Like the crisis in Medicare, the crisis in Social Security is a staple of conservative political punditry. The latest projections are that Medicare will go bankrupt in 2030 and Social Security in 2033. The word “bankrupt” here is a bit of a misnomer. What these dates really represent are the dates on which Medicare and Social Security will start becoming net burdens on the federal budget instead of net contributors to the federal budget (according to the arcane accounting rules by which these programs are governed). The so-called Social Security and Medicare trust funds are little more than accounting devices, as even most conservatives agree. But the Social Security and Medicare programs themselves are core functions of government that together consume over 40% of total government expenditure. Surely they are indispensable parts of whatever it is that a government does, and should be financed as such.

Who pays for the core functions of government? Conservatives are fond of pointing out that most income taxes are paid by the rich, or at least by the well-off. Technically speaking, they are correct. More than half of all personal income tax is paid by households with incomes of over $200,000 a year. Most of the rest is paid by households in the top half of the income distribution. Conservatives are also fond of pointing out that many households pay no personal income tax at all. Again, technically speaking, they are correct. In most years almost half of all households pay no personal income tax, most (but not all) of them relatively poor households. Mitt Romney was essentially correct about the bottom 47% of American household that pay little or no income tax.

Mitt Romney was right, that is, about income tax. If you don’t have income, you don’t pay income tax. For the 18 million Americans who want jobs but don’t have jobs, not paying income tax is the least of their worries. Ditto retired people getting by on Social Security and single parents caring for young children. Then there are the people who work but who earn so little that their tax credits outweigh their tax liabilities.