Our real tax problem -- cushy subsistence

Half of American households pay no federal income taxes.

It's become a mantra lately  for conservative politicians and pundits. And it's not, “Yay, half of all households escape the yoke of federal tyranny.” It's “Boo, ya bunch of freeloaders.”

It is true, according to the Tax Policy Center, that 46 percent of U.S. households will not pay federal income taxes for 2011. But who are these moochers? What devious schemes are afoot?

According to the TPC, half of them used, get this, standard deductions and exemptions that exist in the tax code for everyone. Basically, the federal government avoids taxing low, subsistence-level incomes, or the amount of money it takes to live. So a couple with two kids earning $26,400 doesn't pay up. Pretty cushy deal, this subsistence.

The second-largest group of no-taxpayers are elderly Americans, who get an exemption for Social Security income along with other credits and deductions. Next are low-income workers. They receive Earned Income Tax Credits and child tax credits that are refundable, so they get a refund check if credits exceed their tax liability. They probably just blow it on food, rent, gasoline and other luxuries. 

The government, it seems, wants to encourage work and not tax people into starvation. This used to pass for “conservative” thinking back in the day. But on the bright side, many of these dodgers still pay state income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes and all sorts of other government fees. What a relief. Well, not for them.

Clearly, it took great courage to blow the whistle on all this freeloading. Otherwise, we might have gone on thinking a wealthy earner would be better able to absorb a modest tax increase to help tame the federal deficit than, say, the people who clean their pools. Polls show many of us were duped into such nonsense.

Now we know better. The poor are to blame. That woman working in the drive-through tooks familiar. I bet she was the one who brought down Lehman Brothers.

Trouble is, the brave truth-tellers haven't said what is to be done.

When do we get detailed proposals for raising taxes on poor workers and retirees? When do we stick it to struggling parents? How do we go after that subsistence income that's just sitting there, waiting to be tapped?

When will GOP presidential hopefuls tell us how they'll attack the tax-less half? We'd all love to see the plans.

Otherwise, this will look like just some cynical ploy to raise a smoke screen of resentment thick enough to shield powerful interests from sharing in sacrifices needed to put the country back on track. No way. Couldn't be.