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'How does HIV 'hide' to evade detection by the immune system?'HIV hardly 'hides' from or evades detection by the immune system. Rather, it preferentially targets and infects key immune cells, preferred ones being CD4 T helper cell - Wikipedia, master orchestrator of immune responses, as well as a variety of Antigen-presenting cell - Wikipedia such as Dendritic cell - Wikipedia and Macrophage - Wikipedia, cells critical in jumpstarting immune responses.There's more than one approach to study how HIV does what it does,A variety of experimental animal models with widely varying applicability to human HIV infection and AIDS.In vitro cellular and molecular studies that try to discern HIV interactions with different cell types.In silico modeling of how specific HIV molecules interact with host cell molecules.Though they all help understand HIV, overall value of each such approach depends on the ratio of its pros and cons.OTOH, though most HIV-infected individuals progress to irreversible, catastrophic AIDS without timely diagnosis and Rx with cART (Combination Antiretroviral Therapy), a few are either naturally resistant and prevent the infection itself or immunologically resistant and slow its progress considerably.Such cases represent compelling natural experiments with the inbuilt incalculable advantage of having few or no experimental artifacts. Somewhat akin to examining a mirror image, understanding how HIV fails to subvert the immune systems of such patients offers a contrarian's path to better treatments, maybe even functional cure as well as the realistic possibility of prophylactic or at least therapeutic vaccines.Such natural HIV resistance can be broken down into tiers that track the infection cycle itself,The initial tier prevents infection.The next one prevents effective early viral replication.The last one controls chronic disease and asserts itself if given a helping hand with initial Rx.The latter two tiers remain niche fields of research within HIV though given their 'cure' potential, they deserve far more attention and funding compared to the ever-burgeoning experimental animal model field with its surfeit of dubious results of questionable relevance to the human disease.Natural HIV Resistance That Prevents InfectionSome individuals naturally resistant to HIV were found to have a 32 base pair deletion in the CCR5 - Wikipedia gene (1, 2, 3). Called CCR5 ∆32, this discovery showed how important this cell-surface molecule is for human HIV infection to get going, namely, in entering T cells.Natural HIV Resistance That Prevents Effective Early Viral Replication: Elite ControllersLong-term non-progressors (LTNP) appear capable of resisting HIV to various degrees for anywhere from 7 to 20 years, even without antiretroviral Rx (4).This group includes the awkwardly labeled elite controllers (aka elite suppressors) and/or viremic controllers. Key hallmark of ECs is stable CD4+ T cell counts >500 cells/µl for >7 years. Within LTNPs, ECs (5)Represent <1% of total HIV-1 infected population.Maintain circulating HIV-1 levels (as measured in plasma) at <50 copies/ml, which is below the limit of detection of standard commercial assays.While some initially dismissed such relatively rare individuals as those who got infected with defective virus (6), understanding what is different about these individuals is now a fairly fertile research area simply because cumulative research data found that initial assertion to be inaccurate.Rather, ECs appear to control HIV quite efficiently (see below from 6).How? While a complete answer is still unavailable, studies that each examined relatively small groups of such individuals showedNoticeable quantitative and qualitative differences in adaptive immune responses, in both CD8 (7, 8, 9, 10) as well as CD4 (11, 12) T cells.Polymorphisms in important immunoregulatory genes such as HLA-B*5701 and HLA-B27 (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18).Natural HIV Resistance That Prevents Effective Late Viral Replication: Post-treatment ControllersThe most recent (first identified circa 2010), least studied and therefore least well-understood are the thus-far relatively tiny subsets of HIV patients who maintain control of virus replication for varying lengths of time after varying periods of initial cART (19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24), the so-called post-treatment controllers.Advantages of this clinical picture simply write themselves. Reduced Rx cost while avoiding both the physical burden from long-term toxicity of cART as well as the possibility of developing viral resistance.How to explain this phenomenon? By chance such patients might have started cART early enough after contracting HIV before it irreversibly damaged their immune system, such early intervention allowing their own anti-HIV immune responses to rebound and prevail (25, 26, 27).If such an observation pans out in independent, larger studies, better control, even functional cure of HIV may require not more protracted, expensive basic research nor newer, ever more expensive drugs but rather nothing more than a concerted public health effort to diagnose and treat HIV early in order to effectively tamp down early virus replication before it strikes body blows to the immune system's capacity to control HIV by itself. Now wouldn't that be a worthy Millennium goal?Bibliography1. Dean, Michael, et al. "Genetic restriction of HIV-1 infection and progression to AIDS by a deletion allele of the CKR5 structural gene." Science 273.5283 (1996): 1856-1862.2. Liu, Rong, et al. "Homozygous defect in HIV-1 coreceptor accounts for resistance of some multiply-exposed individuals to HIV-1 infection." Cell 86.3 (1996): 367-377. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/55ad/09b3887f923f29f423fb3abfce64560c63be.pdf3. Samson, Michel, et al. "Resistance to HIV-1 infection in caucasian individuals bearing mutant alleles of the CCR-5 chemokine receptor gene." Nature 382.6593 (1996): 722. http://courses.bio.unc.edu/2010spring/Biol402/Papers%20for%20Discussion/CCR5%20delete%20Nature.pdf4. Okulicz, Jason F., et al. "Clinical outcomes of elite controllers, viremic controllers, and long-term nonprogressors in the US Department of Defense HIV natural history study." The Journal of infectious diseases 200.11 (2009): 1714-1723. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6f58/6c3b5bc420059f81b15bb4c2f2511f52fbb9.pdf5. Okulicz, Jason F., and Olivier Lambotte. "Epidemiology and clinical characteristics of elite controllers." Current Opinion in HIV and AIDS 6.3 (2011): 163-168. http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/16063327/663533117/name/Epi+elite+controllers.pdf6. Buckheit III, Robert W., et al. "The implications of viral reservoirs on the elite control of HIV-1 infection." Cellular and molecular life sciences 70.6 (2013): 1009-1019.7. Bernard, Nicole F., et al. "Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)—Specific Cytotoxic T Lymphocyte Activity in HIV-Exposed Seronegative Persons." The Journal of infectious diseases 179.3 (1999): 538-547. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicole_Bernard/publication/13337655_Human_Immunodeficiency_Virus_HIV-Specific_Cytotoxic_T_Lymphocyte_Activity_in_HIV-Exposed_Seronegative_Persons/links/573f11e208aea45ee844f342/Human-Immunodeficiency-Virus-HIV-Specific-Cytotoxic-T-Lymphocyte-Activity-in-HIV-Exposed-Seronegative-Persons.pdf8. Kaul, Rupert, et al. "HIV-1-specific mucosal CD8+ lymphocyte responses in the cervix of HIV-1-resistant prostitutes in Nairobi." The Journal of Immunology 164.3 (2000): 1602-1611. http://www.jimmunol.org/content/jimmunol/164/3/1602.full.pdf9. Kaul, Rupert, et al. "CD8+ lymphocytes respond to different HIV epitopes in seronegative and infected subjects." The Journal of clinical investigation 107.10 (2001): 1303-1310. CD8+ lymphocytes respond to different HIV epitopes in seronegative and infected subjects10. Elahi, Shokrollah, et al. "Protective HIV-specific CD8+ T cells evade T reg cell suppression." Nature medicine 17.8 (2011): 989. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3324980/pdf/nihms358128.pdf11. Pancré, Véronique, et al. "Presence of HIV-1 Nef specific CD4 T cell response is associated with non-progression in HIV-1 infection." Vaccine 25.31 (2007): 5927-5937.12. Ferre, April L., et al. "HIV controllers with HLA-DRB1* 13 and HLA-DQB1* 06 alleles have strong, polyfunctional mucosal CD4+ T-cell responses." Journal of virology 84.21 (2010): 11020-11029. HIV Controllers with HLA-DRB1*13 and HLA-DQB1*06 Alleles Have Strong, Polyfunctional Mucosal CD4+ T-Cell Responses13. Kaslow, Richard A., et al. "Influence of combinations of human major histocompatibility complex genes on the course of HIV–1 infection." Nature medicine 2.4 (1996): 405-411.14. Hendel, Houria, et al. "New class I and II HLA alleles strongly associated with opposite patterns of progression to AIDS." The Journal of Immunology 162.11 (1999): 6942-6946.15. Migueles, Stephen A., et al. "HLA B* 5701 is highly associated with restriction of virus replication in a subgroup of HIV-infected long term nonprogressors." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97.6 (2000): 2709-2714. http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/97/6/2709.full.pdf16. Altfeld, Marcus, et al. "Influence of HLA-B57 on clinical presentation and viral control during acute HIV-1 infection." Aids 17.18 (2003): 2581-2591. Influence of HLA-B57 on clinical presentation and viral... : AIDS17. Catano, Gabriel, et al. "HIV-1 disease-influencing effects associated with ZNRD1, HCP5 and HLA-C alleles are attributable mainly to either HLA-A10 or HLA-B* 57 alleles." PloS one 3.11 (2008): e3636. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0003636&type=printable18. Saez-Cirion, A., et al. "Immune responses during spontaneous control of HIV and AIDS: what is the hope for a cure?." Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 369.1645 (2014): 20130436. http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royptb/369/1645/20130436.full.pdf19. Sáez-Cirión, Asier, et al. "Post-treatment HIV-1 controllers with a long-term virological remission after the interruption of early initiated antiretroviral therapy ANRS VISCONTI Study." PLoS pathogens 9.3 (2013): e1003211. http://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1003211&type=printable20. Maenza, Janine, et al. "How often does treatment of primary HIV lead to post-treatment control?." Antiviral therapy 20.8 (2015): 855. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6564/850598928d1d5cbe87f2c954e56384101b1e.pdf21. Cockerham, Leslie R., Hiroyu Hatano, and Steven G. Deeks. "Post-treatment controllers: role in HIV “cure” research." Current HIV/AIDS Reports 13.1 (2016): 1-9.22. Wen, Ying, and Jonathan Z. Li. "Post-treatment HIV controllers or spontaneous controllers in disguise?." AIDS 31.4 (2017): 587-589. http://jonathanlilab.bwh.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/WenLi-PTCEditorial-AIDS-2017.pdf23. Martin, Genevieve E., et al. "Post-treatment control or treated controllers? Viral remission in treated and untreated primary HIV infection." AIDS (London, England) 31.4 (2017): 477. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5278888/pdf/aids-31-477.pdf24. Perkins, Matthew J., et al. "Brief Report: Prevalence of Posttreatment Controller Phenotype Is Rare in HIV-Infected Persons After Stopping Antiretroviral Therapy." JAIDS Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 75.3 (2017): 364-369.25. Assoumou, Lambert, et al. "A low HIV-DNA level in PBMCs at antiretroviral treatment interruption predicts a higher probability of maintaining viral control." AIDS (2015).26. Li, Jonathan Z., et al. "The size of the expressed HIV reservoir predicts timing of viral rebound after treatment interruption." AIDS (London, England) 30.3 (2016): 343. http://jonathanlilab.bwh.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/The-size-of-the-expressed-HIV-reservoir-predicts.pdf27. Noel, Nicolas, et al. "Long-term spontaneous control of HIV-1 is related to low frequency of infected cells and inefficient viral reactivation." Journal of virology 90.13 (2016): 6148-6158. Long-Term Spontaneous Control of HIV-1 Is Related to Low Frequency of Infected Cells and Inefficient Viral ReactivationThanks for the R2A, Gouyen Anakin.

There are many ways in which a thing can be true, and not all of them are equal.While ProPublica’s story is mostly true in a narrow sense, it’s also concerningly simplistic. It gives us a taste of the truth — enough to make us drunk with outrage. But what it doesn’t do is arm the reader to participate in the sort of discussion that might solve the real problems underneath.Compounding this, the dozens of clickshare re-writes of ProPublica’s story by other outlets have all been worse. What the ProPublica version lacked in breadth of address, the rest lack in depth (and also breadth).While we’re going to going to tackle those themes a bit more while unpacking the main elements of the tax story itself, just two bits of house-cleaning first:My main interest here is bias. Not political bias, mind you. More in the vein of what Jon Stewart suggested was the default bias of all mainstream media: “sensationalism, conflict, and laziness”.Some angles of this story get into murky territory, especially as it concerns legal recourse. I’ve done my best to be transparent about where I’m sure and where I’m speculating. As ever, I offer financial rewards for all corrections and meaningful improvements.Ok, on