Why fund wars with debt, but not health care?

A reader recently challenged us to explain what he sees as a contradiction in our editorial positions. We support the goal of universal health care, but argue that President Obama must keep his pledge not to pay for it with borrowed money. We have also backed Gen. Stanley McChrystal's request for additional troops and other resources for Afghanistan — but without specifying how the reinforcements should be funded. Why is it OK to finance wars with debt, asks our reader, but not to pay for health care that way?

In principle, all wars should be paid for, just like all other federal spending. We criticized President George W. Bush for sticking with tax cuts rather than calling for national sacrifice after Sept. 11, 2001, and for failing to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If Obama were to propose offsetting the cost of additional troops in Afghanistan with a gasoline or carbon tax, we would support it.

But is a new war tax needed? In fact, if you apply the same logic to defense spending that Obama has used for health care — that projected future savings offset new spending — he has paid for the proposed escalation in Afghanistan many times over. Overall, Obama's plan for defense spending projects US$1.5 trillion in savings over 10 years. While overall federal spending will rise 75 percent from 2008 to 2019, defense spending would increase only 17 percent.

That percentage will be a bit higher if the Afghan mission is fully funded. But spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — which have been budgeted jointly since 2003 — has already fallen from US$180 billion in the 2008 budget year to US$150 billion this year. Even counting the additional troops Obama has already approved for Afghanistan, spending is due to drop to US$130 billion in 2010, and the Congressional Research Service estimates it will fall to US$70 billion in 2012.

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