Congressman Mike Kelly ripped into the IRS yesterday:
Wall Street Journal columnist Kim Stassel laid the blame for the IRS fiasco directly on the White House:
"Was the White House involved in the IRS's targeting of conservatives? No investigation needed to answer that one. Of course it was.
President Obama and Co. are in full deniability mode, noting that the IRS is an "independent" agency and that they knew nothing about its abuse. The media and Congress are sleuthing for some hint that Mr. Obama picked up the phone and sicced the tax dogs on his enemies.
But that's not how things work in post-Watergate Washington. Mr. Obama didn't need to pick up the phone. All he needed to do was exactly what he did do, in full view, for three years: Publicly suggest that conservative political groups were engaged in nefarious deeds; publicly call out by name political opponents whom he'd like to see harassed; and publicly have his party pressure the IRS to take action.
Mr. Obama now professes shock and outrage that bureaucrats at the IRS did exactly what the president of the United States said was the right and honorable thing to do....
; it was the president's strategy—one pursued throughout 2012. The way to limit Romney money was to intimidate donors from giving. Donate, and the president would at best tie you to Big Oil or Wall Street, at worst put your name in bold, and flag you as "less than reputable" to everyone who worked for him: the IRS, the SEC, the Justice Department. The president didn't need a telephone; he had a megaphone.
The same threat was made to conservative groups that might dare play in the election. As early as January 2010, Mr. Obama would, in his state of the union address, cast aspersions on the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, claiming that it "reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests" (read conservative groups).
The president derided "tea baggers." Vice President Joe Biden compared them to "terrorists." In more than a dozen speeches Mr. Obama raised the specter that these groups represented nefarious interests that were perverting elections. "Nobody knows who's paying for these ads," he warned. "We don't know where this money is coming from," he intoned.
In case the IRS missed his point, he raised the threat of illegality: "All around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates . . . And they don't have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don't know if it's a foreign-controlled corporation."
Short of directly asking federal agencies to investigate these groups, this is as close as it gets. Especially as top congressional Democrats were putting in their own versions of phone calls, sending letters to the IRS that accused it of having "failed to address" the "problem" of groups that were "improperly engaged" in campaigns. Because guess who controls that "independent" agency's budget?
The IRS is easy to demonize, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. It got its heading from a president, and his party, who did in fact send it orders—openly, for the world to see. In his Tuesday press grilling, no question agitated White House Press Secretary Jay Carney more than the one that got to the heart of the matter: Given the president's "animosity" toward Citizens United, might he have "appreciated or wanted the IRS to be looking and scrutinizing those . . ." Mr. Carney cut off the reporter with "That's a preposterous assertion."
Preposterous because, according to Mr. Obama, he is "outraged" and "angry" that the IRS looked into the very groups and individuals that he spent years claiming were shady, undemocratic, even lawbreaking. After all, he expects the IRS to "operate with absolute integrity." Even when he does not." Rest of column
Saturday, May 18, 2013
About damn time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
One of the dangers of an all-powerful state. Government in itself is a divine institution. Governments must tax. Empires are another matter. Empires are military-driven and take all their plunder inside and outside of the taxing authority of the Congress.
My grandfather was audited several times during the Roosevelt administration because he was a railroad agent during the Depression and his brother was a state elected official.
Congress won't prove it's serious about the hearings until they subpoena Solmonese. He's the linchpin.
Well this sounds good. Will Congress, or anyone, actually do anything to stem this infringement of our rights?
I was in the room, and was one of those cheering! There were several Congressmen that got mad and went after Miller. Kelly was awesome!
I'm not sure that they every see people standing and cheering at one of those committees.
Frankly, the problem is not that the IRS looked at the Tea Party groups that sprang up, but that they don't look at all of the quasi-political groups that spring up.
Most of them are a means of creating an income for the " leaders" of the group by preying on the emotions of the electorate.
Once established, political groups, charities, and religious groups become politically untouchable and a wonderful screen for con artists.
I'm not impressed by all this chest beating by those who do nothing about tax reform and protect their political constituencies.
What the IRS did was wrong but they do it wrong everyday as they audit based on " flagging" certain categories everyday. It's impossible to audit everyone so they established a flagging system.
That a bureaucrat with political bias selected a this category should surprise no one. That those up the chain saw the potential fallout should surprise no one.
That it was a directed act from the office of the Presidency is ludicrous. Nixon didn't order the Watergate break in either.
Given the political climate where scandals are invented or blown up out of proportion as a political tool and every bureaucratic failure or error becomes a focus of the media, I'm sure this will get to be more of a big deal.
Congress has all the tools available to fix this but they won't. Instead they will be using their time for political advantage , leave the door open so they can do it when they are in power but with more cleverness.
Not one person has suggest that a flat tax would prevent this sort of thing. Not one person has suggested specific reforms but Congress did manage to negate The Stock Act while we were arguing about Benghazi.
Wake up!
There was a violation of the 28th amendment years ago. I assume all the gutless cowards that let that legislation pass will do the same for this and the next benghazi or executive order until we wake up a decade from now and say "wow how did this happen". I ask the audience this has your life changed in the past 5 years? Do you worry more than you did when Clinton or Carter was president?
Post a Comment