"I lived through Bush vs. Gore as it happened on a sunny California Sunday, when democracy died along with the rule of law by five felons supreme in their lying and arrogance."

Just for fun, let's see how long it takes before anyone on this blog notices that the above sentiment is EXACTLY THE SAME as that uttered by the psychotics on the far right.

Great post P; it was Johnston's book that convinced me that the Dems need to run on the issue of tax fairness next year.

This news is not new news. Lots of us have studeid tax policy since WWII and well before. It is the same news that's been known for a long time. The big issue is the MSM noise machine telling everyone it's resonable. During the Reagan admin. when the super-tragedies of the tax code started to be played out through lobbyests, the MSM failed to call it what it was. The neo-con and republi-con "zombies for greed" think it's just fine because it's "pro business," yet they don't have the capacity to understand it's the undoing of many of the principles we assumed this country stood for.

The only hope is voting reform. If your State does not have paper-trail machines, do everything you can to get them. It's bad enough to have a government for and by business, but to let the fuckers steal the vote too is unconscienable. Get loud and get a real vote.

I'm afraid that the battle to have any sort of fairness in the Tax Code is lost. The Republicans have done an excellent job of demonizing government and people think that taxes are inherently evil and that somehow a dollar spent on taxes is worse than a 3 dollars spent on anything else. This was brought home to me by my mother-in-law who was of modest means. I was unable to talk her out of a decision that cost her $5,000 so that she could save $1500 in tax.

The IRS is woefully understaffed when it comes to actually collecting money. My guess is that the current Commissioner is actually sincere in wanting to collect the $ that are due the government, but he is too hide bound by Washington ways. I remember being at a meeting that he was at and the topic of private collection agencies was brought up. It was pointed out to him that with then pending legislation, these private agencies would collect 25% of what they collected, while if additional IRS employees were hired to do the job it would cost 3% of what was collected. His answer to that was that unfortunately, hiring more employees was not in the budget mark up, whatever that meant. Apparently, that could not be changed, no matter however illogical.

Absolutely agree about the vote. While we have to work on all fronts, nothing is possible if we can't guarantee that elections are fair and verifiable.

We can talk about taxes, we can talk about unjust and wasteful wars, we can talk about government lying and clueless MSM.

None of it means anything if we can't secure an honest election.

The sad truth is, MONEY is the mother's milk of politics -- always has been, always will be.

What the uber rich and korporate kleptocrats have figured out is that a small amount of cash applied judiciously to the political system offers a better rate of return than ANY product of service. Not just better, but better by a factor of 10 or 20 or 100 to 1.

What they have also learned is that threatening to destroy those who oppose them is far more effective than bi-partisan palm greasing. That's why the Democrats are complicit in the deals that produced this manifestly unprogressive tax code; that's how big pharma and the health insurance industry have blocked universal health care in the USA. The REAL third rail in American Politics is Big Money -- get near it, your hair stands on end; piss on it, you die.

Remember -- it was the building of Hoover Dam that created the 6 companies conglomerate, which gave rise to Kellogg, Brown, & Root. LBJ was known as the Senator from KBR -- they made out like bandits in Vietnam, just like they are making out like bandits in Iraq.

On the Frontline special on Karl Rove, it mentioned that one of his touchstones is voter anger -- that is absolutely key to the GOP's success.

The reptilian brain / limbic system emotions of anger-fear-greed-lust-hate are more powerful than the higher brain functions of love-compassion-understanding-reason and things like that. Fear conquers Love -- not the other way around.

By selling out to big money, Democrats gave up anger as a wedge issue with working stiffs -- giving the Rove Atwater GOP the opportunity to exploit anger, through the wedge issues of culture, race, elitism, religion, and all of the others that are behind the "What's the Matter with Kansas" phenomena. The GOP had a lock on anger; 9/11 gave them a lock on fear.

FDR understood anger as a wedge issue -- his "malefactors of great wealth" was perfectly attuned to his times.

Today, the Democrats are casting about for a message, that will not offend the K Street Kommandos -- the Waffen SS of Big Money in America. Unfortunately, being GOP Lite or pseudo progressives doesn't cut it anymore -- we need a real opposition party, not a sham me-too-go-along-to-get-along opposition.

Hopefully, the internet fundraising model of the Dean campaign will have a spine stiffening effect on the party as a whole -- but I'm not holding my breath.