“What do you expect when you target the President?” This is what an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent allegedly said to the head of a conservative organization that was being audited after calling for the impeachment of then-President Clinton. Recent revelations that IRS agents gave “special scrutiny” to organizations opposed to the current administration’s policies suggest that many in the IRS still believe harassing the President’s opponents is part of their job.
As troubling as these recent reports are, it would be a grave mistake to think that IRS harassment of opponents of the incumbent President is a modern, or a partisan, phenomenon. As scholar Burton Folsom pointed out in his book New Deal or Raw Deal, IRS agents in the 1930s where essentially “hit squads” against opponents of the New Deal. It is well-known that the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson used the IRS to silence their critics. One of the articles of impeachment drawn up against Richard Nixon dealt with his use of the IRS to harass his political enemies. Allegations of IRS abuses were common during the Clinton administration, and just this week some of the current administration’s defenders recalled that antiwar and progressive groups alleged harassment by the IRS during the Bush presidency.
The bipartisan tradition of using the IRS as a tool to harass political opponents suggests that the problem is deeper than just a few “rogue” IRS agents—or even corruption within one, two, three or many administrations. Instead, the problem lays in the extraordinary power the tax system grants the IRS.
The IRS routinely obtains information about how we earn a living, what investments we make, what we spend on ourselves and our families, and even what charitable and religious organizations we support. Starting next year, the IRS will be collecting personally identifiable health insurance information in order to ensure we are complying with Obamacare’s mandates.
The current tax laws even give the IRS power to marginalize any educational, political, or even religious organizations whose goals, beliefs, and values are not favored by the current regime by denying those organizations “tax-free” status. This is the root of the latest scandal involving the IRS.
Considering the type of power the IRS excises over the American people, and the propensity of those who hold power to violate liberty, it is surprising we do not hear about more cases of politically-motivated IRS harassment. As the first US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall said, “The power to tax is the power to destroy” — and who better to destroy than one’s political enemies?
The US flourished for over 120 years without an income tax, and our liberty and prosperity will only benefit from getting rid of the current tax system. The federal government will get along just fine without its immoral claim on the fruits of our labor, particularly if the elimination of federal income taxes are accompanied by serious reduction in all areas of spending, starting with the military spending beloved by so many who claim to be opponents of high taxes and big government.
While it is important for Congress to investigate the most recent scandal and ensure all involved are held accountable, we cannot pretend that the problem is a few bad actors. The very purpose of the IRS is to transfer wealth from one group to another while violating our liberties in the process, thus the only way Congress can protect our freedoms is to repeal the income tax and shutter the doors of the IRS once and for all.
As many of you here know, I have my share of problems with Ron Paul. As does, eg., Mark Levin. And yet I think in this instance you can find a near perfect convergence between Ron Paul’s libertarianism and the classical liberalism / legal conservatism of people like myself and Levin and many in the TEA Party movement.
In fact, what Paul has written here isn’t much different from what I wrote last week, when I pointed out that the establishment ruling class — regardless of party — was likely interested only in appearing outraged and gathering up the necessary fall guys so that they could pat themselves on the back for pretending to restore integrity to the IRS while keeping it largely the same. Because in the final analysis, politicians like having the ability to bully opponents and keep the people frightened of their power, and the IRS has become the agency that best exemplifies that (though other bureaucratic agencies and Departments such as the EPA and Interior and HHS are starting to give them a run for their money).
Establishment politicians hate change. And we’ve seen virtually no attempt by GOP leadership to bring to the fore the idea of abolishing or attenuating the IRS and replacing it with a much more equitable (and classically liberal) tax system, one that promoted actual fairness and equality and made it so that all Americans had a degree of skin in the game.
Instead, they are content to play with the Marxist progressive tax framework, because within it, they can please cronies and punish enemies and wield enormous power and influence. And without it? Not so much.
So we’re going to see show trials and arrests and some flunkies get flushed. None of which will matter. Because what’s needed is systemic change, and everyone knows it. It’s just that a vanishingly few in power desire to make the changes — and they’re hoping that we can again be sated by impassioned words of condemnation and a few scapegoats.
