the executive director of americans for tax fairness. we also have grover norquist, the president for americans for tax reform. frank, let me begin with you. actually, i will have both of you answer this question and show our viewers what the house ssed this week. thbill on irs funding. it would rescind 45 point $6 billion for tax enforcement. it rescinds $25.3 billion for operations support and leaves in place 3.2 billion dollars for taxpayer svices, $4.7 billion for modernizing the irs dated systems and technology. frank, your response to this bill. guest: first of all, it repeals nine dollars for every $10 passed last year. last year, congress passed a $80 billion 10 year package. most importantly, to give it the staff it needs to go after wealthy and corporate tax cheats. we lose $600 billion a year in taxes that are legally owed. much of it because we do not have agents and audits at the irs to enforce the law, to make sure people are complying with the law. this house bill, the gop, the first bill they voted on is to repeal most of that new funding to go after tax chiefs. we figure that is really wrong. host: grover norquist, your thoughts on the bill. guest: a lot of people claimed this is to help you, only 25% of the time when people call into the irs, are they likely to get them to pick up the phone. 53% of irs folks to not work in the office. they are at home. covid is over, but they put in their labor contracts they do not want to back to the office. the other 50% when we asked how often they come into the office, the answer is sometimes. they will not tell you how any people come and how often. the challenge they have on not answering people's questions, not answering the phones are not knowing what to do, their own investigators found that in utah alone, in one place, they destroyed 30 million documents. that is a stack to miles high if you put them on top of the other. when asked by congress, why did you do it and how did you destroy them, they said, we will not tell you because it will reflect lordly -- poorly on us. in one office in utah, you know what happened to 30 million documents because i got caught that they destroyed they are calling out and saying you did not send your stuff done. 30 million documents destroyed, they do not know what that is and cannot tell you what it is. they cannot tell you how they destroyed it. they are turning around and saying, we should have more documents. they want the 1099 k's, which would be tens of millions of more paper documents flying around not being reported being destroyed by irs agents maybe. it got caught because internal investigators happened to get leaked to. we do not know about the other places. we have a problematically run agency. obama's appointed head -- when asked about this said, i am not sure you will be able to efficiently use that money in 2021. that is a lot of money. here you have obama's guy who ran the agency saying, there is no way to intelligently spend this money. what republicans are saying, this is an agency that needs to be reformed, not throw money at. host: i want to have frank respond. i want to add to it from the debate, republican representative adrian smith of nebraska, who spearheaded the legislation. here is his argument on the floor. [video clip] >> the primary purpose of that funding is hiring auditors and support staff to expand irs capacity. not just audits on wealthy americans. with expanded capacity, irs can bring in more revenue by auditing lower and middle income families and small businesses. families and small businesses are struggling under the weight of record inflation and supply chain shortages. small businesses are struggling to find workers at any wage. the overwhelming majority of americans, about 85%, follow the law and pay their taxes. the last they need is irs agents knocking on their doors to conduct audits. exponentially more american -- more americans, requiring online payment services to report them when they split a dinner check with friends or pay their babysitter after a night out. target them using 87,000 new irs employees. americans deserve to know their government is working for them, not against them. host: frank clemente. guest: the irs agents, that has been debunked by every fact checking, independent fact checking organization in the country. republicans use that in the last election campaign to run tens of millions of dollars in ads to defeat, democrats, claiming they were putting 87,000 irs auditors on the street to go after middle class and lower income folks. it is not true. every independent fact checking agency said it was a pacifier type of claim. somebody on the floor can make that speech, but it is not true. how often they make that speech, it is not true. the fact is, since 1991, 30 years ago, the irs staffing level is down by 40,000 people. 40,000 people. at the time when we put a lot more burden on the agency, there is a lot more taxpayers than there were back then, you cannot exist in the modern age. john coston, former irs commissioner, former democrat, we have former irs commissioner's who are republicans. they have signed letters to congress, pass this legislation passed last year. the agency needs this money to get in the modern age to be able to do a great job of helping taxpayers get their refunds on time and answer the phones. one out of 10 phone calls gets answer now. one out of 10. i spent an hour on the phone trying to find out what happened in terms of the letter i sent a year ago. i just gave up. we cannot run a agency like that. it is the auditing. we are losing $600 billion a year because wealthy people are avoiding taxes. two thirds of taxes being avoided -- legally being avoided. there is a law that says you ought to pay it and they are not paying it. two thirds of those taxes are owed to the people in the top 10% of