Congress is supposed to fund the IRS, and it has been steadily reducing the number of auditors and tax collectors the IRS has at the very time that the tax system has become vastly more complicated. And of course America continues to grow, so there's an increasing number of tax returns coming in. The IRS responds by doing exactly what Congress expects of them. That shouldn't surprise anyone. All bureaucracies do what they are told.

Donald Trump ran for office complaining that at $19 trillion, the US debt was completely out of control, and yet what he's planning to do is throw trillions of dollars more onto that debt. If the proposed tax plan cuts upon the wealthiest Americans is enacted, 10 years from now America's debt will be over $30 trillion. And so, he's contradicting, his own stated positions. And that's because, to Donald, none of this is about policy. It's not about sound economics. It's about greed and the glorification of the great leader.

Senior executives can, after a fashion, get a portion of their pay tax-free. You defer part of your income and not have to pay taxes on it, and then when you retire you have the company buy a life insurance policy on you using that money. The company can deduct that money because it is a business expense, and the money will get paid out to your children or grandchildren when you die, so you have effectively given them your money and it's never been taxed.

I dislike paying taxes as much as anyone, but yes, taxes are the price of civilization. There is no America without taxes. The question isn't, "Do we want to have taxes?" The question is, "How heavy is the burden, and who bears that burden"?

Politicians like to talk about the income tax when they talk about overtaxing the rich, but the income tax is just one part of the total tax system. There are sales taxes, Medicare taxes, social security taxes, unemployment taxes, gasoline taxes, excise taxes - and when you add up all of those taxes [many of which are quite regressive], and then you look at how they affect the rich and the poor, you essentially end up with a system in which the best off 20 percent of Americans pay one percentage point more of their income than the worst off 20 percent of Americans.

In 1990, about 1 percent of American corporate profits were taken in tax havens like the Cayman Islands. By 2002, it was up to 17 percent, and it'll be up to 20-25 percent very quickly. It's a major problem. Fundamentally, we have a tax system designed for a national, industrial, wage economy, which is what we had in the early 1900s. We now live in a global, asset-based, services world. And we need to have a tax system that follows the economic order or it's going to interfere with economic growth, it's going to reduce people's incomes, and it's going to damage the US.

Donald Trump is a master salesman. And he creates his own reality. So if he tells you, "This is a middle-class tax cut, and I, Donald Trump, won't benefit," he expects you to believe that. It doesn't matter that it's not true. It's he said it, you're supposed to believe it. And that's how he's run his entire administration. If he says it, that makes it true.