Not me. Not this time. Spit.
So congrats to the ruling class, which has managed to bring me, Mark Levin and Ron Paul (mostly) together (Paul had to throw in his trademark sop to cutting military spending, which is ludicrous at a time when the world is on the brink of some sort of global war, but let’s let it slide this time, because it’s almost like a tic to him, and I honestly don’t think he can help himself) in our calls for how best to reform the government.
And that is no easy feat.
(h/t JHo)
It was precisely the depth of Herman Cain’s understanding of this most fundamental aspect of the ordinary citizen’s relationship to his government’s power over his liberty that captured my interest in him. Alone, almost, among the candidates, he grasped that everyone — every single citizen — has to be able to understand the law in order to be expected to follow it, and any law which is unintelligible to the ordinary citizen is by definition unjust, by definition illegitimate.
Government is a blunt instrument swung indiscriminately by politicians to protect their power. We are most safe, most free, and most prosperous when that power is strictly limited.
Not so blunt sometimes though, McG, though still an instrument swung with the intent to coerce. In some instances the pointy bits can begin to resemble a steely sea-nettle.
The national government is too far gone in it’s corruption for any meaningful systemic change to occur. The patient is terminal.
I just can’t see any way for it to happen, given the present circumstances.
I’m willing to listen to any suggestions, however.
a brokedick banana republic has no business frittering away valuable freshly-printed whorenanke dollars on a superpower military I don’t think
First thing we do: shoot all the lawyers.
Ok, maybe not all. But a good 70-80%, anyway. I mean, there’s NO WAY the US needs 70% of the world’s lawyers, they just fuck everything up. And then bill you for it.
[…] Goldstein seems to be less cynical [I may be reading him […]
You know what they say: it’s just 90% of lawyers that give the rest a bad name…
Can anyone say, in a substantial way, why this IRS behavior should not be prosecuted under RICO statutes?
Off-hand I’d say “Because they are the government, and by definition (and only by definition) can’t be organized crime.”
Government is organized crime with a flag.
Most people I know
Wanna be left alone
Some people I know
They won’t leave you alone
I guess you gotta be,
Be just like them
Now the biggest gang I know
They call the government
And a gang is a weapon
That you trade your mind in for
You gotta be, be just like them
Ya know the gang and the government
No different
The gang and the government
No different
The gang and the government
No different
It makes me 1%
It makes me 1%
— Jane’s Addiction
Kevin Williamson has asked the question, “What is the difference between the government and the mafia?”
The answer is, apparently, that the mafia generally has more style.
Also, they’re typically competent. Biden would never make it in the Outfit unless it was a Fredo-type situation.
Biden would never rise above selling stolen cigarettes with no tax stamps. Probably not even that since he’d start shooting his mouth off about his connection. So, yeah. He’d sleep with the fishes.
Go team R! (That’s “go” as in “go away”.)
Also, they’re typically competent.
Back when I lived in Philly, we preferred organized crime because, well, it was organized. There was a pretty Goode stretch of time when the Italian Market seemed like the only place where the trash actually got picked up.
I should note that I’m not so crazy about the crime family currently in charge in Washington. Some things just don’t scale well.
Crime families generally control a certain area, and they stay close to the people. It’s not surprising that their responses are more in tune with reality.
Hey okies, you guys OK? Photos are looking like Joplin.
Too naughty for a Known Mormon to retweet, but accurate all the same.
Has an Iron Curtain Descended on the Cincinnati IRS Office?
Quoting from the article newrouter just linked;
“We’re here to help them breathe,” said the helpful policeman as he held the cowering IRS worker’s head under water.
Leigh wrote:
Biden reminds me of the toupee guy Morry in Goodfellas.
[…] Margolin reporting for ABC News [tips of the fedora to Bryan Preston via Newrouter and […]
“Biden reminds me of the toupee guy Morry in Goodfellas.”
Or the mook in Mean Streets. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TswwON_Hs1M
[…] REPORTER– denial, irrelevant ensues; The Smoking Gun on IRS Scandal?; “The IRS’s Job Is To Violate Our Liberties” … (wapo, spectator, […]