the income. if the irs audits to many people who are low income, -- they do not have the lawyers to protect them. the irs is going up to the low hanging fruit. the only way to go after the big fat cats like president trump, the only way they can do that is higher a lot more people. it takes four to five years to train an auditor to go after a wealthy person. you need people. you need bodies to throw at that. host: grover, i want youtubers -- to respond to the resident yesterday. he was asked talking about the irs and tax policy. >> [video clip] like many americans, i was disappointed the first will republicans in the house of representatives passed was to help wealthy people in big corporations cheat on their taxes at the expense of ordinary, middle-class taxpayers. and would add $114 billion to the deficit. their very first bill. house republicans cannot tame down inflation. they did not say if elected, their plan was to make inflation worse. house republicans introduced another bill, blocking action that would help lower gas prices and help consumers. on top of that, house republicans are preparing to vote on a national sales tax bill. that is a great idea. it would raise taxes on the middle class by taxing thousands of everyday items of groceries to gas while cutting taxes for the wealthiest americans. if i am not mistaken, it would eliminate the irs. feels good, except all going to be sales tax. go home and tell your moms. they are going to be excited about that. come on. is this how house republicans are starting a new term, cutting taxes or billionaires? raising taxes for working families? making inflation worse? let me be very clear. if any of these bills make it to my desk, i will veto them. i will flat veto them. i am ready to work with republicans, not this kind of stuff. host: grover norquist. guest: that is the president and modern democratic party's position on class warfare and saying they are going to tax rich people. bloomberg was in one of these discussions where the irs was talking about what they are going to do and reported in 2020 they said they would increase audits on small businesses. they say one thing, biden wants to say it is going to be rich people. when they say where are you going with the money, it is small businesses and ramp up audits of that, mom and pop stores, things like that. they say that in private. it gets reported by bloomberg, which causes problems. you have a problem with the irs lack of privacy. you have people in the irs give audit data to a left-wing group, pro-republic. these were rich people. they were supposed to find as they left always says, they are billionaires and didn't pay taxes. they didn't find that. they dropped that the same day democrats wanted the tax bill. stolen personal data illegally, five years and jail, even to look at the stuff and show it to somebody because they were supposed to have privacy at the irs. thousands of documents that, only if you had access to that information -- they didn't just break into one lawyers list and steal their data or taxes for five people, they have access to everyone. thousands of people. they pulled that out illegally. no one at the irs has been punished for this. they keep telling congress we are investigating it. that was a year and a half ago. it is a secret. they will not tell congress what is going on. what biden is afraid of, they will be going after the irs and saying, no, no. you can tell the democrats, we are going to look for it and not find anything after a year and a half. when republicans control the house, we will insist on getting the information. you have a legal stealing of people's data and information, privacy. if they can do it to mr. bloomberg himself, they can do it to you. he's got more lawyers than you. they can spit at him, they can spit at you. they can steal his data and handed out to left-wing groups to go out and attack them. they didn't find these jillions of dollars. they found the opposite, even trump's taxes. he paid the taxes he owed. this myth there is free money out there if we -- high income people is not true. we know that because the stolen data from the irs that pro-republic has, why do you have democratic senators and people stealing from the irs working together at a press conference the same day? this attack, going after people's privacy, not just high income people. they do it to individuals who make contributions somebody doesn't like and they get attacked. host: let's get to calls. stephen, tennessee. democratic collar. caller: good morning, greta. always nice to talk to you. i have a couple comments and a question. back in the 1990's, i was in the real estate business. i worked with two or three homebuilders. everyone of them cheated on their taxes. it is the american way. it is wrong. second thing is, if you are not cheating and you get audited, there is no issue there. if you are being unfair, -- if you are being fair, you will not have problems. i have a question for mr. norquist. i know that years ago, in order to get funding from you, be senators or congressmen had to sign a pledge that they would not raise taxes. is that still true, and thank you so much. guest: thank you for bringing up the taxpayer protection pledge. we share with everybody who runs for president, house and senate. house republicans raised the pledge to raise taxes. we had some democrats sign the pledge. the biggest difference between the two parties is, the republicans cut taxes when they get in office and democrats raise them. they say they only raise them on rich people. the tax increase democrats passed last year supposed to fight inflation by raising taxes, they raised taxes on crude oil. they raised taxes on natural gas, on coal, which is everybody's energy. they razzed -- raised taxes on everybody's life savings and for one case by taxing the