One legitimate criticism of George Bush' conduct of the war is that he did not ask the majority of Americans to sacrifice anything to achieve victory. All we had to do to insure the defeat of terrorism was to "go shopping". By way of contrast, the homefront during World War II was caught up in war bond drives, converting civilian industry to building war materials, collecting metal for tanks, making patriotic (some say 'propaganda') movies and so forth.
During last year's political campaign, Vice President Biden may have stumbled onto something when he said that it is every American's patriotic duty to pay taxes. The stimulus plan just passed by Congress has been rightly criticized from almost every angle. Really, though, to make it more palatable could be as simple as pointing out how much the current economic situation has hurt the likes of OPEC, Russia, Iran and Venezuela. Sure it's a sacrifice for Americans to watch their retirement savings disappear, but if it helps marginalize nasty tyrants like Putin, Chavez and the others, maybe it's worth it!
I'd feel better about it, though, if most of those IOU's weren't going to be held by China and Saudi Arabia.
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