and a few Republicans now pushing something called a war tax to help pay for all these extra troops in Afghanistan.

Thirty-thousand of them, we're told, and each soldier costing a million bucks to deploy over there.

So maybe time to tax folks back here. Likely the rich, and likely a lot. Up to five percent more. Presumably because they can take it and presumably because they should take it.

After all, it's the patriotic thing to do.

Fair enough, just as long as Washington recognizes that it's equally patriotic to spend that money for this war and only on this war.

I have this thing about lockboxes: They don't seem to stay locked. They go to other purposes, just like, I suspect, a war tax might conveniently go to other wars.

And not just those waged in other countries, but maybe battles waged in this country, for causes having nothing to do with anything patriotic, but maybe everything pork.

Because the thing about demanding higher taxes in the name of patriotism, is you have to patriotically prove your point: After the war ends, the war tax does too.

Something tells me that might not happen. Because wars come and go; taxes, oddly enough, do not.

Unless this time, Congress signs a pledge. In blood. Each one swearing on his or her own life that the tax for this war will only be used for this war.

And if not?

They're dead. They're executed. Simple as that. Taxed by the sword, die by the sword.

They owe the taxpayers funding this war that. They owe the brave men and women actually fighting it more.

— Watch Neil Cavuto weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on "Your World with Cavuto" and send your comments to cavuto@foxnews.com