One effect of Mitt Romney’s crass comments about Americans who pay no income taxes is to expose to public view a radical ideology that most Americans would likely repudiate.

It is a radical and novel view to say that government should not be in the business of redistributing income. Redistributing income is one of the primary functions of any government; the question is whether money is redistributed fairly.

President Reagan referred to the earned income tax credit as one of the greatest antipoverty programs because it provided a tax credit to low-income workers, creating an incentive to work and helping families lift themselves out of poverty. President George W. Bush expanded the child tax credit, which further reduced the tax burden on families. These were conservative instances of income redistribution designed to enhance economic fairness.

The anti-tax ideology that Romney supports goes far beyond the conservative politics of Reagan and Bush. That is why it is radical. Almost all Republican members of Congress have pledged to vote against any new tax, which means they have chosen to don a radically rigid ideological straitjacket. In fact, the taxes Americans pay now are at an all-time low. But to the radical right, they can never be low enough.

The radical right may have overplayed its hand. President Obama’s continuing strength in the polls suggests that the electorate may not be ready to embrace an ideology as constricted and callous as that described by Romney. Is that because, as Romney suggests, a high percentage of voters are on the take? Rather, it appears that voters have a firmer grip on reality than Romney and the right. The political bugaboos of the right no longer frighten voters. It is common sense, not socialism, that government must redistribute wealth. We would not have Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits, national parks, scientific research, clean air and water, safe air travel, interstate highways, or children free of starvation without a great deal of redistribution.

The plurality of voters who appear to favor Obama is often described in terms of its demographic characteristics. Women favor Obama, as do young people, Hispanics and African-Americans. A better way to view the people who belong to these categories is as Americans. When their numbers favor Obama, that means a majority of Americans favor Obama.

If Obama eventually wins the race, that means a majority of Americans recognize that fair, pragmatically useful redistribution of wealth through taxation and government programs is a reality we cannot back away from. The radical anti-government conservatism that metastasized from the conservatism of Ronald Reagan would disarm us of the means, recognized even by Reagan, for increasing economic justice and for using the government as the catalyst for positive change.

Conservative politics suffered a blow in 2008 because of the economic collapse that showcased the inadequacies of their economic approach. The American people suddenly saw that without proper oversight and regulation, business was prone to dangerous recklessness and corruption.

But conservative ideologues, rather than allow themselves to be chastened by events, doubled down on their message, creating an anti-government program more extreme even than Bush’s. In 2010, widespread unhappiness growing out of the Great Recession caused voters to sweep tea party conservatives into office, reversing the liberal turn taken in 2008. But the extreme rhetoric of the right this year could well expose to light the thin gruel that constitutes the tea party message.

One message that Obama needs to hammer home with voters is that they should give him a Congress that will work with him. Republicans in Congress have shown they are interested only in obstruction, even at the cost of prolonging the economic slump. Romney and his running mate criticized the long overdue decision by the Federal Reserve to stimulate the economy, saying economic stimulus would be the equivalent of a sugar high.

In other words, ideological purity is more important than actual jobs in the actual world for actual Americans of whatever category.

— The Rutland (Vt.) Herald