Sunday New York Times, Could Your Senator Conquer the 1040?, by John Schwartz:

Who is America’s funniest politician? It sounds like a question with a built-in oxymoron, like “What’s the best-ever disco song?” or “Do you serve jumbo shrimp?”

Still, there’s a comer on the scene: Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota. He shows promise. When, in his speeches, he paraphrases the movie “Talladega Nights” and says, “I want to thank the Lord for my smoking-hot wife,” how could you not smile?

Lately on the lecture-and-talk-show circuit, Mr. Pawlenty, a Republican, has been trotting out an out-and-out zinger: he says members of Congress should have to do their own taxes. Hilarious, right? As he recently put it to George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America” on ABC, they should have to do the job with “no help of an accountant, a lawyer or a tax specialist.”

I called up Mr. Pawlenty to ask how the line goes over with the crowds. “It kills, right?” He seemed a bit taken aback. He’s as serious as a 1040, he said — members of Congress should have to fill out their own forms, “so they can experience the full brunt of the mindless, senseless burden that is our U.S. tax code that they visit on hard-working Americans.” “I don’t mean it as a joke,” he said. …

I called Paul L. Caron, a visiting professor of law at the Pepperdine University School of Law in California, and he seemed charmed by the Pawlenty plan — though, he noted, the idea “has been around for a while.”

In fact, he suggested, why stop at taxes? “How about requiring members of Congress to go through T.S.A. lines at airports like the rest of us and get body-scanned? Getting their license plates renewed at the Department of Motor Vehicles?”

That’s bold, but I’ve never met a plan that couldn’t be made even bolder. Why not send our lawmakers to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan? It would certainly focus their thinking about the wars, and ensure that veterans aren’t slighted on health care and benefits when they return home.