value of what they save money and stocks and bonds and so on. they say they only tax the rich people, but they have not sentenced -- and if the sentence. they tax them first. they tax energy, the big efforts on energy. my group doesn't make contributions to candidates. we simply say we would like, if you want to make the commitment to american people, sign the pledge to the american people. not as obama said, but to the american people. we will help publicize that so people know who has taken the pledge and who has not. we put it on the website and let people make their own decisions on how they vote. that was the question you had for me. host: we go to nikki in new york. independent. caller: good morning, folks. i have a comment and question for mr. norquist. mr. norquist, i have seen you on fox news that i can recall. you are a spreader, in my opinion, of disinformation and propaganda. we have far fewer agents than we had in the 1950's. this is 50 years later, and you do not want to find people who work in the republican party, donald trump's taxes. you did not audit him. my comment, sir, is -- isn't it true that any bills that come out of the house go to the senate to die? that is all. they go to the senate and they will die there. thank you very much. guest: well, for a bill to become a law, the republicans have passed a bill undoing much of what the democrats have tried to do in getting more small businesses audited. as the irs tells themselves and you reading their material, they are not going to get the money from rich people. they are going to get it from small businesses. they say it privately please -- privately and bloomberg expose that. you have to pass a bill in the house and senate. the president has to sign it for it to become a law. every democrat voted for getting more money to the irs. they gave them $400 million more for the irs internal people who look at their books. they cannot show they use their cars forward. they do not do it, you and i have to do it if you have a small business and you have a car for your company. you have to show mile by mile how you use it for the business, not personally. the irs does not do that themselves. irs agents do not do that. they have more cars than people are supposed to be using the cars. the government just gave them 400 million more dollars to buy more cars even though inspectors say they've got more than they can use or can justify and do not justify. you are in trouble if you get audited and you do not prove how you use your car for your business. the government is not doing that. they are giving them more money for offices when half the people at the irs do not go to the irs -- do not go to the office and the other half go there other time. the money their union contributes goes to democrats. the irs is a one-party political operation that funds the democratic party through its union, but also through 350 hours of work for government employees we all pay for. they are supposed to be working for the irs. under their contract, they take 350 hours out and use that to work with the democratic party and for democratic candidates and they use government offices to do politics. this is not something we should be subsidizing with your tax dollars. host: frank, i will have you jump in your reaction. guest: grover is saying all sorts of stuff here. this is not what the issue is about. i do not know what anybody is saying is accurate. guest: these are government studies, sir. guest: they are losing $600 billion a year. $600 billion, with a b. 700 -- trillion over years because people with taxes are not paying them. you are basically crying uncle and let the irs not have the resources it needs to go after these people. essentially, it is most of this money is not being paid by rich people. and by big corporations. you keep talking about small businesses. i want the listeners, the viewers ought to note there are a lot of small businesses that are million, 10 million, bigger businesses. this is not go after mom and pop stores like you claim. this is money to go after wealthy people. donald trump is a billionaire. he gets his money from his trump organization. that, by your definition, is a small business. he has about 500 entities under his trump organization. the reason the irs cannot audit it, who is going to audit 500 entities? the irs under the republicans. under trump himself, when he had the government and the irs under him, his taxes were supposed to be audited every year. a put one guy -- not even in the first two years. by the 30 are, they put one guy to look at his tax returns. the guy cried uncle, threw up his hands and said it was too complicated and said he could not figure it out. they asked trump's accounts to verify the accuracy of these statements. we are trying to fix this kind of stuff. you through out a lot of junk. let's get to the heart of it. rich people and corporations are avoiding hundreds of billions of dollars a year in taxes. we want a fair share tax system. to get that, you got to have a strong irs. when it comes to the inflation reduction act that passed last year, there are three ways revenue is raised. one, put a 15% -- tax on corporations. only the top 100 or so corporations are going to pay it, that is where most of the money is coming from. two, put a one percentage point on stock buybacks. stock buybacks are when rich corporations buy back their own stock to jack up the prices of that stock. most of that stock is owned by rich people and the ceos. they will pack -- pay more taxes on the stock buyback. the third way, the $80 billion they gave to the irs to give to rich and corporate tax cheats. that is what this is about. i am sorry, you do not want any more money going to the government. that means when we've got big deficits, if you want to do anything, we are going to have to cut the