Republicans proudly champion freedom. Freedom from health care. Freedom from clean air and water. Freedom from immigrant potato pickers.
The holiest of holies for Republican true believers, however, is freedom from taxation. Taxes must go down and never, ever go up.
In 2011, however, Republicans have undergone something of a conversion. They are content to see taxes rise.
Indeed, they are pushing for tax increases. Of course, not higher tax bills for multinational corporations or Americans with seven- or eight-figure annual incomes.
Republicans are targeting the sick and unemployed, the indigent and elderly, as well as working-class families struggling to raise children.
These are what Wall Street Journal editorial writers and Fox News talking heads call the "lucky duckies."
The "lucky duckies" may ride the bus, strain to pay the rent and choose between eating and paying the heat bill. Yet one aspect of their lives is ever so enviable: They do not pay federal income taxes.
Nearly half of Americans pay no federal income tax. Let us pause for a moment to let the reader's jealousy seethe.
Yet who would want to change places with this "other half"?