I don't know why liberals let conservatives monopolize the rhetoric on patriotism. Perhaps they recoil from the hooey in much of the flag talk by the right. But liberals love their country too.

Brad DeLong, one of them, makes the obvious point that long-run federal debt weakens the economy. He notes uncontroversially that the only way to reduce the long-run debt is to cut spending or raise taxes. And he suggests that those who encourage crippling debt by retaining the Bush tax cuts -- absent revenue or spending offsets to pay for them -- are anti-American. DeLong:

And I am very tired of seeing the Wall Street Journal try, yet again, to weaken and impoverish America by raising the long-term debt and its burden on the economy. I've watched this for thirty years. America is poorer and weaker because of it. And I am sick of it.

There is room for legitimate debate about the timing of the expiring tax cuts. Do their long-run contribution to solvency and the political ease with which Democrats can accomplish them (they have to do nothing) outweigh the burden the expiring cuts will put on what's likely to be a still-gasping economy?

Timing aside, the long-run solution of course involves both spending cuts and tax increases, as the NYT's David Leonhardt has shown. Wisconsin's Paul Ryan has been getting attention for his fiscal plan, but even the tea partiers looove their Medicare too much to buy what he's offering.