How in the world did this guy get elected?

This idea makes way too much sense:

Taken from an email I received from Congressman Michael Burgess.

This year, like years past, American families and businesses spent billions of hours and billions of dollars complying with our nation’s complex Tax Code. When it was first created, the Tax Code was 400 pages - this year, it is 71,684 pages.

There are many reasons why we need to overhaul the tax code - the current income tax system is unfair, costly, and takes valuable time away from our daily lives. A faster, flatter, fairer tax structure would work, and it's pretty simple. Tax returns could be done on a single page – an optional one-page tax form, like the one below. Just enter your identification data and income, calculate your deductions for personal exemptions and taxable income, calculate the tax by multiplying by a flat rate, subtract taxes already withheld, and you're done.

American families and businesses these days have enough to worry about, and Tax Day shouldn’t be the most dreaded day of the year. I support simplifying the tax code through a user-friendly, pro-growth flat tax based on a fixed percentage of income, which is exactly what my bill, the Freedom Flat Tax Act, HR 1040, would do. The goal of the Freedom Flat Tax Act is to encourage people to make financial decisions based on common-sense economics, rather than on the 71,684 pages of our tax code.

I think it’s important that we simplify our complicated and time-consuming tax code. To learn more about my ideas, including an optional one-page tax form and the Freedom Flat Tax Act, please visit http://burgess.house.gov/flattax.

For more information on this and other topics, go directly to my web site - http://burgess.house.gov. To view floor speeches, interviews and other video messages from me, please visit my YouTube Channel - www.youtube.com/MichaelCBurgessMD. You can also follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.com/MichaelCBurgess. It is an honor to serve you in the United States House of Representatives.

Sincerely,

Rep. Michael C. Burgess, M.D.