I haven't liked much of what Ben Stein has written recently for the business section of The New York Times, but I appreciate the proposal he made in yesterday's column:

...What keeps going through my mind is that there is a big, yet always unstated, connection between ... on one hand, the megastars of Wall Street and corporate boardrooms, with their vast paychecks, yachts and horse farms in the Hamptons, and, on the other, the grunts in body armor chasing down terrorists half a world away in 130-degree heat....

The men and women in the Armani suits, who get the huge paychecks - and who, again, do work I sincerely appreciate and admire - could not exist for long if they were not being shielded by the men and women in uniforms and boots...

This is not leading up to a specific policy prescription beyond what my father and I have been saying for decades: that upper-income people like me (and I am a welfare mother by Wall Street standards) should pay more tax, and people in uniform should get more pay....

And this morning, USA Today says paying more money to soldiers works:

Soldiers are re-enlisting at rates ahead of the Army's targets, even as overall recruiting is suffering after two years of the Iraq war....

Army officials attribute the strong re-enlistment rates to unprecedented cash bonuses and a renewed sense of purpose in fighting terrorism. Some of the record bonuses are tax-free if soldiers re-enlist while in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Re-enlistment bonuses range from as little as $1,000 to as much as $150,000, depending on the type of job and length of re-enlistment. The $150,000 bonuses are offered only to senior special operations commandos who agree to stay in the military for up to six more years. The average bonus is $10,000, said Col. Debbra Head, who monitors Army retention at the Pentagon....

Of course, we keep cutting taxes on the rich, not raising them.

So here's my recommendation: The Democrats should call for precisely what Ben Stein's talking about -- a tax on the wealthy, but a dedicated tax, with all revenues going to troops in combat zones, in the form of pay increases and reenlistment bonuses. And here's the twist: The tax can be rolled back -- but only if the deployment of troops in war zones falls well below current levels.

Because the rich would get a tax cut if we withdraw from Iraq (or, alternately, find a way to actually defeat the insurgency), they'd have a reason to care how the war is going, a reason to question whether it's the right war, and whether it's being fought the right way. The Bush/Rumsfeld/Rove approach to Iraq -- endless war with inadequate troop strength -- would upset them, because it would take money out of their pockets.

Sorry -- every so often I need a nice pipe dream.