IRS-ghazi: Billionaires' Boy Toys Witch Hunt, Intimidate the IRS

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Far Right Has I.R.S. Chief in Its Sights

If the House Republicans’ Benghazi investigation craters after former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/13/us/elections/hillary-clinton.html?inline=nyt-per)’s testimony this week, the chamber’s right-wing caucus has a sequel in mind: attempting the second impeachment of an executive branch appointee in 226 years.

The target is John Koskinen, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. The specifics of any supposed impeachable offenses are vague. Mr. Koskinen, 76, is a respected, successful business and government executive who, at the behest of the White House, took on the job of cleaning up the beleaguered tax agency in December 2013, after offenses had been committed.

Now, the 40-member Freedom Caucus, which played a role in the resignation of John A. Boehner, speaker of the House, wants to try again. The House Oversight Committee, where proceedings would start, is stacked with right-wing Republicans.

The accusations stem from 2013, when the I.R.S.’s tax-exempt division was found to have disproportionately targeted conservative groups for scrutiny.
Although Mr. Koskinen was brought in after the damage had been done, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio and his Freedom Caucus followers say Mr. Koskinen has tried to cover up some wrongdoing. Some accuse him of lying.

The tax agency is unpopular and makes an appealing political target.

Democrats say the allegations against Mr. Koskinen are unfounded: “It is despicable character assassination,” said Representative Gerald E. Connolly, a Virginia Democrat who serves on the Oversight Committee. “They are manufacturing a phony issue for ideological reasons.” The specific charges seem specious: There may have been miscommunication, but there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Koskinen.

The alleged pre-Koskinen abuses by the I.R.S. tax-exempt division have been the subject of three inquiries:

First, a nine-month investigation by the Treasury’s inspector general, a Republican appointed by President George W. Bush.

The second was conducted by the Government Accountability Office and

the third in a bipartisan Senate Finance Committee report.

All were critical of I.R.S. mismanagement, but none found any evidence of illegal activities or political directions from on high.

The fight within the House Republican caucus reflects less an ideological split than the manifestation of a seemingly apocalyptic view from the right-wing minority that the political system has to be destroyed before it can be reformed.

That belief justifies actions such as impeachment.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/19/us/politics/far-right-has-irs-chief-in-its-sights.html

Repug MISgovernance, how you do it when Repug whores hate and destroy government for the profits of the 1%/VRWC/BigCorp

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GOP conspiracy theory eviscerated: IRS never targeted tea party groups, and DOJ won't file charges (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/23/1438235/-GOP-conspiracy-theory-eviscerated-IRS-never-targeted-tea-party-groups-and-DOJ-won-t-file-charges)

Two years ago, Republicans grew instantly hysterical when conservative groups—with their typical penchant for rigor and rectitude—started accusing the IRS of targeting tea party-themed non-profits for extra scrutiny over their names. It was exactly the stuff GOP fever dreams are made of. You could even say conservatives were thrilled to find reasons to stoke their unending sense of persecution and victimhood.

Except it all turned out to be bullshit—total, utter, complete, fantastical bullshit (http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/23/politics/lois-lerner-no-charges-doj-tea-party/index.html):


The Justice Department notified members of Congress on Friday that it is closing its two-year investigation into whether the IRS improperly targeted the tea party and other conservative groups.There will be no charges against former IRS official Lois Lerner or anyone else at the agency, the Justice Department said in a letter.

The probe found "substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia leading to the belief by many tax-exempt applicants that the IRS targeted them based on their political viewpoints. But poor management is not a crime," Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik said in the letter.

"We found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt, or other inappropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution," Kadzik said.

"We also found no evidence that any official involved in the handling of tax-exempt applications or IRS leadership attempted to obstruct justice.

Based on the evidence developed in this investigation and the recommendation of experienced career prosecutors and supervising attorneys at the department, we are closing our investigation and will not seek any criminal charges."


There's an amazing irony in this. Conservatives have railed against the IRS from the moment it was born, and Republicans have done everything in their power to starve it of funds and undermine its very existence. As a result, the agency was unable to process applications for non-profits in an efficient manner, which those very same conservative haters decided was proof that the IRS was out to get them.That's a pretty neat trick. It's also a load of bollocks, but for the party that believes there's a "War on Christmas," it's not much of a stretch to imagine that the tax man has your number, too. Conservatives may not be able to tell fact from fiction, but at least the Department of Justice still can.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/23/1438235/-GOP-conspiracy-theory-eviscerated-IRS-never-targeted-tea-party-groups-and-DOJ-won-t-file-charges?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

btw, the only group actually sued by IRS was a progressive group.

