Drudge offers a choice selection from Speaker Hastert's soon-to-be released book: People ask me if I’m really calling for the elimination of the IRS, and I say I think that’s a great thing to do for future generations of Americans...Now consider that a flat tax, national sales tax, or VAT would not only eliminate the need to [hire a CPA], it could also eliminate the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) itself and make the process of paying taxes much easier. By adopting a VAT, sales tax, or some other alternative, we could begin to change productivity. If you can do that, you can change gross national product and start growing the economy. You could double the economy over the next fifteen years. All of a sudden, the problem of what future generations owe in Social Security and Medicare won’t be so daunting anymore. The answer is to grow the economy, and the key to doing that is making sure we have a tax system that attracts capital and builds incentives to keep it here instead of forcing it out to other nations. The vision of productivity here is simply a repackaging of the conservative mantra that shifting more of the rich's share of the tax burden to the middle class and the poor will give them more incentives to get more rich and make everybody else rich too. Hastert's concern isn't increasing efficiency - it's further stratifying political and economic power. Just another reminder of the urgency of getting Bush out of the Presidency and Hastert out of the Speaker's seat.