A message to tea partiers, conservatives, Republicans and other assorted angry people: Get a new bumper sticker, find a new issue.

An article first published in USA Today recently, based on a report by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, revealed a startling truth - Americans haven’t paid this little of tax in nearly two generations.

You’d have to go back to 1950 to find a lower tax rate.

The story said that federal, state and local taxes ate up 9.2 percent of all personal income in 2009 well below the average of 12 percent for the past halfcentury.

For nearly every taxpayer, that means taxes have never been so low.

So for Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin and all those other prattling and babbling about no new taxes, I say, “Fine. How about the old ones, then?”

How ‘bout those oldtimey taxes that went to pay for such things as publicly

funded universities,

well-apportioned schools, “socialized” medicine in

the form of Medicare and bridges that don’t fall into the Mississippi River.

The mantra of “no new taxes” and the “we’re-being taxed-to-death” battle cry are nothing more than emotional ruses.

Taxes aren’t the problem. They are a symptom.

Our tax rate may have changed, but, more important, our attitudes have changed.

In other words, it’s the idea behind the taxes.

We’ve confused this nation of self-avowed individuals with selfishness.

There is public good in things like roads, bridges, schools, health care and a justice system. That public good necessitates that we all pay our share.

“No new taxes” is just a softer way of saying, “I’ll keep what’s mine,” without realizing the roads, the bridges and the schools are also in the “mine” category.

But a credit card generation has learned you can have everything you want, now. From there, everything you can have has morphed into you should have everything you desire.

A community of air conditioned homes has meant no more on-the-porch gab sessions with the neighbors. We’ve forgotten that

the facts

we may be a nation of individuals living in communities connected by roads, sewer systems and power lines.

We’ve been spoiled by coasting off the shared sacrifice of previous taxpayers who did without so that a community had roads, schools and parks.

Now, as the roads crumble, the schools age and get crowded, and the park grass gets a little less water and grows a little taller, we simultaneously shake our heads wondering how government can be this inept and spend so much. That convenient fallacy leads us to believe that we should keep our money because we could do a better job.

Greed and entitlements.

We are a nation of spoiled children who cannot stand the idea of “no” and must be gratified. We’d rather spend the money on candy instead of save for a rainy day.

It’s so easy to blame taxes, or to advocate throwing the bums out.

That doesn’t really solve the problem, though.

Ehrlick is the editor of the Winona Daily News.