kinds of programs folks who are listening do not want cut. social security, medicaid. that is your strategy, your theory, your government leads us to. all those programs are going to have to be massively cut. host: i'm going to have you respond, grover. frank, respond to this viewer first. sue in ohio, we do not need more irs employees to investigate which taxes. congress needs more laws dealing with the rich, but they will not because it would affect them. guest: i absolutely agree, we need to change the tax laws. we need to create a much more fair tax system. we put out a report, you can raise $10 trillion over 10 years if we tax the rich rarely and tax corporations fairly. billionaires, for crying out loud. we cannot get a billionaire tax -- it is our top priority. there are a lot of billionaires out there. mike bloomberg, billionaires are not paying anything in taxes. zero. trump in two years, 2016, 2017, paid $750 in taxes. that is virtually less than all taxpayers pay a year. most pay more than that. we need to close loopholes. we need to have a billionaires income tax. we need to make sure most rich people make their income off their wealth, off the stock a hold, the businesses they own, the real estate they invest in. when they sell those businesses or their stocks, they are paying a 20% tax rate. whereas on wages, salaries, it is a 37% tax raise. there is no rationale why folks who make money off their assets and wealth are paying almost half as much as somebody who is making money from wages and salaries. that has got to go. we have huge offshore tax loopholes to close because the multinational corporations, drug companies, high-tech companies are so powerful, so influential in congress. if we closed some of those loopholes, which would prevent them from shifting their profits offshore because when you shift it offshore, they pay a fraction of the tax rate because it is going into a tax -- the incentive to shift jobs offshore cuts lower tax rates offshore. we've got to close those loopholes. i agree with the caller. that is a very important focus, the main focus of my organization is to close those loopholes and pass their tax laws. in terms of members of congress do not want to do it, frankly, democrats who vote to close these loopholes and vote for legislation that would raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, they close the offshore tax loopholes. if the republican party did it against the line, a lot of it because of grover's pledge that they all signed which was not to raise taxes. that is where we are stuck. really, i think it has less to do with personal, financial circumstances. in some case, it does. ron johnson, senator for wisconsin, he himself -- the trumpet tax cuts when it was debated in 2017, he held up the law for passing because he wanted a tax break unique to business owners. he personally benefited from it. most importantly, he had two business owners from estate. billionaire business owners. by getting that loophole protected, it insured they raised -- they saved $40 million a year from forward. they funded his campaign, his reelection campaign in 2000 16 and funded it again last year. there is that stuff that happens in congress and it is wrong. most folks are doing this for ideological reasons. host: interesting debate between the two of you. our viewers want to join in. stephen, california, republican. caller: i think a lot of times, it is the almighty tax dollar. everybody once to hold what they owe in taxes, whether republican or democrat. i do not want to take sides on this. i, too, was -- i paid my taxes as a worker. i was what you call a "middle-class person." there is no such thing as middle-class, there is me, you and donald trump. and bill gates. do they pay as much taxes as the little guy? obviously, everybody tries to get over on their taxes. accountability needs to start somewhere, either with the judicial system or a fair tax, how much every person makes a year. host: grover norquist. guest: it is true. the modern republican party is the party that will not raise your taxes since 1994. 96% of republicans took the pledge never to raise taxes. they have cap that ever since. taxes have only been raised when democrats have the house, senate and presidency. they did that in the first two years of clinton. he was only going to tax the first -- the 2%. the democrats always promised only to tax rich people, but then they tax everybody. you saw this with obama. i am only going to top -- tax the top 1%. most families do not pay taxes under $250,000 a year. there were taxes in obamacare that went after middle and lower income people and energy taxes. biden has the same thing. one of the things that is important to keep in mind, some people like hide and are older -- biden are older. his memory is in the early 1960's when maybe 10% of americans shared stock director. today because of individual retirement accounts and or one case, 60% of americans have their life savings in a 401(k) or ir way. -- ira. they are talking about looting your retirement. you have seen the collapse in the value of your 401(k), your --somehow these taxes on companies are taxes on your retirement. they know that. they do not care. they think you are stupid. they say, if we tax general motors, those of you with general motors stop in your 401(k), your pension, yes, you, it makes you poor were -- poo rer. listen carefully. when you tax the grocery store, who pays that? when you go in and buy carrots and cereal and milk, you pay the corporate income tax and property tax of that store. even liberals understand the vast majority of the corporate income tax is individual -- hits individuals directly through lower wages, higher prices, inflation and higher prices. this is a very, very key issue and we should keep in mind when politicians say they will only tax rich people. every time they have said that, clinton, obama, biden, they lied and went after you. it is nice of them to say that. it is selfish. that is just to fool you. people are tired of being fooled. host: wisconsin, democratic color. good morning to you. caller: thank you. i have a question. most people, 50% of people in this country paid no taxes, especially in a lot of red states for a simple reason that their wages have been so suppressed the last years. about their iras and stuff, i beg to differ. 