LETTER: No chance of true tax reform emerging from the D.C. swamp

Your recent editorials on March 23 and 29 concerning federal tax reform were hopelessly naïve. There will never be significant tax reform because too many powerful people, not the least of whom are members of Congress, profit from the current system.

That 75,000 page nightmare, which serves only a tiny fraction of our population, didn’t just spontaneously appear. Soon after it was enacted a century ago, members of Congress discovered that they had created the “goose that lays the golden egg.” They found that in exchange for creating loopholes and benefits for special interests, they could reap generous rewards in the form of bribes disguised as campaign contributions. They also found that they could use the tax code to manipulate social behavior in order to conform to their political and philosophical agendas.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren — bless her little heart — has no chance of making any significant changes in the current tax code. The congressional Gambino family, lobbyists and their benefactors in the tax return industry will never let it happen.