we go.Historical ContextBack in 1998, Congress passed the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act, which, among other things, spelled out one notable big-letter goal: “having 80% of Federal tax and information returns filed electronically by the year 2007”.Fast forward to 2002. The Bush II administration announced a new policy related to achieving that 80% goal: the creation of Free File Inc. (hereafter FFI) as part of the Free File Program (FFP).The basics:FFI (sometimes FFA in the press) is a consortium of a dozen major tax-prep companies.FFP is a deal that FFI made with the IRS wherein they would create software that allowed the bottom 60% (now 70%) of US earners to file their taxes electronically for free (no cost to the IRS or the filer).In exchange, the FFI demanded a non-compete agreement from the IRS. For as long as FFI was supplying these freebie filing options, the IRS couldn’t go and create their own.The FFP wasn’t law. Just a department policy predicated on a renewable contract between the IRS and the FFI. (This contract is referred to as a “memo of understanding”, or MOU.)Now, there are many ways of parsing this. On the one hand, free electronic filing for 60% of taxpayers was a win. Plus the government didn’t have to bother with creating this software from scratch. On the other hand, many FFI members had motivations beyond charity and civic pride. In exchange for their “donation”, they got to ensure the IRS wouldn’t cut their revenue streams by creating a better option of their own. (They knew that most filers would end up buying a paid product regardless of free options, which is something we’ll get to.)All said though, this being a negotiated contract meant it was mostly a win-win. The IRS got to focus elsewhere, and taxpayers got something useful. And in the event that the deal no longer made sense, the IRS was free to either renegotiate or try something new.What Happened This WeekThe House passed the Taxpayer First Act of 2019 this past Tuesday. Section 1102 of said bill began with this clause:The Secretary of the Treasury, or the Secretary’s delegate, shall continue to operate the IRS Free File Program as established by the Internal Revenue Service and published in the Federal Register on November 4, 2002 (67 Fed. Reg. 67247), including any subsequent agreements and governing rules established pursuant thereto.The force of this is pretty simple: the FFP (and the MOU underlying it) would graduate from department policy to federal law.But before we get into the implications of that, I want to contrast the above with a clause from a previous (unpassed) bill:The Secretary of the Treasury, or his delegate, may not establish, develop, sponsor, acquire, or make available individual income tax preparation software or electronic filing services that are offered under the IRS Free File program, except through the IRS Free File program, the Internal Revenue Service’s Taxpayer Assistance Centers, Tax Counseling for the Elderly, and volunteer income tax assistance (VITA) programs.Note the difference: in this second version, the non-compete aspect would have been part of the federal legislation itself (as opposed to it being a clause in an MOU referenced by the law, where that MOU could be updated to remove or modify or replace that clause). It also would have limited the IRS from sponsoring private partners outside the confines of the FFP. This is the kind of bill that lobbyists really wanted. What they got this week was a distinctly lesser win.Anyway, as for the MOU in question (now in its 8th version, having been renewed late last year), there are a few clauses in play here:In recognition of this commitment [of FFI members to offer free filing software to the bottom 70% of earners], the federal government has pledged to not enter the tax preparation software and e-filing services marketplace.But while this exchange is a classic quid pro quo, this isn’t to say the deal is entirely equal.Any unilateral changes imposed by the U.S. government on FFI whether by statute, regulation, or administrative action will result in an immediate re-evaluation of the decision to continue FFI, and could result in an immediate suspension of free services upon the decision of each Member.This is where things get really interesting, and where FFI lobbyists clearly earned their money. The new bill, while less onerous than previous attempts at codifying the MOU, does include one slippery sentence: it mandates that the government “shall continue to operate” the FFP.Here’s why this matters: if the IRS decides to revise the MOU to remove the non-compete angle, the FFI would have a powerful incentive to exercise the above clause. The presumption is that they’d then argue something to the effect of “the government’s unilateral decision forced our hand and now the FFP is basically untenable, and the law says that the government needs to keep the FFP alive”. (I’m not sure how successful this argument might be, but it certainly seems that the legislation was crafted to allow the FFI to make it.)But there’s one more thing from that MOU that represents a curveball:Should the IRS commit funding to offer Services for free to taxpayers, the IRS shall notify FFI immediately.This clause has been in the MOU since the first draft. It basically allows the FFI to stop offering the free services if the IRS begins their own. But this is somewhat in tension with the unilateral changes bit. If the IRS exercises an option that’s always been part of the MOU, does that weaken a potential claim by the FFI?(To be clear, I don’t know how this would play out in court. Different judges could rule differently. Though there are surely precedents I’m unaware of that might make certain outcomes more or less likely. What is clear though is that there would be non-trivial litigation risk for the IRS if they were to drop the non-compete and the FFI were to object.)Anyway, there’s more to the MOU that we need to look at, but I want to set up that discussion by reviewing a few other things first.There Must Be A Better Way!The crux of this week’s commentary has mostly been “man, it would be great if the US could be like other countries and have an option where the IRS just sends out a pre-filled postcard and all we need to do is verify and sign it”.The easy narrative here is that this system doesn’t exist solely because of the FFP (i.e., the companies that make up the FFI don’t want to lose revenues, and have thus thrown lots of lobbying dollars at Congress to keep the FFP in place, and that’s why we can’t have nice things).While there are other problems with this narrative, I think it’s worth getting into a fuller list of cautions that past studies have raised as it concerns the US pursuing such a program (pulling mostly from this 1996 GAO