60% of them people have them, the only income they have is their social security, which they do not have to pay taxes on in the first place. it is disingenuous about the irs. the irs is not going to go after these people. he knows this, i know that. they are going to go after the talks -- top taxpayers. another thing. host: go ahead, real quick. caller: these red states, a lot of them are getting far more back from the federal government . in arkansas, it is four dollars for every dollar they sent to the federal government. for every dollar they send, they get four back. i do not hear anybody crying about that. if you would be willing to spend a dollar in, a dollar out. thank you. host: frank clemente. guest: the callers, one thing i would like to point out, most people pay the taxes they owe because most people are getting wage income. your employer is taking your taxes out. if the folks not getting wage income, the business owners and small business owners, you can be a small business owner but the a rich, small business. that is where the money is. a lot of it is in the kinds of organizations trump has, called pass-through businesses. business doesn't pay the taxes. the taxes are paid by the owners of the businesses. they do not do wage, w-2. there is not where the federal -- is paid up. that is an honor system. that is why you need auditing to make sure these people are being honest about it. the caller noted who has stock. 90% of the stock is owned by the richest 10% of people in america. folks -- most folks who have -- the class of folks grover is talking about, they may be at $7,000 or $10,000 in their ira or 401(k). it is not something they can retire on. they are dependent on the social security system, the medicare system there to pay their bills. or medicaid that will pay their retirement, that is going to pay for your nursing home if you need it. we have an explosion. the baby boom generation is retiring. a chief number of people are retiring every year. costs are going up on things like social security, medicare and medicaid because that is where the population is exploding. they have big medical costs. very big prescription drug costs. we know how big a price gouge is on prescription drugs. the only way we are going to be able to take care of -- i am a baby boomer. in retirement, is if we raise revenue to do it. republicans want to cut it. president biden a while ago was talking about the fair tax act. kevin mccarthy, to get his speakership, one of the things he agreed to do was put up for a vote the fair tax act. the right wing, crazy tax proposal to basically get rid of the income tax and enact a national sales tax that would be at least 30%. some expert analysis says it will be more like 50% or more. that is how we would be funding the government in the future. the way the tax system works now, it is lower income people who pay more in sales taxes as percentage of their income then they pay in income taxes. i do not know if grover's organization supports this fair tax, but republicans are putting this up for a vote to double down on how much more lower income in middle income folks are paying taxes than the rich. the rich do not pay that much in sales taxes as they should of their income. it is the low income folks that pay the bigger share. host: grover norquist. guest: the idea this fair tax idea that we should ship from an income tax to a sales tax is one of the stupider ideas that has been put forward. it is nonsense. the concern is that we tax people saving in investment too much. which is to, we want saving and investment to flow in the united states. we saw -- when you cut the corporate income tax from highest in the world. we had the highest corporate income tax under obama in the world. 35%. french -- france was at 25%. why do we have trouble competing with china, we were taking 35% of earnings of american companies and they were at 15%. we shoot ourselves in the food. that was brought down to 21%. the medium in -- the corporate income tax damages people's wages and you saw it when we cut the corporate income tax and wages shot up. we had their week -- the reaction to covid, which shut everything down. we have a lower corporate income tax, tony one -- 21%. we have a serious challenge now in that, the government is spending too much money. it is spending poorly. the irs is part of that. one of the things i try to walk through, they do not tech your privacy. -- protect your privacy. they are legally required to do a study every year. going back to 1998, i served on the commission for structuring the irs. the things coming up now, the incompetence, the poorly run management, the billions they wasted on computer programs that have never worked, this is a sad situation where you go every five and 10 years. we need more money, they get the money, it did not work. the new york times and washington post are going, once again, the whole thing collapsed. this is a very poorly run operation that needs to be reformed internally. you have probably heard the ridiculous story. 4600 guns, 3000 pistols, shotguns. 