ashley: scott hodge, tax foundation president. thanks so much for joining us today. you bet. thank you. tracy: dead on with the lobbyists. ashley: yeah. they protect those loopholes. tracy: and as scott said, that earned income tax credit. people are not paying tax now. you have to bring them on. ashley: yeah. tracy: hmmm, as you said, hope springs eternal. much more ahead on our special report, the business of taxes. the irs says it can read your e-mails, huh, whenever it wants. gerri willis is on the story. let's look at some winners as we head out to break. tracy: all right, we have some breaking news on the white house new developments from the meeting between the white house and some of the financial leaders of the nation's biggest banks. charlie gasparino in our newsroom with the latest. what have you got? charlie: he did not call them fat cats at least. i hear this is a pretty cordial meeting, but kind of a take away here is what president obama said about the economy. according to people in the meetings that ingredients are in place for robust economic recover

this is one reason american economic growth has stalled says scott hodge predent of the tax foundationwhen i think of these rules i think of safety regulations and the constant spiderweb not the tax code. we have done okay with the tax code. >> the tax code is a mess because of the 70,000 pages that dictate virtually every aspect of our lives and cost americans 6 billion hours of our time just toomply. six out of 10 of us pay someone else because not only so complicated we are afraid to make a mistakeo get dited. it has created fear as well as complexity. john: so those six out of 10 could have used that money and time to boost the economy to do something useful? >> it is called deadweight loss. it cost $200 billion per year just to comply with the 70,000 pages of tax regulations that is why the economy grows so slowly. john: they are popular. steering people to good things, solar panels on the roof of your house to get a credit if you adopt a child child, congress passes these things because people say that is fair. >> they sound great by themselves but if you put them together it cre

this is one reason american economic growth has stalled says scott hodge president of the tax foundation. when i think of these rules i think of safety regulations and the constant spiderweb not the tax code. we have done okay with the tax code. >> the tax code is a mess because of the 70,000 pages that dictate virtually every aspect of our lives and cost americans 6 billion hours of our time just to comply. six out of 10 of us pay someone else because not only so complicated we are afraid to make a mistake to get audited. it has created fear as well as complexity. john: so those six out of 10 could have used that money and time to boost the economy to do something useful? >> it is called deadweight loss. it cost $200 billion per year just to comply with the 70,000 pages of tax regulations that is why the economy grows so slowly. john: they are popular. steering people to good things, solar panels on the roof of your house to get a credit if you adopt a child child, congress passes these things because people say that is fair. >> they sound great by themselves but if you put them togethe