A recent example comes from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That law was drafted in haste and in secret, and passed without any time for review by legislators—or even proofreading. Parts of it were handwritten, and it’s pretty much inconceivable that anyone who voted either for or against it knew precisely what was in it. The text contained an error that accidentally categorized military death benefits as earned income. The practical effect of that mistake was that surviving family members were hit with surprise tax bills of $10,000 or more. That’s a bug.
