Fixing the Tax Code Is a Piece of Cake
But a really fine cake that pleases a large dinner-party takes a while to bake and has a whole lot of ingredients.
Step #1 Throw out the old cake
The old cake, the current Tax Code as been around since the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1913. The recipe was for a different cake, a different dinner-party and an entirely different country.
1913 found America still largely agrarian, just beginning to get comfortable with its industrial revolution and about to be sucked in to the First World War. Yet to come (and in short order) was the burst of economic enthusiasm as war ended, followed by the 1929 stock-market crash, the Great Depression, President Roosevelt’s New Deal and World War Two.
Considering the times and turmoil, the old cake served amazingly well, but turning the recipe over to Congress confirmed the advice against too many cooks. Special interests added sugar, industry lobbyists wanted more salt and as we tended to gravitate toward war as an industrial product t…