Conservatives truly love America and support the armed forces, while liberals are unpatriotic draft dodgers.
Joe ConasonDozens of America's wealthiest taxpayers - including hedge fund legend Michael Steinhardt, super trial lawyer Guy Saperstein, and Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's fame - have appealed to President Obama not to renew the Bush tax cuts for anyone earning more than $1 million a year.
Joe ConasonThe Patriotic Millionaires campaign, pulled together quickly by the Agenda Project in New York City, just happens to appear on the same day as a new study from the Center for Responsive Politics revealing that half of the members of the House and the Senate are millionaires.
Joe ConasonThe problem isn't that conservatives are wrong about the efficiency of markets or the creativity of enterprise. It's that they have made false idols of both, usually without acknowledging that markets work best when well regulated, that private enterprise cannot meet every human need, that government has always played a critical role in our economy, and that the profit motive can be socially and environmentally destructive as well as dynamic.
Joe ConasonNot surprisingly, some of the super-rich declined to join the Patriotic Millionaires when the Agenda Project reached out to them. At least two airily dismissed the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and above - which will cost well over $700 billion over the coming decade - as small potatoes.
Joe Conason