Putting it to rest By: Greg Maresca

As the nation hits its taxation stride on its way to April 15th and President Trump’s DOGE continues to reveal profound waste and fraud, a review of the nation’s finances is long overdue.

Take the national deficit.

It is a major underestimation to write the deficit that grows by $10 billion per day according to the AP stylebook. To grasp its full effect, it needs to be written out in numeric form: $10,000,000,000.00.

Take a hard look at all those zeroes, this is just 24 hours’ worth of debt in the life of the American Republic. There are no weekends off or holiday breaks from debt.

When ignored, it just accumulates.

This daily equivalent multiplies to $1 trillion every 100 days. You don’t have to be a bartender, baker or candlestick maker to comprehend that such a mushrooming debt is simply unsustainable.

With Federal spending averaging about 16% of gross domestic product (GDP), the United States became a superpower. Spending has now reached 23%, and the national debt approaches an unprecedented $37,000,000,000,000.00.

The time to act is now.

In essence, our entire political and government establishment is on trial.

It is refreshing to have a president who is not intimidated to do something other than kick the deficit can farther down the road like the last Oval Office occupant. It was about the only thing the Biden administration successfully accomplished besides record inflation.

DOGE is the starting point and like Toto in the Wizard of Oz is pulling back the curtain on the D.C. swamp dwellers. Thanks to DOGE, actor Gene Hackman’s legacy will live on through his films and not by someone collecting his Social Security.

Not surprisingly, the reality is much worse than most could have imagined with the waste and fraud train filled to capacity. What is lost on government bureaucrats is how in the private sector this would be just another day at the office.

Name a department or federal agency besides the Department of Education that must follow USAID and join the ash heap of history.

How about the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)?

Have you ever noticed that when you put the two words ‘The’ and ‘IRS’ together, it spells: ‘Theirs.’

Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act,” allocated billions to the IRS, but a comprehensive review of their own data reveals what they term “tax gaps” failed to collect hundreds of billions, yearly. With apologies to P. J. O’Rourke, giving the IRS power and money is like giving a teenage boy whiskey and your car keys.

In January 2023, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) introduced the Fair Tax Act, that called for abolishing the personal income tax and rein in the IRS. However, nothing has come of it.

The IRS has evolved into a bureaucratic behemoth thanks to a byzantine tax code spanning over 75,000 pages. Such bloat ensures that even the most diligent need help complying. This is by design as the IRS thrives on opacity. Contacting the IRS to help with your taxes is like asking a thief to look after your house while you are on vacation.

The tax industrial complex is a prosperous constancy with the IRS its deity. Computer software and an army of accountants are a must and where penalties for honest mistakes confers the taxation trifecta of grief: penalties, interest and an audit.

Provided it’s serious enough: a jail cell.

Billions are spent annually to file, according to the Tax Foundation that argues for a more “simpler, and transparent tax system,” which might “greatly reduce the cost of compliance for U.S. taxpayers.”

Replace a broken system with one easier, reasonable, and less imposing. A flat tax would eliminate the need for an agency that is a cornerstone of the deep state’s entrenched power.

The IRS is yet another in a long list of federal agencies that are a relic of the past where reform would be a waste of more time and money. For liberty’s sake, the IRS should be dissolved.

The American Revolution was fought over taxation without representation. A nation that is rooted in individual freedom cannot reconcile with an agency that regards its citizens as subjects.

Congress has an historic opportunity to restore economic sovereignty.

To do anything less is un-American.