



I agree with Joe Biden. Biden said: "It's time to be patriotic ... time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut." Tax cuts in a time of war, or a time of massive financial crisis, are unpatriotic. But not just tax cuts for the rich.

This should flow logically from rightwing positions as well as from "kitchen table" common sense that you can't spend more than you make. As I wrote in 2005:

"In times of war when the military needs every cent for armor, bullets and bandages, it is verging on treasonous to avoid paying taxes even if the methods used are ostensibly legal. It certainly isn't supporting the troops or the war on terror."

That was the point about the "Good War', WW2. Everyone shared the fiscal burden. Either a war is worth that commitment or it isn't, and rightwingers have consistently argued that the War on Some Terror is a generational war just as vital as WW2. Bush in 2005 said it:

World War II generation endured great suffering and sacrifice because they understood that defeating tyranny in Europe and Asia was essential to the security and freedom of America. Like previous wars we have waged to protect our freedom, the war on terror requires great sacrifice from Americans.

So, here's the sacrifice. Put your money where your mouths are and make it.

Similiarly, the financial crisis is going to add 1 to 2 trillion dollars to a national debt which, at $9.6 trillion, is already more by six or seven trillion than the federal government takes in every year and which has been ballooned to pay for those wars - for which few have made any kind of sacrifice. I don't care what's being said on the stump - tax cuts are a pipedream of fiscal irresponsibility and there isn't enough pork in the budget to cover the coming bill, by a factor of 100.

Thank you, the Bush administration and Republican politicians, for those woes - by pushing dumb lending decisions by mandate while at the same time encouraging an utter lack of oversight of get-rich-quick exploiters. Thank you, flip-flopper McCain, who has always been an enemy of oversight for the financial markets (right up until yesterday). Thank you, in particular, Phil Gramm - John McCain's adviser.

Do Republicans intend shouldering collective responsibility for the debt and making a sacrifice - paying more taxes - or do they intend to shove their responsibility for payment off onto their grandchildren?

Apparently the latter. Ed Morrissey today tells his readers "America’s economic woes have nothing to do with taxes." Well, Ed, they do if the country wants to ever recover from those woes. Be honest enough to say so.

The final word comes from Melissa McEwan, explaining how progressives should push back hard against the Right on this.

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: "I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization." And I've always thought the Democrats should use that, should connect, at every opportunity, paying taxes and buying civilization. Every time some bloviating nitwit conservative goes on about how the government never gave him nuttin', the Democrats should say: "Oh, you've never used roads? Never mailed anything? Never logged on to the internet?" And every time the Republicans talk about the Democrats wanting to raise taxes, the Dems should retort: "Yes, we want to raise taxes on those who can afford it, because with taxes, we buy civilization. We build schools and bridges and freaking spaceships. You got a problem with that?"

Indeed.

Crossposted from Newshoggers