Last week, Republicans in Harrisburg called for cutting the personal net income tax without spelling out how the state could afford it. Now members of the Commonwealth Caucus, a mostly Republican group, want to cut the sales tax and eliminate school property taxes. This time it's clear who would bear the brunt of the change: low-income Pennsylvanians.

The conservative lawmakers want to cut the 6 percent sales tax to 5 percent, and at the same time apply the tax to a wider range of items like food, clothing and services. Even at the lower rate, the expanded sales tax would bring in $16 billion to $17 billion a year, the group claims, enough to cover the $7 billion now raised plus offset school property taxes on homes and businesses.

What a deal. A plan that takes from the poor and gives to the rich. Why didn't they think of this before?

The proposal would give a tax break to property owners -- businesses and individuals alike -- that would be borne, to a degree, by people unable to afford their own homes. By paying sales tax on food and clothing, low-income Pennsylvanians will have to shell out more to the government just to afford life's necessities. In short, Pennsylvania should start taxing milk, bread and socks so that property owners, regardless of income or profit level, can pay no school tax.

Prior to the dawn of George Bush's "ownership society," such a plan would have been denounced as regressive, meaning low-income people get hit disproportionately harder than those with more money. That much is inevitable if basics like food and clothing become taxed in Pennsylvania.

Even though everyone would pay the same 5 percent rate, the fact that more necessities would be taxed means that low-income people would be giving up in sales tax a greater percentage of their income than their more fortunate neighbors. That's why keeping food and clothing tax-free has been one of Pennsylvania's most benevolent laws.

The irony is that the Commonwealth Caucus argues that this plan will make home ownership more affordable. Correction: It will make school property taxes more affordable, but put home ownership further out of reach for people who must struggle to save.

No one likes taxes, but if legislators want to talk seriously about reducing them, they should cut the cost of government, not reshuffle the tax burden to those who can least afford it.