Harvey Golub makes an argument for a simplified tax code that goes beyond “it’s long so let’s scrap it”:

What should be done to improve our arcane, complicated and unfair tax system? First, eliminate all preferences in the tax code and, if we still want to subsidize certain behaviors, pay for them through a legislative appropriations process, making them transparent to the public.

In other words, everyone earning the same amount of money should pay the same in federal taxes, regardless of how they earned their money and regardless of how they choose to spend it. What would be fair is all Americans paying federal taxes on all their income, whether it is earned in the form of cash or benefits, and paying taxes on earnings only once.