The tax code is 4 million words long. With regulations, it's over 10 million.

It keeps growing because every social policy goal — homeownership, kids, education, retirement, clean energy — gets routed through it, because Congress won't pass the direct spending version.

And then the complexity becomes its own argument: see, the government can't make this simple. Better let the private sector handle it.

Which is, of course, the point.