The current debate in Washington is whether the president must provide information to Congress, or whether he can decide he may -- or may not -- answer a request for documentation on his tax returns and business dealings.
The law says a person "shall" provide information to a congressional panel. It does not say he has a choice of answering the request if he chooses to do so, depending on his mood at any given moment, and whether he thinks Congress ought to see it.
Any sixth grader knows that "shall" implies an obligation, while "will" means you may or may not do something but only if you are willing to do it.
Those who want to go back a few thousand years to when the Ten Commandments were issued will recognize the phrase "Thou shalt not ..."
That's not a request, but a command.
But as Trumpty Dumpty would say, "My words mean just what I choose them to mean." And how can we know what he means until he explains his chosen meaning to us?
A question now floating about the Internet is, "How dumb do these politicians think we are?"
One answer might be that they think members of the public are of equal intelligence levels as they, the politicians, are.
What does that tell you?
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