By Stephen Moore, August 16, 2022The Biden administration has a lot of nerve proposing to double the budget of the Internal Revenue Service and add 87,000 employees.
This plan is set to become law as part of the soon-to-be-enacted Inflation Reduction Act. And it comes around the same time as the outrageous FBI raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago compound in Palm Beach, Florida. The Biden administration has converted the FBI and the Justice Department into functionaries of the Democratic Party's character assassination campaign. Think they will do the same with a Yankee Stadium full of new IRS auditors? They will be on search-and-destroy missions.
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) patronizingly dismisses any concerns about taxpayer abuses by saying, "If you're not cheating on your taxes, you have nothing to worry about."
That's the language of tyrants. I personally went through a three-year dispute with the IRS, which cost me tens of thousands of dollars in attorney and tax accountant fees — until the IRS snoops did a "Whoops, we're sorry, we were wrong. Have a nice day." When you are under IRS investigation and the agency places a lien on your bank account, you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent.
Conservatives haven't (or shouldn't have forgotten) the outrageous weaponization of the tax collection agency during President Barack Obama's administration. Obama political appointee Lois Lerner targeted the Tea Party and other taxpayer groups with a conservative orientation.
An accident?
By the way, the Obama team never even apologized, and Lois Lerner ducked out on testifying before Congress. She never went to jail.
Now, the folks at Openthebooks.com report that the IRS is armed with real weapons — guns, ammunition and military equipment.
"The Internal Revenue Service, with its 2,159 'Special Agents,' spent $21.3 million on guns, ammunition and military-style equipment between fiscal years 2006 and 2019.
The agency stockpiled 4,500 guns and five million rounds of ammunition."
How many of the new 87,000 employees will be armed? And why does a tax collection agency need guns, anyway?
This story gets more sordid as we dig deeper. The IRS employee union donates 99% of its money to Democrats. This scam to give the IRS tens of billions of dollars will pipeline millions of dollars into the coffers of Democratic candidates. Does anyone believe that an agency that gives almost every dollar from its PAC to one party is an unbiased referee of our tax system?
I hope no one believes this is to get more money from Bill Gates or Warren Buffett or Mark Zuckerberg. These billionaires have their own armies of tax accountants and lawyers. They have the resources to defend themselves from erroneous IRS tax rulings.
The Republicans in the Senate offered an amendment to this god-awful bill that would have restricted new audits to those making more than $400,000. Every Democrat said no way.
This is because the geese they will pluck are the defenseless small business owners and people who make between $75,000 and $250,000 of income. My friend Dan Pilla, who is one of the experts on IRS abuses, has found that the agency is trying to discourage taxpayers from hiring an attorney or going to court to get their money back.
Once upon a time, liberals cared about government abuses of citizens' civil rights. Once upon a time, there was an American Civil Liberties Union that would have been marching in the streets against more intense government scrutiny of every financial transaction people make. Now, they are mute, because the modern ACLU and other such groups are completely captured by big government socialists.
If you have a conservative voice in this country or you have any affiliation with the Republican Party or donate to Republican candidates, they are coming after you. Maybe soon.
What is perhaps worst of all about this vault of money being turned over to 150,000 IRS agents is that Democrats have voted down more money for police to stop rampant crime. They've voted down more Border Patrol agents to help keep out drug runners and criminals and coyotes. They refuse to provide the funding for the Army so that our armed forces can recruit the soldiers and personnel we need for our national security.
We could fund all of these things with a fraction of the money top Democrats such as President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) want to spend on tax agents.
These are the most warped funding priorities I've seen in 30 years. The IRS may soon be knocking on your door. And yes, they are here from the government. But no, they aren't here to help you.
Stephen Moore is a co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity and an economist with FreedomWorks. He is the co-author of "Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive the American Economy." He served as a senior economic adviser to the Trump campaign.
