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It’s a feisty edition of the podcast this week as we’re joined by Red Eye’s Greg Gutfeld and author/columnist David Limbaugh. We cover what the winners will do after election day, a great discussion about the Tea Party and why it is the most significant political movement in a generation, the Frum effect, the pros and cons of a VAT tax, a fashionably late arrival, and yes, some speculation about Peter Robinson’s sleeping attire.

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This Tax Day I’m sure we’ll all raise a glass to our friends at the IRS.

After all, their ranks are only growing. While the private sector is still struggling, with unemployment hovering just under 10 percent and real unemployment (including those who have quit looking for work) estimated at over 16 percent, this is a boom time for hiring at the IRS. Come to think of it, it’s always a boom time for government hiring in general.

All the tax increases in the health care takeover legislation – more than $500 billion – and the new enforcement mechanisms required to make sure every American is purchasing health insurance mean thousands upon thousands of new IRS employees.

But there’s more on the tax front. Almost another $1 trillion in tax increases are heading our way on December 31, 2010, when the Bush tax cuts expire. I don’t think Americans are ready for this massive tax hike. They’ve forgotten it’s coming. They’re still having trouble finding new jobs, or getting their mortgages in order. They’re not ready for higher capital gains taxes, a return of the death tax, and a tax penalty slapped on married filers.

And with President Obama and Speaker Pelosi still looking to “spread the wealth around” as part of their radical liberal agenda, we’re looking at additional tax threats in coming months. First, there’s the cherished Holy Grail of Al Gore’s nutty environmental movement: cap-and-trade, with its crippling new energy taxes.

Gas is already headed back toward $4 a gallon, but the environmental movement and President Obama want to take us to European levels with $6- or $7-a-gallon gas. I was in Copenhagen for the U.N. “Climate Change” conference last December, and we shot a video at a local gas station where gas was the equivalent of $7.50 per gallon because of their cap-and-trade energy tax.

Now prominent economic names like Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman, are getting behind the idea of a Value-Added Tax (VAT). It’s grossly misnamed, because it doesn’t add value to anything you buy – it only adds cost. How many new IRS workers would we need to implement and enforce a new tax like the VAT that would hit every good produced at every step of the production process? I shudder to imagine.

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Here’s something to consider for those who wondered why the usual suspects flew up in arms earlier this week over reports that ‘Circle of Commitment’, countries including the U.S., were seeking to wrest control of the Kyoto revenue mechanism to the World Bank (there’s no such move afoot, incidentally; that was merely an overwrought reaction to said suspects finding something that they hadn’t been allowed to write).

That of course would have implications for the “global carbon offset market” if Kyoto II ropes us in and finally begins chugging down the tracks, next stop “Oil for Food on Steroids”.

Today’s Open Europe press briefing includes the following item (in bold in original):

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