Patriotism & Taxes: The Big Lie

by: Maryscott O'Connor

Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 08:51:19 AM EDT

It's time for someone to tell Republicans to stop lying to the American people about taxes, and maybe Joe Biden is the perfect man for the job.

Biden calls paying higher taxes a patriotic act
WASHINGTON - Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Thursday that paying more in taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans. The Republican campaign for president calls the tax increases their Democratic opponents propose "painful" instead of patriotic.

Under the economic plan proposed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, people earning more than $250,000 a year would pay more in taxes while those earning less - the vast majority of American taxpayers - would receive a tax cut.

"We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people," Biden said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Noting that wealthier Americans would indeed pay more, 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."

I'm not a speechwriter, but god, I wish I were, because the time is RIPE for The Speech About Taxes; the one that spells out, for once and all, in clear and concise and simple language to the American people, just what a load of bullshit they've been sold by the Republican Party each and every single time they've heard this "Taxes are Bad" propaganda line. And not just, as any sensible person knows, because taxes pay for our roads and our police forces and military and schools and on and on and on -- but because this whole bill of goods they keep selling is based on the fallacy that Republicans actually give a good goddamn about the taxes that the majority of Americans pay, when all they really care about is that it appears they care about it, that it appears they're for cutting taxes for everyone -- when what they really care about is cutting taxes for the wealthy and for the corporate and for the oligarchic.

Paying taxes is patriotic, in the most basic sense of the word: contributing to the common good along with the rest of your fellow citizens, contributing your fair share to pay for common goods and services is patriotic.

You want to know what's unpatriotic? Weaseling out of paying your fair share, that's what. Taking and taking and taking and when it comes time to put something back into the kitty, looking around and finding a buddy in the system who'll get you a backdoor pass. That's unpatriotic. That's downright shameful. John McCain and his Republican Party and their corporate buddies and lobbyist enablers have been pulling that shit for decades and turning around and calling themselves the patriots -- and getting away with it.

And it's about goddamned time someone stood up, pulled the covers off them and told the truth about it.