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Jason Chaffetz Moves To Impeach IRS Chief

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jason-chaffetz-irs-chief_562fdc84e4b06317990fd88f?ir=Politics&section=politics&utm_campaign=102715&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Alert-politics&utm_content=FullStory&ncid=newsltushpmg00000003

Repug MISgovernance! :lol

[boutons_deux]

Genius Proposal Would Replace Hated IRS With Beloved Private Debt Collectors

ncluded among a smattering of the bill’s patchwork funding measures is a provision that would replace (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/republicans-private-debt-collection-irs_55b1570de4b07af29d580b9f) IRS agents with private debt collectors. Yes, we could increase the gas tax by a penny or two on people who use the roads we want to repair. But nah, let’s go ahead with the Mike Huckabee pre-ejaculate that precedes his dumb “Abolish the IRS” wet dream. Gross.

Private contractors, is there anything they can’t do? From wars (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/13/former-blackwater-guards-sentencing-baghdad-massacre) to water (http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/6/detroit-public-watershutoffsunitednationsprivatization.html) (and more wars), three decades of privatization have generally shown that the only thing more inefficient than the federal government is the outsourcing of government functions. In fact, we’ve tried privatized tax collection before, including a smaller program from 2006-2009 that cost taxpayers (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/republicans-private-debt-collection-irs_55b1570de4b07af29d580b9f) millions of dollars:

The reason the government loses money when it farms out IRS duties is because the people who owe back taxes generally don’t have any money […]

Putting debt collectors in charge of those accounts won’t create any new money for the households.

It will, however, create new administrative costs.


So by all means, let’s empower shitbird collectors, who mislead and intimidate their targets, by setting them loose on the doorsteps of struggling Americans and giving them a slice of the revenue they collect. What could go wrong?

This invasive stupidity is universally supported by a party that includes an influential doughboy who threatened to wield shotguns at approaching government workers (http://wonkette.com/414622/liberals-misconstrue-erick-erickson-who-will-not-shoot-census-workers-like-he-said-he-would)who just wanted to count people, pursuant to the Constitution.

But before we go all “fucking GOP rabble rabble,” it should be noted that prominent Democrats previously supported privatization efforts. Both sides do it!

Back in 2014, Sen. Chuck Schumer, always eager to initiate a Chinese finger trap with basically any financial services company, proposed similar legislation (http://www.wgrz.com/story/money/2014/05/19/schumer-tax-deadbeats/9304853/) and rationalized the outsourcing by saying it will “create jobs” (for two New York state collection firms).

Guess a “private sector” job looks better in campaign literature than an equivalent yet more efficient “government” job. Great stuff. Let’s make that guy Minority Leader.

http://wonkette.com/595616/genius-proposal-would-replace-hated-irs-with-beloved-private-debt-collectors

Schumer of NY is 100% owned Wall St

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10 Tax Day reminders from the Republican Party (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/4/16/1516221/-10-Tax-Day-reminders-from-the-Republican-Party)


http://images.dailykos.com/images/239768/story_image/cbpp_irs_funding_wkload_2016.png?1460833996

Can't get through to the IRS? Call your Republican congressman.


Tax Day 2016 (http://www.vox.com/2016/4/12/11408056/taxes-due-later-tax-day-emancipation-day) will arrive a few days late on Monday, April 18. But the toxic talking points from the GOP are right on schedule.

The usual Republican broadsides (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/7/20/1314710/-The-pro-tax-evasion-pro-deficits-party-strikes-again) about "Gestapo-like tactics" from the Internal Revenue Service and its "armed personnel in flak jackets" have been joined by new sound bites (http://thehill.com/policy/finance/276315-hatch-irs-is-most-feared-federal-agency-in-the-country) from the GOP's best and brightest.

At an Americans for Tax Reform conference hosted by Grover Norquist, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch warned that the Internal Revenue Service "is the most feared federal agency in the country."

Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas), the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, declared the IRS is "ineffective, it's inept, it is crooked and it's vindictive." Meanwhile, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce apparentlyplaced identical newspaper op-eds in all 50 states (https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=%22A+tax+day+that%27s+even+worse+for %22+2016+koenig&tbm=nws) lamenting, "This year, Washington, D.C., is expected to rake in a record-breaking $3.36 trillion in tax revenue, $115 billion more than it did last year."

