Flag waving and tax griping

I've always seen a strange and hypocritical correlation between obsessive griping about paying Federal income taxes and excessive flag-waving patriotism. This linkage is a benchmark for those on the right wing of the political spectrum. It is personified by the likes of such politicos as Tom DeLay, the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, and his allies. To these super-patriots the very idea of raising taxes or of revoking tax cuts is as repulsive as castor oil. Providing the intellectual underpinning for the tax-bashers are the ultra-conservative think tanks--the American Conservative Union, Cato Institute, National Taxpayers Union, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Union, and the Club for Growth.
What also binds most of these individuals and organizations is the kind of chest-thumping patriotism that considers opposition to the Iraq war as traitorous and advocacy of such social issues as welfare, workers rights, abortion rights, gun control, and civil rights as dangerous radical ideas. They slur political opponents as unpatriotic if not disloyal.
Don't get me wrong. I don't love paying taxes any more than the next guy. But where do we get the revenue to pay for such critical public needs as homeland security, military defense, highways, airport safety, regulation of vital industries, etc.? Certainly not by tax-cutting during wartime and by transforming healthy budget surpluses into mountainous national debt that will burden generations to come..