The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics says the average American taxpayer pays $10,500 in total taxes: federal, state and local. Critics of our bloated government say that's crazy.
Grover Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform.
"You can run a government and you don't need as high a tax rate as we have now."
Norquist says in the early days of the Republic, taxes were only one or two percent of income; now they're twenty percent. He says the Trump tax bill is a good step forward but we need to do more, especially for small business owners.
"Further reduce taxes on the 28 million small businesses; we made a big step forward on that in this last tax bill."
But it's not nearly enough.
"A lot of small businesses pay their corporate income tax, their business income taxes, through their personal rates and personal rates are higher than corporate rates. So, our smallest businesses are paying the highest tax rate; it's crazy. We're beginning to reduce that; we have a ways to go."
Norquist is optimistic for the future; but he worries if democrats take the House in November they'll try to raise taxes by a trillion dollars.