But while the Republicans are only too happy to remind you about the horrors of taxation in general and the IRS in particular, they'd prefer to stay silent on about their roles in gutting the agency, starving the U.S. Treasury of tax revenue and redirecting trillions of dollars to the very richest among us. Here, then, are 10 helpful Tax Day reminders from the Republican Party.

1. Congressional Republicans slashed the IRS budget by 17 percent since 2010 ...

Given the right-wing rhetoric, Americans could be forgiven for believing an out-of-control IRS is growing like crazy. But it's not. Thanks to the House Republican majority that swept into power in 2011, the agency has seen its budget slashed by 17 percent (http://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/irs-funding-cuts-compromise-taxpayer-service-and-weaken-enforcement)since fiscal year 2010. The result of the draconian reductions from $13.6 trillion in 2010 to $11.2 trillion in 2016? Full time staff has been reduced by 14 percent and enforcement staff has contracted by a staggering 23 percent, even as individual returns have jumped by 7 percent and new laws passed by Congress have added to the agency's work load.

http://images.dailykos.com/images/239766/large/cbpp_irs_budget_2016.png?1460833995

2. … which is why IRS customer service has collapsed ...

Thanks to temporary hires for tax season, the telephone call answer rate this year has jumped to 70 percent, up from a shocking 38 percent in 2015. But for 2016 as a whole, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen expects the figure to slide to 47 percent. As theWashington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/04/08/irs-service-dramatically-improves-to-mediocre/) recently reported, that constitutes a near-collapse over the past decade:

When more than six of 10 taxpayers were not getting their calls answered last year, it marked a stark drop in service for the agency people love to hate even in the best of times. The high point in recent years was 87 percent in 2004, and at no time since then has the percentage of answered calls fallen below 50 percent -- until 2015.
http://images.dailykos.com/images/137984/large/irs_businessweek.png?1453535528

"Unless we are able to correct this," National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson (http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/republicans-irs-regulations-113484.html) warned in November 2014, "very bad things will happen to taxpayers."
http://images.dailykos.com/images/239770/large/wapo_irs_employees_by_state_2016.png?1460834001

3. … and the "tax gap" will continue to grow.

Very bad things won't just happen to taxpayers, but to Uncle Sam's bottom line. In 2010, the Brookings Institution estimated that the "tax gap (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/7/20/1314710/-The-pro-tax-evasion-pro-deficits-party-strikes-again)"—the difference between what taxpayers owe the federal government and what they actually pay—had reached $500 billion a year. That's not just an increase of two and a half times since 1998's tax gap of $195 billion annually; it represents the equivalent of the entire federal budget for the last fiscal year.
http://images.dailykos.com/images/78994/large/tax_gap_graph2.jpg?1453124563
Last year, IRS officials raised the alarm that they simply didn't have the manpower to chase down tax cheats (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/04/08/in-dallas-the-irs-says-it-cant-chase-tax-cheats-who-owe-less-than-1-million/?tid=hpModule_14fd66a0-9199-11e2-bdea-e32ad90da239) who owe the U.S. Treasury less than a million dollars even as the percentage of audits plunged to a 10-year low (http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/02/24/irs-audit-rate-drops/23876109/). And that was before the explosion of corporate "tax inversions (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/business/dealbook/us-acts-to-end-use-of-foreign-acquisitions-to-dodge-taxes.html)" and the Panama Papers (http://www.vox.com/2016/4/14/11429766/corporate-tax-haven-us-oxfam-report) revelations put tax evasion on the front pages. As IRS Commissioner Koskinen put during 2013 Congressional testimony:

"I have not figured out either philosophically or psychologically why nobody seems to care whether we collect the revenue or not."

Especially when more funding for the IRS is like free money for Uncle Sam. For years, analysts have explained that each extra dollar spent by the IRS on enforcement produces between six and 10 dollars in additional revenue collected. As Ezra Klein (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-gops-pennywise-pound-foolish-spending-cuts/2011/03/10/ABZrJ9W_blog.html)pointed out when House Republicans first slashed the IRS budget in 2011:

Converting dollar bills into $10 bills is an excellent way to pay off your credit card. Except, it seems, if you're a House Republican.
In 2014, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/7/20/1314710/-The-pro-tax-evasion-pro-deficits-party-strikes-again) made Klein's point for him. Bragging about his role in helping House Republicans gut the IRS budget, Gosar crowed, "I am ecstatic that the House of Representatives supported my efforts today to pass a vitally important amendment which will save hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars."

