Get a grip, Bob. There is a very good reason and you know it. Still, it hurts. And we would be in better shape if Republicans were better. What can you expect from attorneys? Elect some straight people. The two doctors in Congress don't behave like idiots, though I know one Governor, well two now, who do.

While you are resolving to get it right, a big chunk of your base is resolving to get it wrong. Maybe they are that dumb but why didn't they vote? I grew up with fundamentalist Christians and I know how anti Mormon they are. I think the jerks stayed home on election day. Worse, I think their pastors had them stay home. In effect, they voted for Obama who is destroying them. But why should they be different than two other groups that voted for Obama, some of them twice or six times, just like in Chicago and Baltimore and old Mexico.

It is not possible to pay what we owe because we always pay more than the minimum tax that we owe. If we could find all of the deductions and reductions available by law to us, we could pay the correct amount owed, but we cannot. Apple probably missed a few things too and therefore they paid too much. There is no moral obligation to pay more than the minimum owed in tax.

Well, it is clear your field of expertise is not energy, but mine is. When Ransom loudly proclaimed the availability of the shale oil in the Green River Formation, because he lives in Colorado and some of that formation is in Colorado, I questioned his information. When I first studied the shale oil in the Green River Formation over 40 years ago, it could not be removed from the shale. Other shale oil apparently can be and the question was whether he was combining the ability to extract some shale oil with the huge Green River Formation. It is still unavailable and does not yet count.

Furthermore, the IRS criminals would have had to include liberal groups until certain they were not conservatives who were using the same tricks liberals use. So, unless the name included the key word, 'Obama', it had to be examined, however briefly. So, chances are, the 6 % bad guys included with the 94% good guys was just criminal minds erring on the side of caution.

Pretty regressive tax is the sales tax. It may be less regressive than FICA and SS tax, but only because it taxes everyone and not just working Americans. Half the American people do not have taxable income. Half of the rich Americans do not have earned income and do not pay FICA and SS. No Americans with high incomes pay FICA and SS at the same rate as the poorest working Americans. I don't think sales tax is a good idea, even if you could get it substituted, which you cannot. Income tax is here to stay, like communism. Once in, it stays.

Better question is 'Why do you prevent people from working the underground economy?'

People like wars fine, all people, when they see the need. You and yours fail to see the need where others do see the need. Often it is better to fail on the side of caution.

It is not huge, it is totalitarian.

We suspected as much.