Randa Abdelfattah and Ramteen Arablui

To him, the aggressive tax avoidance, even when legal, is just as worthy of scorn and political attack.

Because you think about it, that's the New Deal.

The government is relying on the tax system.

Thing is, most of the government's revenue to fund New Deal projects, like new schools, new sewers, new sidewalks, new airports, new courthouses, came from deficit spending and from excise taxes.

Taxes on goods like tobacco, cars, radios, and alcohol, as Prohibition ended in 1933.

Not the income tax, which only about 5% of the population at this point, the wealthiest of the wealthy, were paying.

But for Roosevelt, the income tax was symbolic, a way to rebuild trust with the public and restore that feeling people had when Elmer Irie took down Capone, that everyone was expected to pay their fair share.

And he wants to name names.

One of the names Roosevelt tells the IRS to investigate is Elmer Irie's former boss, Andrew Mellon.

Andrew Mellon was a very prominent and very wealthy man.

Everybody knew who he was.

There is an old joke about Andrew Mellon that three presidents served under Andrew Mellon.

He'd been Treasury Secretary for more than 11 years.

Basically from the time Prohibition began.

And what did he believe in?

He believed in cutting taxes, more than anything else.

I liked Mr. Mellon, and they knew it.

Elmer initially objects to the investigation.

He's like, there's nothing there.

And then he gets a phone call from the new Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, a close friend of Roosevelt, who says, I order it.