In the United States, unlike any other advanced democracy, money really talks. Our Supreme Court has said that spending money on politicians is a form of free speech. No other court has said that.

I really like the idea of consumption tax, and most countries have a pretty serious consumption tax. It's called a value-added tax or a goods and services tax ... It's a sales tax. It doesn't tax labor, it doesn't tax savings or investment - it taxes consumption.

Relative to the world's other advance democracies, Americans get off easy on tax day. Of the 35 richest countries, the U.S. ranks 32nd in total tax burden.

The income tax only taxed the Rockefellers, the Morgans and the Vanderbilts. It was aimed at the top 4 percent, and the top rate then in 1913, was 7 percent. Woodrow Wilson had a big ceremony and said, "I'm delighted to be president at the creation of this popular new tax."

Corporations use all sorts of complex stratagems to move their profits overseas, and thus escape the U.S. income tax.

In the United States, unlike any other advanced democracy, money really talks. Our Supreme Court has said that spending money on politicians is a form of free speech. No other court has said that.

It used to be that we taxed property - zapped farmers basically. And there were very rich people who didn't pay that much tax. So in 1913, they put in the income tax. It was incredibly popular. The tax we love to hate today.