Watched a little of the Arthur

Andersen auditing firm testimony on the Enron fiasco the other day.

Under intense and confrontational

questioning, Andersen CEO Joseph Berardino yielded pretty much zilch in

the way of enlightenment as to how Enron's misinformation slipped through

Andersen's radar.

And what could he say? How

about this ... "Mr. Chairman, big corporations hire auditors to go

over their books because the government says they have to, and since the

big corporation is the one paying the auditor, the auditor generally sees

what the big corporation wants seen."

I've covered dozens of city

councils and county commissions over the last 30 years, and I've sat through

hundreds of meetings in which the auditor reports on the required annual

audit, and not once have I heard that auditor say, "Your accounting

is atrocious. You should fire your incompetent finance manager and get

someone who can work a calculator."

No, I'm not saying auditors

are crooked. Think a little deeper.

What you have here is just

one example of thousands in which a well-meaning government tries to prevent

bad things from happening to people by controlling what used to be known

as the "free" enterprise system.

The world of science fiction

is replete with variations on a basic plot in which robots or super computers

are programmed with the overriding prime directive to do good for humankind

and prevent harm to humankind.

Inevitably, the well-meaning

programming goes awry as the anxious-to-please robots and super computers

frantically build barrier after barrier to any human activity that may

result in harm to humans, until humans are utterly enslaved by the doting

machines.

There was a great one on the

original "Star Trek" in which a computer that the people on

this planet had come to think of as "god" monitored their every

waking action and conversation, bringing great pain to anyone who said

or did something that it thought might cause harm in some way. Spock,

of course, had to mind-meld with the thing so he could use that Vulcan

logic to override its programming.

Sorry if you're not a fan,

but it's a perfect analogy for how our government has increasingly tightened

the corset around our lives as representatives and bureaucrats try to

fashion the perfectly safe society.

Social Security, welfare, paying

farmers not to plant crops, gun control efforts, hate crimes legislation,

GRTA ... I could go on and on, especially with examples of how an employer

and an employee may come to an agreement in which both are perfectly happy,

but the government steps in and says, "No, you can't do that. Our

way or the highway."

They're going to keep squeezing

us to protect our lives until there's no life left to protect.

I'm not saying reasonable rules

for corporations to operate under to help prevent predatory practices

and level the playing field are all bad. I'm just saying they're out of

control.

As to how you get them back

under control, in many instances that's something you'll have to ask someone

smarter than me. I can't figure out how you unravel the giant regulatory

ball of twine down to something that's reasonable, and then prevent those

do-gooders we keep sending to Congress from looking at the new, streamlined

regulations and coming up with new bright ideas for adding new layers

of twine because a plane crashed somewhere or somebody got defrauded.

But there's one huge strand

of twine I could yank out of there like that! (picture me snapping my

fingers) if you would just elect me king for a day.

I would do away with that ridiculous

labyrinth known as the income tax code and replace it with a simple flat

tax. Everyone would pay exactly the same percentage of income. If you

managed to gain a little success, your taxes would increase, but not exponentially

- the percentage would remain the same.

But, you're thinking, corporate

taxes would still be complicated, because you'd still have to depreciate

assets and do all kinds of complicated calculations to figure out what

your actual profit was, right?

Wrong. We will no longer play

the three-card monte game of pretending there is such a thing as corporate

taxes. Corporate taxes are paid by you and me when we buy goods and services.

As king, I hereby declare that from now on when your government taxes

you, you will see it in black and white on your own personal tax bill,

and if you're mad about it you'll know how to correct it next election.

Would there be more Enrons

if I were king? Probably. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. That's

life.

If that scares you, try to

remember this clichéd (but apparently not clichéd enough)

advice: Don't put all your eggs in one basket.