It's no wonder Jonathan Cohn calls the GOP the "pro-deficits, pro-tax evasion" party (http://www.newrepublic.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/86551/boehner-budget-deal-irs-agents-deficits).

4. New GOP tax plans will cost Uncle Sam trillions ...

Uncle Sam's coffers aren't at risk just because, as RNC Chairman Reince Priebus put it two years ago, "We're done playing footsie here with the IRS." Following in the footsteps of John McCain and Mitt Romney, the 2016 GOP presidential field is promising gigantic tax cuts that lead to a hemorrhage of red ink from the United States Treasury.

As Howard Gleickman of the Tax Policy Center documented in February, the price tags of the tax plans for the top Republican contenders are mind-boggling. TPC estimated Donald Trump's proposals would drain roughly $9.5 trillion in tax revenue over a decade, with Ted Cruz ($8.6 trillion), Marco Rubio ($6.8 trillion) and Jeb Bush ($6.8 trillion) not far behind:

http://images.dailykos.com/images/239767/large/tpc_gleickman_gop_revenue_loss_2016.png?1460833996

To put those numbers in historical context, consider the tax cuts as a percentage as the total U.S. economy. Compared to the 2016 field, the budget-busting tax cuts of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were small potatoes.

http://images.dailykos.com/images/239763/large/tpc_burman_gop_tax_plans_2016.png?1460833995

5. … while delivering a massive tax cut windfall for the wealthy ...

The Republican White House hopefuls aren't just out-Reaganing Reagan with their gargantuan tax cuts. The size of their windfalls for the gilded-class (http://www.vox.com/2016/2/25/11109160/donald-trump-marco-rubio-tax-comparison) make Reagan and Bush look like Marx and Engels in comparison:

http://images.dailykos.com/images/239769/large/vox_candidate_tax_plans_rich_2016.jpg?1460833998

6. … and requiring the debt ceiling to be raised repeatedly ...

Here's a funny story. Despite the fact that Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt and George W. Bush nearly doubled it again, Republicans love to hate budget deficits. All of the 2016 GOP candidates support a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution and some, like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, said they will refuse to raise the debt ceiling.

Sadly for them, the next president, regardless of party, will have to raise the debt ceiling repeatedly. Over the next 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office forecasts Uncle Sam will run up $9.3 trillion in new debt on $51 trillion in new spending. (That's on top of the current $19 trillion in debt.) All of the GOP candidates will increase that by trillions more. That means Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and John Kasich will have to increase Uncle Sam's borrowing authority and slash tens of trillions in federal spending. Put another way, to keep their promises the GOP's next standard-bearer (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/3/1509944/-Trump-correctly-predicts-a-major-recession-his-own)would have to either trigger a default by the U.S. or a global economic collapse, or both.

7. … because tax cuts don't pay for themselves ...

Now, Republicans could avoid all of these horrible—and inescapable—consequences of their tax plans if it was true that "tax cuts pay for themselves (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/29/1354625/-A-Laffer-Curve-anniversary-The-GOP-s-favorite-fiscal-fraud-turns-40)." But four decades of experience have completely debunked the supply-side myth that tax cuts trigger so much additional economic growth that tax collections will be higher than they otherwise would have been. As President Bush put it in 2004, "You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase." Several years later, then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed, agreeing with Jon Kyl's jaw-dropping proclamation that "you should never have to offset cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans."

"There's no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy. So I think what Senator Kyl was expressing was the view of virtually every Republican on that subject."

Repetition of that point by Republicans didn't make it any truer. The history of the Reagan and Bush years (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/9/13/1420295/-Only-certainties-for-GOP-Debt-and-tax-cuts) belie Arthur Laffer's supply-side fantasy. That's why a 2012 study found that not a single one of the economists surveyed agreed that "a cut in federal income tax rates in the US right now would raise taxable income enough so that the annual total tax revenue would be higher within five years than without the tax cut." As the University of Chicago's Austan Goolsbee put it:

"Moon landing was real. Evolution exists. Tax cuts lose revenue. The research has shown this a thousand times. Enough already."


http://images.dailykos.com/images/122073/large/u_of_c_laffer_curve_survey.png?1453414409

The GOP's use of so-called "dynamic scoring (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/11/15/1449254/-The-Republicans-dynamic-deception-for-2016)" now required of the CBO to show the macroeconomic feedback of tax and budget legislation doesn't change the two certainties of life for Republicans: debt and tax cuts (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/9/13/1420295/-Only-certainties-for-GOP-Debt-and-tax-cuts).

