On Tax Day, Dems focus on cost of war

By Lisa Mascaro

Tuesday, April 15, 2008 | 10:45 a.m.

WASHINGTON — Democrats have been increasingly trying to get Americans to think of the financial costs of the Iraq war, and are using tax day to amplify the point.

Their take-home message: $16,500. That is the cost of the Iraq war, so far, to each American family of four.

Antiwar lawmakers and the umbrella group Americans Against Escalation in Iraq base the math on the $526 billion spent so far on the war, though estimates say the overall cost of the war is above $1 trillion — and could be more.

As the economy has overshadowed the war as the most pressing issue facing voters, Democrats are steadily trying to link the two, with mixed results.

A new poll out today shows voter support for President Bush’s handling of the economy has fallen to its lowest level ever.

Seven in 10 Americans now disapprove of Bush’s lead on pocketbook affairs, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Republicans, meanwhile, are using tax day to talk about the need to extend the Bush tax cuts, which will expire in 2010. If they are not preserved, Republicans say Americans will face the biggest tax increase in history. Income tax rates would go up, as would estate and investment taxes, while tax breaks for children and college education could be lost.

Voters are worried about the mortgage meltdown, high gas prices and creeping unemployment. Economists differ on whether the war is to blame for the economic funk. As the Post explains this morning, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz makes the connection. His book “The Three Trillion War” argues a more precise accounting of the war’s costs. But others say the nation’s economic downturn is not so easily linked.

Yet the Bush administration started the war five years ago saying it would cost $50 to $100 billion.

One point is unarguable. The war is costing more than planned. That's a sum most families understand, especially on tax day.