A budget has two sides

The main problem with the Republican budget plan for the next decade is that it does not cut even half as deep as it should. One thing to realize is that trying to cut waste from some government departments is not enough when those departments are the waste. (Start with the Department of Education if you want to make my day.) It is not enough to prevail on the spending side of the current debate. It is time to realize how deeply flawed our system of taxation is. Admitting that wealth is created through hard work and entrepreneurship and then proceeding to discourage higher productivity and market success by progressive taxation of income and profits is as bizarre as the behavior of the residents of Lewis Carroll's Wonderland. What I expect from the reformers in government is a constitutional amendment removing the IRS from our backs.

The current taxation system creates perverse incentives on the production side of the economy, lowering simultaneously the benefits of excelling in your field and the cost of idleness for the individual. It incites resentment among groups and breeds political conflicts over both the sharing of the burdens of taxation and the distribution of the government largesse. It also misallocates resources and costs households, businesses, and our government more than enough to put all of Africa on food stamps. Just consider the total number of hours and money spent on IRS enforcement and the efforts to comply with the insane tax codes, not to mention the wasteful accounting and legal work that guides big business through countless loopholes to avoid paying taxes.

The president wants his rich buddies to pay "a little bit more." That's fine with me-as a teacher I don't expect to get rich anytime soon. But please have some sense and do not incentivize them to shift their investments abroad. Do not punish them for creating wealth and giving us jobs and make them pay "their fair share" while they are having fun spending their money. It is time to put those congressional brains of yours together and come up with a plan not only how to lower the tax burden but also how to shift it from the production to the consumption side.