the price of liberty: tax cuts paid for with blood

via TBogg:

... George W Bush, the pilot hero of USS Abraham Lincoln, ... is fighting to keep our precious taxdollars out the hands of the parasitic widows and orphans of US soldiers who have died defending our equally precious freedoms.

For example, the White House griped that various pay-and-benefits incentives added to the 2004 defense budget by Congress are wasteful and unnecessary � including a modest proposal to double the $6,000 gratuity paid to families of troops who die on active duty. This comes at a time when Americans continue to die in Iraq at a rate of about one a day.

Why look. He saved us $6000 just today. With two hundred soldiers dead in Iraq so far, this is adding up to some serious money.

Daily Kos has a lot more about how our soldiers, dying to defend our freedom, are being "thanked" by the GOP:

They LIE to place our troops in harms way. Then they:

* Refuse to double the $6,000 gratuity to the families of soldiers who die in harms way.

* They roll back pay increases for troops in harms way.

* They refuse to pass servicemember-friendly tax provisions, as the GOP's corporate masters get first dibs.

* They provide meager basic increases for the lower ranks.

* They cut the Pentagon's building budget (which pays for things such as barracks improvements, bowling alleys and other quality-of-life improvements at military bases, something that was really important to us soldiers), in order to make room for Bush's tax cuts.

In fact, Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee tried to restore $1 billion of the construction money, and proposed paying for it by trimming some of the recent tax cuts for those making more than $1 million. Get this: under Obey's proposal, instead of an $88,300 break, they would've gotten an $83,500 cut.

The Republicans killed the proposal. To Republicans in Congress, $4,800 for their richest benefactors was more important than improving the quality of life of our men and women in uniform.

Can the GOP at least spare a child tax credit for our underpaid soldiers? The Marine Corps Times notes, "House Republicans dig in against child tax credit for combat troops".

This is part of a broader pattern of saluting the troops - with the middle finger - by Bush and the GOP.