Excerpt: What This Book Can Do for You

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There are two days this year when millions of adults like you play pivotal roles as Americans. The first is April 15, when you pay your taxes. The second is November 2, when you vote for the people you want to spend them.

If you’re like most of us, you’ll pick your candidates mainly by how much you like and trust them—their smiles, their voices, your sense of their integrity and capacity to lead. But policy issues also affect your choice. You’ll want to know where they stand on Iraq, terrorism, unemployment, Social Security, federal deficits. And on lots of social issues—involving housing, health care, education, marriage, and much more.

All of which means that you’d better remember April 15 when November 2 comes around. Why? Because our tax laws cut across all of American life. Except for the U.S. Constitution, they represent the most comprehensive expression of our government’s official values. What these laws tax or exempt, reward or ignore, crucially shape who we are as a nation and what we will become.

The people we elect every other November write these laws, and rewrite them, in every session of Congress. If we can get candidates to address welldesigned questions on the subject, we can learn more than their position on taxes. Their answers will expose their broader values.

Few candidates will welcome this challenge. Incumbents are not going to want to explain their failure to tackle the shortcomings of our tax laws or, perhaps worse, admit that they had no idea that particular laws were so inequitable. And challengers are going to be wary of offending some of their supporters by proposing sensible policies that help people who really need it and require others to pay more.

No, the candidates don’t want to hear these questions. That’s all the more reason to ask them.