8. … and the House GOP refuses to say which tax loopholes it would close.

Another way the GOP can limit the oceans of red ink its massive tax cuts would inevitably produce is to close many of the tax loopholes, credits and other breaks that now cost Uncle Sam almost $1.5 trillion a year. But once again, the House budget resolution doesn't say which ones.
http://images.dailykos.com/images/239765/large/pew_tax_breaks.png?1460834004
It's no surprise why. Many of the biggest tax breaks—the home mortgage interest deduction, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the deduction for charitable giving, etc.—are very popular. So while every House budget blueprint since 2010 (http://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/house-gop-budget-gets-62-percent-of-budget-cuts-from-low-and-moderate-income) repeals Obamacare, moves to two, lower income tax brackets, slashes safety net spending and guts Medicaid, not one has listed a single tax break Republicans would end. As its architect and then House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/18/1433405/-The-comical-cult-of-Paul-Ryan) put it in 2012 when asked "which of those loopholes do you eliminate":

"We want to do this in the light of day and in front of everybody. So the Ways and Means Committee, which is in charge of the tax system, sent us the plan here, which is a 10 and 25 percent bracket for individuals and small businesses, and then they want to have hearings and, in light of day, show how they would go about doing this."

In the intervening four years, Paul Ryan became House Ways and Means Committee Chairman and then Speaker of the House. And we're still waiting to see how he "would go about doing this."

9. Meanwhile, tax revenue is obviously at a record high ...

In his copy-and-paste op-eds that appeared in papers across the country, conservative Andy Koehnig lamented that "Tax Freedom Day (http://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2016/04/07/tax-day-s-even-worse-mississippi-andy-koenig/82747966/)" comes later this year because the federal government "rake in a record-breaking $3.36 trillion in tax revenue, $115 billion more than it did last year."

Of course federal tax revenue is at a record high. The U.S. population and GDP are both growing, and so are at record highs, too. It's not just that the revenue losses from the Bush tax cuts and the deep recession which began in late 2007 are now over, as the historical tables produced by the Office of Management and Budget (https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals) (OMB) show. But the end of the Bush upper-income tax cuts, along with increases to capital gains tax rates for the wealthy, have helped refill Uncle Sam's coffers, too. And as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/1/2/1465561/-As-predicted-2013-tax-hikes-on-rich-didn-t-hurt-jobs-economic-growth), these tax hikes had virtually no negative impact on U.S. economic growth or job creation.

As for those who complain that Americans are "taxed enough already" by Uncle Sam, a little history lesson is in order. In the wake of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 and the devastating recession, total federal tax revenue as a percentage of the U.S. economy plunged to its lowest level since 1950. And even with the recovery and increases in upper-income tax rates, Uncle Sam's take is still only about 18.2 percent of GDP. That's a less than the 20 percent level reached in 2000 during the Clinton boom—the last time the federal government produced budget surpluses (https://www.cbo.gov/publication/51384).
http://images.dailykos.com/images/239764/large/cbo_taxes_spending_gdp_0316.png?1460834001

10. … and federal spending is lower than when Bush left the White House.

All of which brings us to one final point Republicans would prefer you overlook. Despite all of their claims about "tax and spend" Democrats and "out-of-control" spending by President Obama, through 7-plus years of his tenure federal outlays are lower now than when George W. Bush mercifully ambled out of the White House in January 2009.

http://images.dailykos.com/images/197846/large/fed_spending_09_dollars_011916.png?1454039212
In its latest assessment, CBO predicted fiscal year 2016 spending would rise to $3.90 trillion dollars. In fiscal year 2017 which starts on October 1, spending during President Obama's final days in office will increase to $4.07 trillion. But taking inflation into account by using constant fiscal year 2009 dollars (see OMB historical table 1.3 (https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals)) shows a different picture. At, $3.51 trillion, Inflation-adjusted fiscal year

2016 spending will still be lower than on Barack Obama's first inauguration day. As I noted previously (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/2/7/1275936/-Spending-down-deficits-halved-and-public-sector-smaller-since-Obama-took-office):

On January 7, 2009, CNN reported on the latest long-term budget forecast from the CBO. Two weeks before President Bush ambled out of the Oval Office, CNN explained "the U.S. budget deficit in 2009 is projected to spike to a record $1.2 trillion, or 8.3% of gross domestic product." With the recession in full swing and the massive TARP program passed the previous fall, CBO predicted in January 2009 that federal spending would spike to $3.543 trillion dollars while tax revenue would plummet to an anemic to $2,357 trillion. As it turned out, the final deficit figure for the 2009 fiscal year which ended on September 30, 2009 reached $1.413 trillion because of worse-than-expected tax collections ($2,105 trillion.)