report, though leaving out all the arguments that have been obviated by tech advances):At the time, 55% of filers would have needed to make amendments to any pre-filled form the IRS could have come up with (or else would have needed to just do their own filing from scratch). While that number would be lower now, the complexities of US tax regimes (at both federal and state levels) combined with the backwater efficiency of most inter-governmental data-sharing systems would keep this number from being near as low as that of most other developed countries.Tax prep companies pay lots of tax on their profits, and employ lots of people who pay lots of tax on their wages. If you eliminate those jobs, the government takes in less money. Plus governments have to pay benefits to unemployed people until they find new work.Lots of US citizens don’t trust the IRS, which could mean that lots of pre-filled forms would be challenged, thus increasing the overall workload. In contrast, the selling point of “we’re going to help you pay the fewest dollars to the big bad government” is compelling to lots of Americans, and often solicits more trust (even if it shouldn’t).There was a fear at the time that people would be less likely to declare side income if their filing was pre-filled (I’m sure there’s relevant data from other countries who use this system — would love a link if any reader happens to know of quality research here).Employers are really bad at sending on forms in a timely way, making it hard for the IRS to gain the needed data to make correct calculations while also maintaining their current tax calendar.We can add two more things to this list:The IRS is intentionally under-funded (down nearly 20% this decade despite a host of new responsibilities). It’s hard to imagine either party giving them loads of money to institute new programs in the current climate, whatever their potential benefit. It’s just an electoral nightmare. Lobbyists and messaging consultants have done too effective a job at poisoning that particular well.US government agencies are generally bad at managing software projects. It isn’t at all clear that they’d get further developing their own system vs. forcing the FFI members to improve their existing offerings.Now, those arguments vary in power. I’m skeptical that even taken together they mean that the IRS shouldn’t try a large-scale pilot. But the last two are definitely non-trivial. Giving the IRS a larger budget is widely considered a non-starter, and changing political perception there would be a massive undertaking. But if you had to get them more money for either oversight or building their own program, oversight would be a whole lot cheaper, and may have a higher ROI.Bad Faith EffortsYou might be wondering: if the FFP has been around since 2002, why do only ~3 million people a year use it? (A number that’s been trending downward.)There are a handful of high-level answers here:Per the MOU (4.35), it’s actually the IRS’s responsibility to market the FFP. Doing this well would require them having a budget to do so (and them having the institutional competency to use that money well).Also per the MOU (4.15.4), FFI members are responsible to advertise the free service from their “Free File Landing Page”. They are not responsible to make this landing page easily accessible. In most cases, said pages are only reachable via the IRS’s little-known FFP program page.Most of the FFI’s FFP offerings suck (on purpose). The IRS has the right of review, but doesn’t use it very effectively. (As the FFI largely sees improving these offerings to be contrary to their financial interests, they’re only going to go as far as they’re pushed.)While some FFP offerings suck less, the FFI is dominated by Intuit (TurboTax) and H&R Block (i.e., the two players at least theoretically most opposed to improvements).Free options aren’t generally good at identifying all eligible deductions, leading most filers to opt for a paid service they perceive to be better at that.Filing taxes normally via TurboTax or a local outfit isn’t all that hard or expensive, and most taxpayers just aren’t bothered enough to seek an alternate solution.Of those factors, I want to focus on 3 and 4. To illustrate what bad faith means here, let’s look at how TurboTax goes about fulfilling their FFP obligations.Now, you might be thinking “well, that’s no so bad at all! — after all, the free option is clearly marked in an attractive way”.But then you click on that “simple tax returns” subhead and you’re greeted with a curious disclaimer:Hmm. Now why would these things not be covered? The obvious answer would be that artificial restrictions are useful for pushing customers to premium options. Pretty normal practice. But doesn’t the MOU forbid this type of upselling on FFP offerings?Trick question! The above offering has nothing to do with the FFP!TurboTax does have an FFP option, which does cover all the situations from the disclaimer. It’s just hidden. The only way you’d ever find it is if you came in via a link from the IRS’s FFP program page (or something written about it I guess). The fact that the two offerings share a confusingly similar name (“Free Edition” vs. “Free File”) is, ahem, a bit of poor luck. They say it isn’t their fault if consumers are confused, as it isn’t their job to educate them.And this is hardly the only kind of spirit-violating nonsense that FFI folks have gotten up to. Remember how the MOU demanded that the lowest 70% of earners all be given free options? Well, the MOU didn’t demand that each provider meet that goal individually — just collectively. The natural consequence? Each FFI provider has seemingly arbitrary restrictions on location and age/income ranges. While you’re guaranteed (if under the income cap) that one of them will work for you, the same one might not work for your sibling or next-door neighbor. It may not even work for you two years in a row! It’s complicated enough that the IRS had to develop a lookup tool that requires you to complete a survey to match you with the right offering. Friction, friction, friction.Why Governments Suck, Part IIf you read through the MOU, you might find yourself surprised at some of the clauses.4.36.3 - IRS and FFI mutually agree to support and promote Free File as an “Innovation Lab” to test, pilot, and offer capabilities to simplify taxpayer compliance, such as data importation offered by industry as described herein, and such as IRS’s Application Programming Interface (API) projects […]Yep, you read that right: the FFI actually has a mandate to create the sort of tax-filing experience we all dream of. (There’s a whole section on this.) On the balance, the MOU is honestly pretty taxpayer-friendly. The problem isn’t in the text — it’s in the fact that the US government is