President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats are focusing policy efforts on the “tax gap,” a hazy estimate of the difference between what taxpayers pay in taxes and the amount the IRS thinks they actually owe.

Democrats plan to close this gap and increase tax collections by $700 billion through doubling the size of the Internal Revenue Service. They are likely to find that they reap less money than they hope. But as Democrats work through the tax gap, they should pay more attention to the “spending gap.” That is to say, unauthorized and expired federal spending on

“zombie programs.” This spending totals hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars every year.