Editor’s note: When people say it isn’t rocket science, ever wonder what it is that makes rocket science so darn hard? In our Decoder series, Whoopi Goldberg seeks out experts across a wide spectrum of fields to find out how things work, from the encryption on your iPod to the fine print on your tax bill. So next time you see a rocket, don’t be surprised if it’s one Whoopi built herself.

David Cay Johnston is a former writer for The New York Times and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Free Lunch.

DAVID: We’ve got to get back to policies that focus on people, on the next generation, on stability, on providing for – as the Europeans have figured out, you want to provide for the shocks that hit people. I mean, you know, you’re walking down the street and the cops shoot it out with some bandit and a stray bullet hits you – well, tough luck, you know, you’re going to become poor. And what sense does that make? And we need policies that focus on people instead of dollars and capital.

WHOOPI: Does it take people recognizing that basically what’s happening [to the tax code] is fundamentally bad? Because you don’t want to say to people, “OK, taxes are bad.” They’re not bad.

Click here to see just the numbers, crunched.

Click here to read part one of the Whoopi Decoder series: Whoopi the Decoder Finds Out Why We Get ‘Taxed up the Behind’

Click here to read part two of the Whoopi Decoder series: Is Congress Forcing CEOs to ‘Fire U.S. Workers As Fast As They Can?’

DAVID: Right. Whoopi, what gave birth to democracy 2500 years ago?

WHOOPI: No taxation without representation.

DAVID: No, no, no. That’s not what gave birth to it. Ancient Athens had an absolute head tax. Everybody paid the same amount, rich or poor. And for 80 percent of Athenians it was a horrible burden. And it led to all sorts of misbehavior and stuff. But if you didn’t pay the tax they literally took you to the city gates and sent you away, which was a death sentence.

WHOOPI: Right.

DAVID: And then they devised this … this moral principal: the greater your economic gain because you live in Athens, since there’s no gain if you don’t live in Athens, the greater the burden of tax you should bear to maintain Athens. And when they invented that idea they invented democracy. And yet you’ll hear all sorts of politicians tell you, “Progressive income tax is a Communist idea. It was the second plank of the Communist Manifesto.” Adam Smith was in favor of this before Karl Marx was a gleam in his daddy’s eye. So we have to get back to people understanding that they’ve been sold a bill of goods here. And I’ll do a little commercial. I mean, the reason I wrote Perfectly Legal and Free Lunch was to get people to see how the system really works.

So that’s my little contribution to the world, is trying to show people, here’s what’s in the official government data. I mean, people who politically, totally dislike me do not challenge the facts in my books. The second thing is people have to start talking about political issues, whether it’s at the hair salon or on the steps at church or the synagogue, or hanging out with your friends having a beer on Friday afternoon … or Saturday afternoon. We’ve got to start talking about the role of government in our lives. Government is central to our lives.

WHOOPI: Right.