terrible at private-sector oversight, rendering most of these deals somewhere between one-sided and meaningless.This is why all those battles that Roger and Paul and Grover and Newt and Ralph fought in the 80s/90s mattered. They weren’t conservatives fighting against the encroachment of progressive values or the nanny-state. They were power-brokers looking to get paid by corporations keen to reduce oversight to something of a farce. (And they definitely had their allies on the left in this effort.) Now, sure, reasonable people can disagree on how much oversight the market needs. That’s why we have a democratic system that necessitates healthy compromises. Good legislation should certainly aim for balance, and so on. But what those men did was use the “government vs. markets” debate, not to shift the compromise, but to obscure what they were really doing: making sure that whatever compromises Congress reached would be toothless anyhow.The reality here is that the MOU itself is largely fine, as is the new law. And the litigation risk of backing out of the non-compete, however severe, is mostly a red herring. The IRS is still free to help other competitors (like Credit Karma) enhance their free services, and there’s no reason that FFI offerings couldn’t be made to be as good or better than whatever the IRS could come up with themselves. That the current options suck isn’t about who is building the software. It’s about the IRS having no real resources to either enforce/sweeten the MOU or market the FFP.And that, in turn, is a problem with public perception. The US can easily afford to properly fund the IRS (it would actually be a net savings on a longer timeline). But elected representatives are terrified of trying, largely thanks to the efforts of the Grovers of this world — along with a little help from the media.Why Governments Suck, Part IIIt isn’t a new observation that good governance requires an informed public. This has been a maxim since the first Greek experiments with democracy. Literacy and engagement are the central pillars of any nation worth living in.So why is the press doing such a poor job informing the public in a way likely to arm them with the data and context required to engage well?Let’s start with the ProPublica piece that set off this whole dialogue:Congress Is About to Ban the Government From Offering Free Online Tax Filing. Thank TurboTaxSetting aside the misleading implications of the headline as worded, let’s look at the article’s first paragraph:Just in time for Tax Day, the for-profit tax preparation industry is about to realize one of its long-sought goals. Congressional Democrats and Republicans are moving to permanently bar the IRS from creating a free electronic tax filing system.Note those words: “permanently bar”.Remember that Stewart line from the beginning about “sensationalism, conflict, and laziness”? Keep that in mind as you parse what exactly “permanently bar” might mean. It isn’t a term of art. Congress has no power to ban anything forever. That’s not how the law works. The closest we could get is a constitutional amendment, but even those can be re-written and re-interpreted. Laws, by their nature, are transitory things.The real focus of this new legislation isn’t permanence, but difficulty. The FFI hardly expects the status quo to last another 17 years, much less indefinitely. They just expect that litigation risk (and two-branch support) will act as a speed bump on change. Their monopoly would still be written in pencil, but the erasers would be just that little bit extra harder to come by, which would make them happy.Now, you might object that I’m being over-sensitive to the meaning of words here, and that ProPublica’s take wasn’t all that bad. And this is where we have to get a little philosophical. Some believe that every journalist’s responsibility is something to the effect of “collect some facts, avoid outright mistakes, and work with an editor to make your story marketable”. But this to me is the equivalent of requiring them to “tell the truth and nothing but the truth” while leaving out the bit about “the whole truth” as either unimportant or impractical. The story that ProPublica told was true, but it agitated more than it informed. The FFI likely read it and said “well, this will make this week suck, but the outrage isn’t well-directed to any end that represents a real obstacle to us, so, hey, whatever”.Look, good journalism is hard. I get that. And there’s certainly value to communicating key facts quickly. Not every news bulletin can wait on an exhaustive search for whatever we might consider a realist approximation of “the whole truth”. But it seems undeniable to me that the current model is broken. And this is nowhere more evident than in how primary reporting is reprocessed by secondary publishers in their quest for clickshare.Say you thought “permanently bar” was wrong but not very wrong. How do you feel about the first sentence of TechCrunch’s repackage?Thanks to pressure from tax preparation industry, Congress is getting ready to ban the IRS from ever building a free electronic tax filing system.Does TechCrunch say “ever” here if ProPublica didn’t use “permanently” first? If I was a casual reader, I’d assume that “ever” implied some real finality, like a door being shut that couldn’t be re-opened. (Where the reality here is that this particular door can be sprung with precisely the same force with which it was closed.)In the same vein, consider this follow-on by Popular Mechanics:Filing Your Taxes Could Be Way Easier, But Congress and Tax Companies Are Conniving To Make Sure It Stays TerribleConniving! Reminds me of that old saw about how one shouldn’t ascribe to malice what’s better explained by incompetence (or, in this case, inadequate resources).Anyway, as to the article itself:Tucked away in section 1102 of the bill, which relates to the IRS Free File Program that ensures fee-free filing for people under a certain income threshold, is language that subtly prevents the IRS for developing its own system by mandating that the agency continue to work with the private sector in this endeavor. In other words, the legislation locks us all into the status quo.I credit ProPublica with at least this: however narrow their perspective was, at least they did their homework. Their bias was more toward sensationalism and conflict than laziness. Popular Mechanics (and dozens of others) went for the full trifecta, in a much more brazen way.As a non-exhaustive list of problems here:While, yes, filing your taxes could be “way easier”, shifting the software burden to the IRS would be no guarantee of making this so.Section 1102 was the 3rd of 47 sections. If their goal was to hide it in the stack, the crafters did a poor job.There’s a deep confusion here between the bill and the MOU.The actual non-compete language is the opposite of subtle.This is like the game of Telephone. Most secondary publishers do near-zero research and just repackage the primary article, leaving the signal to degrade with each step.And then we have Twitter.Who says there is no common ground in politics?Democrats and Republicans in the House just unanimously passed a bill that makes it illegal for the IRS to create a system to let Americans file their taxes for free online— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) April 10, 2019This system already exists! It’s called the FFP! That the IRS can’t create their own competing system to the one they already manage is a much narrower issue.