Ana Veciana-Suarez

There are few things more infuriating than the suspicion that someone has gotten away with something, particularly if the rest of us haven't. Human nature is such that inequities, real or perceived, stick in our craws like a Tootsie Roll.

That's probably why a New York Times story about General Electric not paying taxes rubbed so many people the wrong way, yours truly included. I was in the middle of the annual torture of putting together the family's tax receipts and bank statements when I read the news.

With worldwide profits of $14.2 billion in 2010, $5.1 billion of it in the United States, the multinational behemoth paid zip in federal taxes. Zip as in none, nada. The story went on to say that the company spent $4.1 million on outside lobbyists last year, including four firms that specialize in tax policy. And, get this: GE's tax department is considered one of the world's best, with a village-size 975 employees, including a former Treasury official at the helm. I suppose that's what GE means by Imagination at Work.

I was so ticked I fired off a story link to friends who, like me, were spending hours trying to figure out how to defang their own tax bite. It might be unseemly to print some of the responses, but here's a hint: Imagine the anger you feel when a car cuts in on the expressway ramp after you've been patiently waiting your turn. Multiply that by 100 and that approximates the rage.

Turns out, however, that contrary to what the Times story implied, GE has been paying estimated taxes for 2010 all along. It just doesn't know how much because it hasn't completed its tax return.

Still, the debate over GE's taxes speaks to that niggling worry we, the middle class, have been nursing for some time: The rich are getting richer on our backs. Corporations don't share in the pain. And no one, not the Republicans, not the Democrats, care s about anything but lining his own pockets.

I can't get through a dinner party without an argument erupting along those lines; it's a recurring theme in practically every discussion about money, politics and the future of our country. Has it always been like this, or is there a growing concern, a pit-in-the-stomach anxiety for the generation that follows?

I worry for my son and grandchildren, a friend told me.

My kids are going to have it worse, lamented another.

Our nightmarish tax code, with its labyrinth of rules, exemptions and credits, is but one example of how people feel put upon. Hold your ear to the ground to hear the rumblings: It's not only GE that pays less than its fair share. It's the government worker down the street with her fat pension and the businessman who uses his company for all kinds of deductions. It's the investment banker with his seven-figure bonus and the corporation with its offshore accounts. It is everyone but us, whoever that "us" happens to be.

Much has already been written about candidates launching 2012 presidential bids, but I have yet to hear a single one address what has become a pervasive all-American attitude: the sense of exclusion, the feeling of being left out from the bounty everyone else seems to be enjoying.