Bob McCarty Writes

Throughout the morning, Fox News Channel — and at least one Minnesota affiliate — featured coverage of workers struggling to rescue a worker trapped by a cave-in at an Eden Prairie, Minn., construction site. After watching several updates, I began to see Fox’s video portrait of the tension-filled events as offering an object lesson in describing the plight of American taxpayers:

• The role of the overburdened taxpayer was played by the man trapped beneath the soil;

• The role of the IRS tax code was played by the soil; and

• The role of the army of accountants and attorneys one must hire when faced with a tax audit was played by rescuers.

Sadly, too few lawmakers realize that if a flat tax or national sales tax were implemented, we could both relieve taxpayers from the incredible pressures placed upon them by the current tax code and eliminate our need to maintain an army of rescuers whose primary job is to rescue those same people from unwanted and unnecessary emergencies.