(Also, for the record, passing a bill by acclimation isn’t the same as passing one via a unanimous vote.)[EDIT: 05/01/21: I realize one counter-argument here is “ah but this system is limited to 70% of the population”. And that’s true so far as it goes. But the top 30%of earners generally have far more complicated returns, almost all use accountants, and largely wouldn’t be using a free file service anyway.]It's hard to find a clearer example of Congress sabotaging the public good than a bill -- lobbied for by TurboTax -- prohibiting the Internal Revenue Service from developing a free online system for filing your taxes.https://t.co/4HuIZc9ZKO— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) April 10, 2019Ditto to above. This system already exists, and was developed under the auspices of the IRS.Also, the linked NYT piece (from their editorial board) includes this gem: “Instead of barring the I.R.S. from making April a little less miserable, why isn’t Congress requiring the I.R.S. to create a free tax filing website?”The IRS already mandated the creation of several such websites! The assumption that the IRS would create a better one on their own is plausible, but (really) far from certain when you look at the history of government software projects.Two facts:1. H&R Block and the makers of TurboTax spent $6.6 million lobbying last year. They want to ban the IRS from offering its own free, simple tax filing service.2. Congress is about to pass a law doing exactly that. https://t.co/giatnNh5mD— Eric Umansky (@ericuman) April 9, 2019The IRS isn’t getting “banned” from anything. They voluntarily signed a non-compete 17 years ago, which they renewed less than six months ago. (And this is from a ProPublica editor!)The extent to which all Americans suffer an annual cost in time and money to protect the monopolies of TurboTax and H&R Block is astounding. Is there any issue where Congress is more out of step with citizen desires? https://t.co/GIRijGpS9Y— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) April 9, 2019Like, I get the desire for simpler taxes. But is $40 and 15 minutes really “suffering”? (And, again, for the lowest 70% of earners, they don’t even have to shell out the $40 if they don’t want to. Though I guess you could say that using existing FFP sites is a form of suffering, if in an excessively first-world sense.)Congress can’t muster the political will to eliminate the carried interest tax break for private equity titans, but it can get together to prevent free tax preparation for others: https://t.co/3pEfW8EPnF— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) April 10, 2019No free preparation! Except for 70% of you! And a handful of other special classes!Anyway, I could go on. But the point is that if the goal is to get voters to hold politicians accountable, it would certainly help if the voters knew what was happening, and why, and where the real problems are.It’s difficult to see how all the current coverage supports such a cause.More Adventures in Water-MuddyingConsider this quote (from the original ProPublica piece, but re-used in several secondary articles):“This could be a disaster. It could be the final nail in the coffin of the idea of the IRS ever being able to create its own program,” said Mandi Matlock, a tax attorney who does work for the National Consumer Law Center.This is, uh, pretty hyperbolic. Is there any justification for it? Does it aid clarity? Or does it just lend to the ever-marketable dynamics of sensationalism and conflict?Also consider this irreconcilable set of quotes from ProPublica’s sequel (published after lawmakers reacted to the first one).The IRS chief counsel confirmed to his office that the Taxpayer First Act does not bar the agency from implementing a direct-file program. … “My staff pushed back on a long-standing policy that blocks the IRS from competing with private tax preparation companies […]”vs.“Senate Republicans fit in some bitter pills and some problematic provisions,” said [Rep Katie Hill], who supported the bill as a whole, speaking on the House floor. “One of these is a piece that came to my attention today — which the corporate tax lobby has spent years and millions of dollars to get — which would bar the IRS from creating a simple, free filing system that would compete with their own.”I find this stuff infuriating, on three levels:Those who want to get quoted have biases and motives. Readers aren’t equipped to unpack those. Journalists need to do more than just “report the controversy”. Maybe that works for an AP news bulletin where speed is of the essence. But who is doing the work of coming in after and deconstructing for the reader why each party might have said what and how their statements relate to their bios?Far too many journalists (I’m not sure if this includes ProPublica) rely on services like HARO, where the experts are unknowns who respond to a call for a quote (vs. people with whom the journalist has an established relationship based on a keen understanding of competencies and incentives and likely spin). I know personally how low the bar is to getting quoted via HARO. I was never asked once to verify my identity or defend my position. What I said was just copied-and-pasted into a piece on the strength of a one-sentence self-supplied credential and my email address.Just because a politician has a quote doesn’t mean you should print it. It’s pretty clear that most who’ve commented on this legislation so far had/have (at best) a vague sense of what it contains, much less all the MOUs and external docs referenced in the bill. This isn’t uncommon. Only so many politicians have the right staff (and even then there are hard limits on scope and priorities). Journalists ought to push back more to ensure they aren’t just printing “um, I don’t reaaally know, but here’s my strong opinion that I’m told will play well to my base” quotes (or at least journalists need to carefully qualify those quotes when printing them).The Path ForwardI’ve written a lot over the past year about the failures of modern journalism — especially the