First off... anyone making $19k a year isn't paying income taxes. I think the standard deduction/independant income line is somewhere around $24k. So anyone who thinks that 19k is an upgrade, is already paying $0 in federal income tax. The people who are expressing envy over the lack of income taxes, are the people who are making $30k. I don't know many people who would drop their $30k/year job to for a $19k/year job just to avoid income tax. If they exist, then... I guess they're free to make that jump and reap the loss of what... $7k a year in spendable income?
My mom would have gladly paid a couple thousand in income tax if it would mean that her salary would jump to $30k. And, yeah, she could have paid $1 in income taxes. But what is the point? Let's say that the 40% of the country that pays no income tax were forced to pay $1... no, wait, let's make it $500 dollars. Now, for many of them, that would be a significant, painful increase in taxes that would hurt their standard of living. That would generate... $75B in taxes. That's significant... except when you realize that the Bush tax-cuts-for-the-rich dropped tax revenues by $1T. So, if given the choice, should we impose a painful tax on the poor and generate a small amount of money, or a barely-noticeable tax on the wealthy and generate 13 times more money? If you still want to talk about income tax levels of $1 or $10, then the amount of revenue generated is so small that it's only there to poke the poor and make them feel bad. No, it doesn't hurt them, but it doesn't help the country either.
And finally, I love people who complain that these "parasite" poor people aren't paying for the use of common services. Understand that without that 40% of people, many of those common services wouldn't exist, largely because they wouldn't have workers or the infrastructure they need to function.
And in case you think that I'm just biased... I make way, way more than my mom. I pay taxes. Quite a bit, actually. And unlike most people who complain about income tax rates, I've seen both sides. I gladly pay my taxes because I realize that if I pay even an extra $1000 in taxes, it won't really affect me, and that would mean that there are ten families out there that won't lose $100 in food or clothes.
And that is totally independent of the discussion of how to spend revenues. The whole point that a large portion of the country doesn't pay income tax, because the income disparity is so wide. And that income disparity is wide and growing because far too many of the wealthy (or nearly wealthy like me) are driven by selfishness and greed and would rather buy a new car for themselves than help other families feed their children, and they make themselves feel better by telling themselves that there are loads of people who are trying to keep their income low so they can live off the handouts of the wealthy. The reality is... different. But it's sickeningly common for the wealthy to be completely unaware of how the majority of the country actually lives.