But there is a case to be made for a kind of windfall profits tax: A tax on windfall political profits is indeed desirable. Our rulers cannot legally take home personally more than a minor share (in salary and perks) of the income they steal from us through taxation. But they "profit" from taxes nevertheless by using billions and billions of dollars to buy votes from various political constituencies in order to perpetuate their political careers. Then, in many cases, after spending years in Congress giving away our hard-earned dollars to various undeserving individuals and groups, they retire to earn large salaries from those very groups or to become lobbyists for the groups and use their political connections to keep this carnival of theft and plunder going. That is how our rulers profit personally from tax revenue.