Private Security Companies are paying, (at least), ten times the salary to their employees that our soldiers are receiving for the exact same duties in Iraq. No matter how you look at it - it is still our tax dollars paying the bills. Let us TRULY support our troops and tax the private firms profits for increased benefits for our soldiers. If corporations have to sacrifice profit maybe the human sacrifices will end.

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Unlike most right-wingers my family IS sacrificing for this illegal war. I have two little brothers, Matt and Steven, who are both in the Marine Corps. Matt is an officer and currently not "in country," but Steve is stationed in Iraq. Now that Democrats have some control over this Imperial President it has been said that, aside from Impeachment (which a majority of Americans DO support), the only way to put an end to the disaster Bush has created is to "defund" the war. Obviously by doing so the Democrats put themselves in a position where Rove and the Right can say they are not supporting our troops. I have a better idea... Defund the war profiteers! Why not, as has been done in the past, put a "war profit" tax on companies like Halliburton, KBR, Carlyle, Crescent, Wackenhut, Blackwater, etc, etc? Tax their profits and use the tax revenues for Veteran's benefits and healthcare. I was particularly angry to hear from my brother Steven that a Sergeant who works with him finished his tour and rather than reenlist signed up with a private contractor and is back working right next to Steve making $100,000 more than he did doing the same exact job in the Marines. Why should that anger America? Because no matter how you look at it, it is still our tax dollars paying their salaries. Benefits, salaries, and equipment expenses are being cut for the "troops" while private companies, (companies with no-bid contracts and direct ties to the current administration), have bottomless budgets. How can that be? The best way to "defund" this horrible war is to take the profit out of the military industrial complex. It is the "peoples" money that is being spent no matter how the money is routed. The people, no matter how they feel about this war, DO want to support our troops, NOT private companies that are making record profits off the death and destruction of our soldiers. Considering how much control corporations have over our government, if and when such a tax was put on their profits in a "time of war and sacrifice", what do you bet this "time of war" would silently end when their profits dry up? Corporations are all for the "sacrifice" of human life if it means they will profit. If they have to "sacrifice" profit the human sacrifices might come to an end as well.

Authors Bio:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

-Pastor Martin Niemöller, 1945