Syria has of late dominated the attention of headline writers and the chattering class. No doubt many people are delighted at this development. Divert the public long enough from the story of the IRS harassing Americans because of their political views, and before you know it, the whole squalid mess will sink below the waves and the federal government's tax collectors can pick right up where they left off.

Fortunately, the Wall Street Journal has not lost track of the IRS scandal. In an editorial in today's edition, the Journal lays out messages that have been unearthed from the email account of Lois Lerner, the disgraced former Director of Exempt Organizations, to members of her staff that erase any legitimate doubt that people in the highest managerial level of the tax agency were pursuing a political agenda targeting American citizens whose political views they disagreed with.

Can the IRS be reformed? Or would Congress be setting out on a fool's errand to repair what's wrong with an agency that has so betrayed the public trust? Keep the IRS and try to fix it? Or do away with the whole apparatus as part of a paradigm shift in federal tax policy?

Let me know what you think.

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