|
At present, the Americans are most worried that the Iraq War would continue too long. The longer the war drags on, the harder it is to make up the resultant losses. According to an American estimate, if the war continues for one month, the consumption of weapons would be worth US$2 billion, and the cost of maintaining supply for personnel would come to at least US$5 billion.
In the battles of one week alone, the United States has fired thousands of missiles, lost a number of helicopters and fighters, and seen the destruction of nearly one hundred tanks and war chariots. These weapons and equipment alone have caused the United States to lose several billion US dollars. On March 25, Bush asked the Congress to make additional financial allocations of US$74.7 billion. On April 1, the Republican and Senate allocation committees respectively passed the motion for allocations totaling US$80 billion to be used for the expenditures on the Iraq War and other security actions as well as for financial aid to US aviation industry.
War Expenses Come from the Pockets of Taxpayers
Normally, the Americans originally do not care too much about money. The two world wars, particularly World War II, had provided America with a chance to make a huge fortune, which laid a solid foundation for US prosperity of today. Thereafter, the United States had been good at using various wars to boost its economy and amass wealth. From the Gulf War to the Kosovo War and the Afghanistan War, America's allies vied with each other to help foot the bills for the United States. But the situation this time is quite different.
With regard to the war expenses this time, the Pentagon estimated that expenditures on military actions alone would reach US$85 billion. Considering increase in US domestic anti-terrorism needs caused by the war as well as US commitments to postwar peace-keeping action and reconstruction and other programs, expenses of US$100 billion are indeed a reasonable estimate. But US plan to let its "allies pay the money and itself fight battles" has become abortive. Therefore, the war is, without doubt, a heavy burden for US finance.
The Americans have a pet phrase: "What the government spends is the money of the taxpayers". The war expenses this time naturally comes from the pockets of US taxpayers. According to a related report of the budgetary office of US Congress, the US government has put forward 10 measures for collecting money for expenditure, which include expanding the scope of social security taxation and increasing tax on engine fuels. It should be said that these are 10 long-term measures, but for the Americans, they are long-term pains.
The Life of US Middle Class Seriously Affected
The middle class plays a decisive role in the American political and economic lives, but at least three of the above-mentioned 10 money-collecting measures of the US government produce major influence on the life of the middle class.
Taxation is a matter of the greatest headache to the US middle class. According to America's official statistics, in families of the white race which make up the decisive majority in the United States, the income of the medium class is US$52,000; the income of families of Asian descendents is slightly higher, reaching US$64,000. According to the tax policy originally set for 2003, one is required to pay social security tax only when his or her annual income reaches US$87,000. In other words, according to the current policy, most US middle class families have no need to pay social security tax. But the US government is now prepared to extend the levy of social security tax to cover all labor income, these middle class families, of course, are no exception.
Living in the United States, the lack of a car is just like the shortness of a leg, a car, just like food for the Americans, is essential to daily life. Oil price hike caused by the war is, for the Americans, just like soaring prices for rice and flour for the Chinese, the psychological impact it exerts is far surpassing economic impact. Currently, the tax levied by the federal government on each gallon of gas is 18.4 US cents, now tax is further raised by 12 US cents on this basis, with the rate of rise approaching two-thirds. If oil price further rises, it will be hardly bearable for the American consumers.
In the United States, the attendance rate of university is about 60 percent, the overwhelming majority of students are children of the middle class families. For a middle class family of a white American, the annual income is US$52,000, one-third of which is used to pay tax, the remaining US$35,000, which is broken down into around US$2,900 a month. If a family can have US$500-600 of saving deposits a month, then it has to use two years' savings deposits to manage to pay one-year tuition for the child to study in university. Currently, the government has abolished loan subsidy for postgraduate students and restricts loan subsidy for undergraduate students, this measure has brought tremendous pressure to bear upon middle class families.
Ordinary Americans Have Begun to Feel Worry
Besides the middle class, the scope of the influence of increase in military expenses this time almost covers all American strata and industries, particularly impacting those industries which can keep going only by relying on subsidies, including transportation, agriculture and tobacco cultivation. Of US middle and lower levels, most are engaged in long-distance transportation, driving trucks and other laborious industries. If the government increases the collection of transport safety fees, it will directly affect their income and thus increase the factors of social instability.
Each American farmer can get annual allowances worth as high as US$210,000. The US government has used this method to maintain the development of traditional agriculture. Now the government plans to reduce the subsidy from US$210,000 to US$75,000, a rarely seen rate of reduction. Some states engaged mainly in agricultural production, such as Montana and New Mexico, whose development level is already low, find they are rather difficult financially, with the subsidy cut, they are put in more straitened circumstances. Recently, when anti-war demonstrations were raging like fire in various parts of the United States, a 50-year-old American farmer drove a tractor straight into the center of Washington, at first everybody thought he had come for support of the anti-war wave, but it turned out that he had come to protest against government increase of cigarette tax.
News had come from the US Senate that President Bush's plan for tax cut worth US$726 billion in 10 years will be slashed by half or more, this means a head-on blow to the Americans who have been longing for tax reduction.
Americans Afraid of Being Bogged Down Again in the Mire of War
Bush has made psychological preparation for this, he had long before called on the American people to make sacrifices for military attacks on Iraq. But the Americans do not realize for what is there the need to make such sacrifices. An American economist asked the question: Why should we take less butter in order to make more firearms?
A recent poll reveals that over 30 percent of the Americans have decided to adjust their plans for reducing international tours in the next several months. US Business Week even advises the Americans that while touring abroad, they should not wear clothes and hats with US signs, symbols, characters, nor carry bags of US features, still less hold American national flag. In public places, they should not read American newspapers, books and other American publications. More and more of those surveyed said their worry that the American proper would likely be subjected to vindictive terrorist attacks is increasing with each passing day.
Families of the US soldiers, in particular, are dissatisfied with their government for failing to provide more pieces of information. A father, after learning of the news that his son had been killed in the Iraqi battlefield, said indignantly, "Bush sent children of others to the battlefield, and told them that they would die a glorious death. I just want to say to Bush: this is not your own son." Some ordinary people even said, "I think Bush has no right to tell others what and how they should do in their own courtyards." According to US media reports, now people across the United States can feel such worry and anxiety on the part of ordinary Americans as they as themselves: How would people look upon the United States which launched the military actions without UN authorization; the danger American soldiers encounter on the battlefield; and mounting terrorist threat facing the United States. A student from an American university rightly said that US launch of war against Iraq has invited opposition from many people, including the United Nations, he is worried that this would become a source of disasters in future wars.
(People's Daily April 8, 2003)
|
