Out of all life's events we have faulted,
It is said only two can't be halted.
  The first one is called death
  But until your last breath,
The other one's greatly exalted.

It's the taxes that we can't avoid,
No matter where you are employed.
  When you get a paycheck,
  You are thinking, "Oh heck,
Half the money is being destroyed."

For the government takes quite a bit,
And we don't know just how they use it.
  It could be on an ad
  To promote a new fad
Overseas, and we cannot refuse it.

But although taxes are necessary,
The tax code itself is quite scary.
  Endless pages of trash
  That deprive us of cash,
So Steve Forbes said that it should be buried.

But when he stated this years ago,
People laughed in his face and said, "No,
  This tax code may cause strife,
  But it's just part of life,
And you can't go kill the status quo."

Yet now he may have vindication,
As a new tide sweeps over the nation.
  The idea hit by storm,
  A full-blown tax reform
To eliminate big complication.

People wish they could just go and hide
When the tax forms become simplified.
  If it's simpler, they figure,
  The form shouldn't get bigger,
But maybe the I.R.S. lied.

The Republicans want to erase it,
But they don't have a plan to replace it.
  And to call the code dead
  With no plan in its stead
Is a problem, and they have to face it.

The Republicans just can't agree
On what new kind of tax there should be.
  Some think we should levy
  A national heavy
Sales tax, just for simplicity.

Other folks like Dick Armey believe
We should get a pure flat tax, like Steve
  Forbes once had suggested,
  And now they've requested
That this is what they want to receive.

So they say that they're drafting a bill,
To put pressure on Capitol Hill.
  So by 2001
  The old tax would be done,
But this vow may be hard to fulfill.

Much as everyone doesn't like tax,
And would like these big forms off our backs,
  Until there is a plan
  To replace what once ran,
There is no point to all these attacks.