Let’s address this “taxing the rich” is “patriotic” nonsense.  Bill Clinton’s Labor Secretary Robert Reich qualifies for our rectal-cranial inversion moment of the day.  He wrote in a recent column:

“When arguing against paying their fair share of taxes, wealthy regressives claim ‘it’s my money.’ But it’s their nation, too. And unless they pay their share, America can’t meet the basic needs of our people. True patriotism means paying for America.”

OK .. what is really going on here are three things. 

Number one, Robert Reich is ignorantly implying that the rich currently don’t pay their fair share.  We’ve been through that song and dance time and time again.  We have the most progressive tax system in the industrialized world.  When the top one percent pay close to 40% of the income taxes in this nation, but earn just 20%, I’d consider that to be fair.  Apparently that isn’t good enough for proggies like Robert Reich.

Number two, define the basic needs of the people, Mr. Reich.  I would venture to say that our founding fathers did not envision a government that pays for cell phones, food stamps, home heating, child care … these “basic” needs are unearned income that are being transferred from the evil rich to those who did not earn it.  The problem isn’t that the rich aren’t paying enough; the problem is that the moochers are demanding more from the government … and politicians are willing to give in to those demands in order to secure votes, and therefore retain power.

Number three, where do we get this idea that paying taxes makes you a patriotic American?  Has this truly become the measure of what makes a true patriot?  I would venture to say that the men and women who have fought or died fighting for our freedoms … they are the patriots.  Complying with the law to pay a certain amount of money to a federal government hardly seems patriotic. 

Dear Ruler actually doubled down on this concept of evil rich people paying taxes if they want to be patriots.  Obama says that “true patriots don’t hate the government of the United States.”  He says that “true patriots work to improve the U.S. government, not destroy it. But regressive Republicans loathe the government — and are doing everything they can to paralyze it, starve it, and make the public so cynical about it that it’s no longer capable of doing much of anything.”

What a completely brain dead analysis of the Republican agenda.  This goes back to that tactic we talked about a few weeks ago where Democrats would try to paint Romney as an “extreme libertarian.”  Just because someone preaches the values of our Constitution, limited government with checks and balances and the value of the 10^th Amendment does not mean that you hate government.  What a childish argument to assert and I hope even the government educated among us could see through that load of Bolshoi.