Sadly, America's real problem isn't that the public sector spent too much after the onset of the great recession in late 2007, but that it didn't spend enough.

Draconian spending reductions by state and local governments (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/1/4/1355570/-State-and-local-governments-finally-end-years-of-anti-stimulus) more than offset the $800 billion federal stimulus, creating an "anti-stimulus" that held back economic growth and job creation.

By May 2013, the Hamilton Institute estimated those austerity policies cost 2.2 American million jobs and resulted in the slowest recovery since World War II.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/04/16/1516221/-10-Tax-Day-reminders-from-the-Republican-Party?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

[boutons_deux]

NC congressman wants to strip IRS of ‘guns and badges’


http://pics.mcclatchyinteractive.com/news/politics-government/yzez2e/picture78611977/ALTERNATES/FREE_960/Tea%20Party%20IRS

Two North Carolina congressmen are going to the front lines of an ongoing fight between the IRS and some Republicans in the House of Representatives, many of whom still want accountability for alleged IRS scrutiny specifically targeting conservative nonprofit groups.

A bill introduced Thursday by U.S. Rep. George Holding, R-Raleigh, would “take the guns and badges away from the IRS,” he said. Holding’s bill proposes reassigning the IRS’ criminal investigation agents to the U.S. Treasury.

“These are the IRS agents that carry guns and badges, and they’re very skilled. . . . But the IRS itself is a failed bureaucracy,” Holding said in an interview with McClatchy on Tuesday.

IRS “CI” agents serve a niche role in law enforcement. The criminal investigators (https://www.irs.gov/uac/criminal-enforcement-1) have jurisdiction over crimes such as money laundering, terrorism financing and U.S. tax-evasion schemes often done through offshore foreign accounts.

The Internal Revenue Service says it took on more than 3,850 criminal investigations between October 2014 and October 2015. More than 80 percent of the people charged with tax-related crimes were sent to prison during that period (https://www.irs.gov/pub/foia/ig/ci/FY2015_IRS-CI_Annual_Report.pdf), according to a recent annual IRS-CI report.

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/05/nc-congressman-wants-to-strip-irs-of-guns-and-badges/

Sounds like the VRWC/1% are really pissed and striking back after the Panama hack.

[boutons_deux]

Repug governance! Are you rightwingnut Repug voters thrilled?

House Republicans moving forward with impeachment gambit

If you’ve been waiting for cooler heads to prevail, and for House Republicans to give up on its ridiculous impeachment crusade, you’re going to be disappointed by today’s developments (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/us/politics/house-set-to-begin-irs-commissioners-impeachment-hearing.html?ref=politics).

When the House Judiciary Committee convenes on Tuesday to consider the alleged misdeeds of the Internal Revenue Service commissioner, John Koskinen, it will contemplate action that has not been taken in more than 140 years, and that in some respects has never been pursued: the impeachment of an agency head of Mr. Koskinen’s rank.

Tuesday’s hearing on accusations by House Republicans that Mr. Koskinen lied under oath to Congress and defied a congressional subpoena is a remarkable moment, even for a Washington long fractured by partisanship.


Koskinen has decided not to appear (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/05/23/irs-chief-wont-appear-at-his-impeachment-hearing-no-time-to-prepare-aides-say/) at the “misconduct” hearing, at which GOP lawmakers will lay out its case for impeachment, insisting he hasn’t had enough time to prepare a defense against allegations that obviously have no merit.

Of course, even if Koskinen had agreed to participate in the charade, the end result would be the same. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the far-right chairman of the House Oversight Committee, hasn’t exactly been subtle about his intentions (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/04/27/congress-probably-wont-impeach-the-irs-commissioner-but-house-republicans-arent-done-with-him-yet/): “My foremost goal is impeachment and I’m not letting go of it.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/house-republicans-moving-forward-impeachment-gambit?cid=sm_fb_maddow

All y'all's "social welfare" PACs to 100% fraudulent, 100% political, but IRS has not touched one of them.