hot-take/rapid-response/clickshare machine. There are things we can do to fix it, including some simple adjustments that could go a long way.In the absence of those changes, corporations like Intuit and H&R Block are going to have a field day. Their lobbyists will do what they’re paid very well to do, and our selective and ever-moving outrage will do nothing to solve the underlying problems. The MOU, whether law or policy, will continue to be enforced so poorly as to be one-sided, and tax innovation will be forever three or five years away.And so on and so on we’ll go, never to actually get anywhere, until we eventually decide that enough is enough, that the current model belongs in the dustbin of history, and that the time to make these changes is now.Note #1: I’m generally a fan of ProPublica. I thought their rundown last year was excellent, which has been true of a lot of their past coverage on this issue. I can’t really account for why this one missed the mark in relative terms.Note #2: An open question for any lawyer reading: could taxpayers sue the IRS for failing to meet the requirements set out in section 4.35 of the MOU (a promise to make “consistent, good faith efforts” to market the FFP)?EDITS [05/01/21]:Coming back to this two years later, I’ve made some fresh eyes edits. See log. The only thing that wasn’t typos or formatting or minor caveating was adding a clarification that the MOU could still have been modified by the IRS (as opposed to the law itself, which would have required help from Congress). While it’s true that the IRS would need the FFI to agree to any such revisions, they have a unilateral termination clause for leverage (Article 10.2). The bill just said they had to continue operating the program in keeping with the original outline and any subsequent agreements. Well the reigning agreement (as ProPublica acknowledged) says the IRS can unilaterally dissolve the MOU with a year’s notice. (I’m sure the FFI would threaten to sue if the IRS went that route. But the point here again is introducing friction to test the government’s resolve. Should the government have sufficient resolve, they have absurd leverage to win that fight. So it was hardly some adamantium handcuff situation.)There’s a way in which ProPublica’s reporting worked. The offending clause was taken out of the bill as passed by the Senate. But I’m still torn about their coverage (which is fresh in mind as I’m currently working on another story about them). On one hand, they did quality work directing attention towards a somewhat dodgy thing. And the uproar they whipped up stopped that somewhat dodgy thing from happening. Even so, the basic underlying situation hasn’t actually changed. Few voters have a clearer idea of what’s really in the way of improvements to the FFP (i.e., IRS executive virility in managing the existing MOU), far too many were led to believe that the law would have been irreversible, and most are still in the fantasyland of imagining that were it not for Intuit the IRS would somehow have the sort of system you see in countries like Sweden (when the real obstacles there are all orthogonal to FFP). While I still see them as the gold standard of journalism, that means less than it should.(I’d be curious to see how many more Americans used Free File in 2020 on the back of all this media attention. If I ever find an answer, I’ll come back to link it. As a big uptick vs. the prior trendline would be to their credit.)

The most noticeable thing to others is I use military time. It's just more convenient.The behavior I exhibit that seems to constantly show to civilians that I don't belong is when someone is wrong, I correct them. Like when a friend bitches to me about behaviors that they themselves exhibit, I point out their hypocrisy. For example, when someone who regularly flirts with others then bitches about not being able to trust their spouse, I point out their behavior. I don't think most civilians will understand this so allow me explain just a tad further…As a private, my very first Platoon Sergeant taught me a lesson that easily contends for the most valuable thing I learned while in the Army. My unit, 2nd Brigade of 2nd Infantry Division (2–2) had deployed to Iraq around early December of 2006, while I was still in Basic Combat Training (BCT). I started BCT September 21st, 2006. I left Ft. Carson en route to Afghanistan, with a 10-day stopover in Kuwait for some advanced Combat Lifesaver (CLS) training, on March 6th, 2007.On my 6-month anniversary of being in the army, I arrived at the only unit I would ever be in: A Co. 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division (we reflagged to A Co. 4BSTB, 4IBCT, 4ID sometime in 2007, I believe). So, by the time I got to Baghdad, my unit had already been there nearly 5 months. One of my Fucking New Guy (FNG) tasks was to memorize all kinds of rules about everything. I had to know the Army regulations, the regulations for Multinational Divisions- Baghdad (Iraq) aka MNDBI, and all other manners of seemingly useless, but incredibly important information.One of the facts I came across regarded what was to become a controversial article of clothing. We were issued these long-sleeve “silk” shirts (“silk weights”) that had holes in the wrist so that you could put your thumb through. I’m literally wearing one as I write this. They’re the best light thermal wear I have ever worn. And, not coincidentally, the the thumbholes are useful when wearing gloves as the sleeves tucks into your glove, reducing wind bite on your wrist.Well, my squad leader corrected me early in the day by telling me to not put my thumb in the hole (if I had a dollar…). We had a brief exchange where I told him it was authorized, and he basically responded with, “Privates don't know shit.” Now, usually, he is absolutely correct that the average private doesn’t know shit. But, I wasn’t no average fucking private. I had read the regulations specifically referring to that article of clothing and the thumb holes associated with them.I knew I was right. But, I was a PV2 (E-2) with just over 6 months in the Army, and he was a SSG (E-6) with over 8 years in the Army. While, I wanted to argue my point more, my better judgement took hold, and I gave him a “Roger, Sergeant,” took my thumbs out of the holes, and carried on. What else could I do?Later, during our pre-mission briefings, my squad leader called me out in front of everyone. He told my platoon sergeant (PSG) how he caught me with my thumbs through the holes. Silly private he mocked me, in front of everyone. Then, he told everyone how defiant I was after he had corrected me. He told them about our brief exchange. Everyone in the briefing room was oooing and ahhhhing at my squad leader’s story. I felt the room turning against me.You