Millions of Americans are spending this week preparing to get fleeced by our government...I mean to pay their taxes. And as the tax code gets more embarassingly, absurdly and unconscionably complex, more Americans have to pay somebody else to prepare their tax returns. Aside from wasting nearly 6 billion hours dealing with incomprehensible IRS forms and spending almost $200 billion to deal with income taxes, there are thousands of smart and hard-working people whose time spent in tax-preparation careers could be put to more productive use. Tax simplification would yield not only an economic boon but also increased faith in government.

However, the byzantine tax code is where much of the graft in Washington takes place. Lobbyists' return on campaign donation investments are frequently manifested as loopholes and special rules, which is why the tax code runs over 60,000 pages now. House and Senate members have no incentive to radically simplify a tax code that they can use to stealthily reward donors and minipulate our behavior through economic incentives and disincentives.

This is why I propose, employing the crafty tendency of politicians to name their legislation in such a way as to come up with fancy acronyms, the USA-FATCATS Act (Undertaking to Save America by Forbiding Accounting Tips for Congressmen to Achieve Tax Simplification). My proposed law is quite simple: members of the House and Senate would be forbidden from using any outside assistance in the preparation of their tax returns. The theory is that if Senators and House members had to do their own taxes, we would have tax simplification rather quickly.