This week we got a letter from the IRS. I made a mistake on our 2007 taxes.

I am not a stupid person. I am not an uneducated person. I have an engineering degree (lots of math) and a business degree (money, money, money).

Despite these qualifications, despite several hours of work (and cursing), despite the numerous worksheets and tax instructions I used, I made a mistake on our taxes. I cannot tell you how annoyed this makes me.

Fortunately the IRS says that we overpaid our taxes but the point is the same for me. If someone like me cannot properly do their taxes, the tax system is way, way too fucking complicated.

As a matter of principal, the tax rules should be simple enough that citizens should be able to do them themselves.

Not for the first time, I wonder if my country will we ever get its house in order? We have this Constitution thing and yet every year our culture seems to get further and further from our core values. If you have ever thought about moving to another country because it sounded better there, something here is terribly wrong.

But things could change. We could make life here easier and more supportive of our citizens. You know, your brother in arms, your fellow citizen, your neighbors...

First off, it is high time we completely replace the current tax system with a flat tax (or something comparable) with no deductions. A simple 1-page form for all households.

Do you want to cover all citizens and actually cut health care expenses at the same time? Eliminate the health insurance industry. Insurers never treated cancer, or set a broken bone, or gave anyone stitches. Insurance is purely a financial system for pooling our collective finances to fund a doctors. It should be non-profit, standardized and simple. It should also be more about keeping every citizen healthy than about profits.

Eliminating our current (massive) health insurance industry is the simplest thing to do which would also have the biggest impact and I dont hear anyone in Washington talking about it. Any profit your health insurer makes is money we could have saved on health care. If you look at other countries who have better health care coverage, they all have different insurance models than we do. I just dont understand why Americans want to protect insurance companies.

Lastly, do not drive in the left lane on the freeway unless you are actually passing someone.