Biden wants rich to pay for Iraq

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The White House yesterday delivered to Congress its proposal for $87 billion in additional war costs, and Democrats began drafting plans to bill wealthy Americans for it.

"The choices are stark but the answer to me is absolutely clear how to pay for this," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., Delaware Democrat, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

His plan would repeal one year of President Bush's tax cut for the wealthiest Americans to pay for the extra war costs.

Several Democrats have signed onto the idea, and Mr. Biden said even some Republicans expressed optimism about his plan. He declined to identify them.

Publicly, Republicans were cool to the idea yesterday.

"I don't think they ought to be playing these class-warfare games in the midst of winning this war on terrorism," said Sen. George Allen, Virginia Republican.

Mr. Biden said he floated his idea among some of his wealthiest friends in Delaware and they all liked it.

"They know it's right; they know it's fair," he said of the wealthiest 1 percent, who paid 37 percent of the nation's personal taxes in 2000. "No one has asked anything of them."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said: "Most of the top-rate payers are business owners. They need to be competitive because they're the ones who employ folks. The last thing we need to do up here is stifle the economy."