Mitt Romney wins the Republican primary in Michigan, and Hillary Rodham beats nobody, with nobody taking 40% of the vote. Onward to South Carolina.

Michigan was an interesting study. This is a state suffering under what people are calling a "single state recession." The reason? A governor and legislature that wants to tax everything that moves and paint everything that does not. So, the candidates on both sides of the equation decided to preach the economy in Michigan.

Every candidate, save John McCain, had their version of the "we're going to bring jobs back to Michigan" refrain. McCain was a bit more honest in telling these people that those jobs aren't coming back. They'll have to work to develop a new job base.

Jobs? So it's jobs you want? You want to see a boost in the economy that would create new jobs and lift all the boats? Well, let me tell you what isn't going to do it. That would be those stupid $250 checks the MoveOn Democrats are promising to pay to every likely Democrat voter in the country.

Jobs have left this country because of our tax structure and regulation. Our tax structure takes the majority of the blame here. Roger Smith, the former HMWIC of General Motors told the Congress many years ago that the embedded taxes in the price of every car coming out of Michigan are having an adverse impact on the auto industry. Congress didn't listen then .. and isn't, for the most part, listening now.

Yeah – you guessed it – another FairTax rant coming on ... but I'll do my best to make it interesting.

Let's start with a few facts that you might not be aware of:

First .. there are $13 trillion dollars that belong to U.S. citizens and businesses working offshore. These dollars are working offshore to escape our punishing tax system. In some cases U.S. based businesses and individuals earn these dollars overseas and just leave the money there, knowing that if those dollars come home the tax collector will be waiting. So they are invested overseas. Think about it. We have $13 trillion dollars working overseas and not working here in this country to create jobs and boost our economy for one reason. Just one. Our tax code.

Then we have the cost of complying with our current tax code. These tax compliance costs are estimated to be anywhere from $300 to $500 billion dollars .. and that's a cost that is incurred every year. The average U.S. taxpayer spends close to 60 hours working on their tax record-keeping and tax returns every year. This is time that is taken away from either leisure activities or income-earning pursuits.

Now this is so simple that everyone ought to be able to understand it. If you eliminate corporate and individual income and payroll taxes and if you eliminate the need for any business or individual to file an income tax return with the federal government, you are going to reduce the cost of complying with our tax code to almost nothing. This would mean an infusion of somewhere between $300 and $500 billion dollars into our economy every year .. money now spent on tax compliance costs.

It takes $100,000 to create a job. Lower tax compliance costs by just one billion dollars. Let that one billion go to work in our economy, and what do you have? Enough money to create 10,000 jobs. Pour hundreds of billions into our economy .. money that can be invested rather than wasted on tax compliance .. and just how many jobs do you create? And we're just talking about tax compliance costs here.

What happens when businesses can operate in the United States with no tax component on either capital or labor? That question was asked of the leaders of about 400 huge corporations not headquartered in the united states. Over 300 of these business leaders said that they would immediately open their next manufacturing or distribution facility in the U.S. What would that mean? Jobs, that's what. By the way, the remaining corporate heads said they would go ahead and move their headquarters to the U.S.

There's your job program. There's your economic plan.

And let's not forget the $13 trillion in offshore deposits. As soon as we lift the tax burden on Americans and American businesses that money starts coming back home. That money ends up being invested in American businesses and financial markets. Now I'm no economist, but I do have this wild idea that trillions of dollars flowing into this country and into our business and financial markets is going to have a positive impact on our economy.

Downside? Of course there's a downside. Government loses power. Lobbyists lose income. Our present tax code is, in reality, a jobs program .. but it's a jobs program for elected officials and lobbyists. They're not going to turn loose of their best jobs program ... our current tax code ... unless you force them to do so.

But ... that will have to wait until the current season of American Idol is over, won't it? After all, you have your priorities.