Get Rich, Pay Lower Taxes, Boost Federal Revenue: Amity Shlaes

To clean out and start over right.

That’s the great impulse that Americans act on each spring. We tell ourselves there’s nothing wrong with this process repeating annually. In religion, the cycle is always there: sin, repent, purge. These days the impulse gets its most vivid individual expression in the realm of personal health: “sin, repent, spinning class.” Or “sin, repent, detox drink.” The worse the year, the greater the repentance required.