There is a good argument to be made that raising taxes for anyone in the midst of a recession--or an anemic recovery--such as we are experiencing is unwise. What drives me bananas, however, are two terms that Republicans always trot out in debates over taxes. One term is "punish," as in, "Why do they want to punish people for being successful," i.e., rich. The other is "class warfare." Is it "punishment" to expect those who have benefitted most from our system--our laws, our economic and financial systems--to contribute more to it? Is it "class warfare" to point out that those who have benefitted the most from the system ought to bear a greater share of the burden of maintaining it?Both terms suggest to me that those who use them have no real sense of a commonweal, just as they have no real sense of what real class warfare is like. Let us pray that our nation's growing income inequality never gets so bad that they really find out.