In a new essay, Eileen J. O’Connor shares that in “2017, federal receipts were about $3.3 trillion and spending was about $3.9 trillion.”  How are these tax dollars spent?  The bad news is that, since the Executive Branch started trying to quantify them about a dozen years ago, federal agencies have handed out more than $1.4 trillion in improper payments.  O’Connor, former Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division of the United States Department of Justice, explains this and more in “Taxes: ‘The Price We Pay for a Civilized Society’.”