can’t BEGIN to imagine the hell a senior NCO used to be able to put a soldier through. They are called “smoke sessions.” The leader “smokes” the subordinate, and the subordinate gets smoked. I remember “POW-crawling” in 120+F (49+C) over rocks literally for hours, until and long after my knees started bleeding. I have been woken up in the middle of the night, forced to wear our full chemical suits (MOPP 4) with protective gas masks, to run wind sprints for a few hours. (I always felt like I was suffocating when wearing the pro-mask). Forced to carry 100 pound sandbags back and forth for hours, on what felt like the surface of the son. Leaders had a lot of downtime to think up, and execute hellacious punishments. So, I could feel the crosshairs of all of them aiming right between my eyes… but then, the heavens opened up, a harp started playing, and the heavens themselves shone down on my PSG.My PSG, with a look of confusion, looked at my Squad Leader and asked, “what the fuck are you talking about?”Confused, my squad leader just reiterated the point about not using the thumbholes on the shirt.I was in disbelief that my PSG was taking my side, my PSG was in disbelief that my squad leader wouldn’t think the thumbholes were authorized, and my squad leader was still confused and thinking my PSG was not understanding him. “What the fuck do you think they’re for? Of course you can put your thumb through the holes.”My squad leader’s smile faded. My PSG then turned his attention to his notes briefly before he began the briefing, completely ignoring the previous minute of monologue by my squad leader, and his own rebuttal. My squad leader leader and I briefly locked eyes. His face said “Whatever. Fuck you.” Mine said “Holy shit, I won.” and “Please don’t smoke me.”Anyways, it was several weeks later when my PSG and I were talking about this incident, he told me to never back down if the other person was wrong. “Gravitt, who gives a fuck about that rank on their chest? If they're wrong, they're wrong, right?” Of course he was right. So, I made it a habit of speaking my mind, especially when I disagreed. If only he knew the monster he created that day. I later learned you have know to the regs, so you can skirt them, while never really breaking them. Thank you SFC Kresser.This speaking your mind thing is not uncommon in the Army. It is literally life and death, so the time to voice doubts or better courses of action is always. Civilians are highly unaccustomed to reasonable disagreements. They also seem utterly incapable of following out an order they disagree with, with the exact same enthusiasm as an order they agree with.In the Army, I gave orders to close friends that they didn't want to follow. We may have even argued about it. Many of these arguments ended with a rank-kibosh, which is acknowledging their grievance, but over-ruling it. But, no matter what, when the time came, we were 100% professional and we handled business together. And, trust me, I was no stranger to having rank pulled on me as well. You become inoculated to it.Usually, less than 24-hours later, the issue is resolved or irrelevant. In the Army good leaders constantly questioned each other's methods in attempts to find the best ways of accomplishing our goals. Frequently, others have shown me flaws in my decisions, and I in turn have shown others, . Being shown your error means you have improved. Sure, it can be a little embarrassing sometimes, but it's better than being dead; and, it's never personal. Correcting others is about fixing mistakes, not insulting each other. Sadly, this concept seems foreign to civilians.When I correct a civilian, they almost always take it as a personal affront, no matter how softly I break it to them. In the Army, I would show you where you're wrong and we'd move on. We could even be antagonistic to each other, but it would be over immediately after that part of the discussion.I feel like civilians have had the rather unfortunate luxury of hand-selecting every person with whom they have regular contact. People with opposing views are shut out and ridiculed. What's worse is that the civilian's friends will reinforce the friend's position, further de-legitimizing potentially legitimate concerns.The end result is that most civilians are utterly incapable of having a reasonable discussion because, as soon as your opinion differs from their own, you're seen as “them,” so no conversation can be had. They are unable to understand that the issue is not between “us”; it's between ideas.In the military I conversed, lived with, fought beside, etc. Muslims, Christians, atheists, and everything between; we were white, black, and everything between; some were college educated; some (myself included) were high school dropouts; I served with at least one gay guy and several gay girls; some of us grew up in the various CULTURES spread across America; some were earning their citizenship through their service, from places like Ukraine, American Samoa (I know it's technically America, but they're [wrongly] not granted citizenship at birth, and their culture is Samoan), the Philippines, South Korea, Nigeria, etc. Basically, we were about as diverse as you could be.And, we had heated discussions about religion, politics, parenting, economics, etc. I'm not sure these discussions ever arrive at an agreement. So, the beliefs and stances of everyone were known and incredibly clear to each of us. This means we knew who was Muslim, Mormon, Catholic, Protestant, Atheist, etc. We knew that we all disagreed with each others’ worldviews. Some of us even hated one another.But when it came down to business, we all knew that regardless of our race, religion, nationality even, that each of those soldiers, regardless of their individual beliefs would lay down their lives without hesitation in defense of the others. We were all heathens and non-believers to the other heathens and non-believers. Basically, it comes down to disagreeing without being disagreeable. I was utterly unprepared for the lack of this upon leaving the military. I am able to gain and lose several friends over mere days.One last problem is when I was in the Army, everyone with whom I had regular contact knew me very well. I never needed to preface my statements in the Army. For example, as a soldier, the style of humor in which we partake is incredibly dark. Rape, matricide, infanticide, racism, sexism, etc.: none of it was off-limits. In the Army, everyone knew we weren't actually a bunch of racist, sexist, abusive, homicidal rapists. I am often taken back when people take my jokes literally. The fuck I look like? Dahmer? Oh, and don't comment telling me about how our humor is not funny, or is evil, etc. Because… fuck you. I don't tell you what to laugh at; do me the same courtesy.