Lets go back to the role that government could play to incent desired behavior by both citizens as well as companies doing business here. I'd suggest the following because I for one believe strongly that one role of government is to do exactly that, incent behavior that will benefit all ciizens...

• First, reduce the corporate tax rate. If it could be reduced to something near the level of other developed countries, including many of the low wage countries to which we're losing employment, that would be great.

• Next, substantially eliminate most if not all of the arcane corporate tax deductions so often authorized by Congress by tacking lobbyist-written amendments to other legislation.

• And then, require that all U.S. corporations pay taxes on all the income they report, regardless where in the world the accountants say it was earned.

Now I don't know what the total effect on revenues to the U.S. would be. I'm pretty sure there could be a whole lot of the almost 100,000 IRS agents laid off. And probably, there'd be some high-falutin' tax lawyers looking for another line of work.

But one other thing...a little old lady in a nursing home wouldn't be paying more in taxes than many of the largest companies in the U.S.