15 fully at a medic weapons. -- automatic weapons. what do they do with that? one of the things that came out in the hearings -- what is important is this discussion. we are going to have hearings about the irs and this idea perhaps they should given more money because that ends up with labor union dues which goes to the democratic party. the democrats are not fooled. they know when they get $80 billion to the irs, a certain amount of that comes back in free time of workers not doing their job for the government working for the democratic party through the union or money that is given. these are real challenges. they are required by the law that was passed to every year, do a study of how complicated it is and ways to make it less cop located. they have done it twice. they are not doing things they are required to do to luke -- look after your interests by law. why throw more money at that? host: steve in illinois. independent. caller: what this guy just said, there is too much -- in the federal level. state and federal. what scares me, this inflation is a tax. you are setting $30 to $35 trillion -- in new york city, the account is running all the time. we are going to destroy our children, our children -- gran dchildren, our great rand children. if you and i did not pay our taxes or have enough income, we are living on the street. correct? correct. what they are doing, they are spending more money than the average working man in this country could afford to pay. host: all right. i'm going to hear from -- next in california. republican. caller: hi. i would like to say on my behalf as, american, republican. what retirement, what 401k. i am getting poorer every year. grover norquist, you have been known to say that the government should be small enough to take it to the bathwater and drown it in the tub. i do not see that happening at all. in fact, our constitutional rights are being taken away. look at the department of education that is huge, probably huger than the irs. 45 million people are without encryption protections. that is hypocritical. shame on you. but the bankruptcy protections back in student loans. stop destroying our children. this is not student loan cancellation. this is a constitutional right. the department of education and the irs is poorly run. i pay 100 times more taxes than donald trump did. host: i'm going to leave it there. final thoughts on both of our guests. grover norquist, go ahead. guest: we are looking at a irs not protecting your privacy, politicized. for three years, when the tea party movement that got going after obama became president and started raising taxes, the irs did not allow conservative groups -- one conservative group in three years was allowed to incorporate so they could set up a political group and say we want to talk about this. you have the irs, which 95% to 100% of their contributions to the union go to democrats, deciding to shut down a political movement in america by making it illegal for them to incorporate and for three years, it was not done. they hid it. the woman who organized it was given a bonus who walked out the door, even though she apologized for what she did. the irs is going to make political decisions to attack people. the one thing that was said that i think people should focus on, if you pay your taxes and you are honest, you should not fear a audit. a small business or large business or individual who is audited by the government, and you know one of these people, talk to them. maybe you have been there. that takes thousands and thousands of dollars out of your life to pay lawyer to get going. it takes a lot of days and weeks and months out of your life to deal with that. an audit of somebody who has no problems on their taxes is still an incredible sink on your life. the irs auditing someone does tremendous damage to that person or business they run or work for. the irs does not need more money. they need reform. they need to get people into work and answer phone calls, not ask for more money while they are staying home and not answering your phone calls. host: frank clemente. guest: the debate over the irs and whether to give it more money or not to give it more money is -- it represents the larger debate happening in our country. it has been happening for years. that is fundamentally, which side are you on? most of your listeners today are on the side of average working people. who are struggling to make ends meet. cannot afford health care, maybe. have student debt problems. i think they want a government who works for them, is on their side and is not on the side of corporations and the rich. not tilting the scale on the side of corporations and the rich. the irs, we know we have -- a not fair tax system. it is under taxing big corporations. some of them pay no taxes a year. a amazon can go years not paying a dime in taxes. more less than one person on this call today. we've got to rebalance things. we have to have a system where the economy is working for all of us. that means having a tax system that works for all of us, not one favoring the rich and corporations. it is the same for the tax collector, the internal revenue service needs to be working on behalf of average american and not letting people like donald trump go unaudited, pay nothing in taxes some years, pay $750 some years. it is both the irs if they can collect the taxes that are out, but fix and close loopholes, make operations pay what they should be paying, make billionaires -- you've got billionaires paying nothing in taxes some years. that is the big battle. it gets obscured by this fight over the irs. the irs is a microcosm of the bigger fight. i asked your listeners, are you on the side of average folks playing by the rules, or are you on the side of the rich corporations who are not playing by the rules? host: our viewers can learn more about americans or tax fairness. go to americans for tax fairness.org. go to learn about americans for tax reform at americans for atr. we appreciate you two coming on the program together and having this debate together so our viewer