The week before April 15 my latest book was published, titled “End the IRS Before it Ends US – How to Restore a Low Tax, High Growth, Wealthy America.”

The timing was exquisite. The title drew two questions: Can you really mean getting rid of the IRS? Don’t we need some agency collecting federal taxes?

What did we learn from Round One?

Typical meetings, held every other Wednesday, were in the first floor auditorium and afterwards everyone would mingle — with vegetables, dip and Coors beer.

Republicans have three levers: The sequester’s pending automatic spending cuts, the request to raise the debt ceiling, and the annual budget negotiations. This time the levers are in GOP hands.

“I am a participating observer,” Derek Hunter says. “You can’t know where to go unless you know what is going on.”

The South Dakota race becomes ‘instantly competitive’.

Much of the day will be driven by the Obama administration’s latest plan, released Thursday, which is specific on spending light on the cutting. Stay up to date here.

The growing isolation of Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform and author of the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” has been talked about so often it’s hard to remember how little evidence there is for it.

EXCLUSIVE: The president of Americans for Tax Reform calls on Republicans to to remember past deals, where Democrats promised spending cuts in exchange for tax increases. And the deception that ensued.

Obama has not put on the table any specific entitlement reforms and is demanding a total of $1.6 trillion in tax hikes. He is all tax hikes and no spending restraint.