[jmalicki]

> That works because the auditing the rich is very expensive

But it is "profitable".

It is one of the very few things the government does that generates short-term "profits" - every dollar spent auditing the rich and collecting from them generates more money than is spent, and we have never been close to break-even.

If you truly want to run the government like a business, increasing funding to IRS audits and collections is one of the hallmarks of what you would do.

EDIT: a lot of what the government does, and it should be everything the government does, is profitable, but it's more like "we spend this money, it increases GDP on some timescale, and then we get more taxes from it". This is short-term because it is more direct. The IRS audits bring in more tax revenue quite directly.