Republicans Vote to Make it Harder to Catch Tax Cheats

The GOP-controlled House has slashed the budget for the Internal Revenue Service's tax enforcement division by $1.2 billion, a 25 percent cut that would mean fewer audits of taxpayers and make it more likely that people who cheat on their taxes will get away with it.

The House approved the cuts by voice vote after little debate Monday night as it took up a $21 billion spending bill that sets the IRS budget.

The cuts reflect GOP outrage over the agency's scrutiny of tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status and frustration over the agency's failure to produce thousands of emails by Lois Lerner, the official formerly in charge of the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status.

"The use of a government agency to harass, target, intimidate and threaten lawful, honest citizens was the worst form of authoritarianism," said Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., author of an amendment to cut the IRS tax enforcement budget by $353 million. Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., followed up with an amendment to cut $788 million more.

The Democratic floor leader on the funding bill, Rep. Jose Serrano of New York, opposed the amendments but opted against demanding a roll call vote.

"The answer is not to cut the IRS to bare bones, because our next problem is that the deficit will continue to grow because we won't be able to do the proper collecting of tax dollars in this country," Serrano said.

http://news.yahoo.com/house-gop-slashes-irs-tax-enforcement-budget-154934567--finance.html

I guess this was inevitable, seeing how they run so many tax cheats for office ...

Typical conservatives...until they need to wage and fund a war.

Original Quill wrote:Typical conservatives...until they need to wage and fund a war.

I have to take issue -- I think that the next time we need to fund a war, it will become once again OK to run up the deficit. God forbid rich people should actually pay to have people murdered! That's why we have credit cards.

"You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." - Dick Cheney

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Original Quill wrote:Typical conservatives...until they need to wage and fund a war.

I have to take issue -- I think that the next time we need to fund a war, it will become once again OK to run up the deficit. God forbid rich people should actually pay to have people murdered! That's why we have credit cards.

Good point. In Iraq, they run up a bill of $17-trillion, and now they complain that it's all due to social programs. See my book, Why Republicans Lie.

Are you implicating all Republicans, or just some?

BigAndy9 wrote:Are you implicating all Republicans, or just some?

It's a problem that is endemic to all conservatives, but particularly Republicans because of the unique history of the US.  The goal of all Republicans, reinforced by the American Dream, is to become wealthy.  Hence, all Republicans favour--indeed, deify--the wealthy.  The problem is that wealth doesn't get you elected, votes do.  But if everybody votes their interests, Republicans will never get elected.  There just aren't as many wealthy people as middle class and poor.

Thus, Republicans must lie.  They must create issues that detract from interests, and that's hard to do.  Starting a war is one way to distract from interests, however.  That's what Dick Cheney was doing when he urged WMDs in Iraq.  He was lying in order to create a war; that in turn would elevate the status of Republicans and detract from the fact that they are concurrently proposing a tax break that would (and has) make the rich richer.  Side nibbles would come from war spending (Halliburton) and income from oil.

In keeping with that, Ben's point was that wars impassion so much that people forget they cost money.  While the people are distracted by the issues of the war (eg, 9/11), Republicans concurrently run up the debt.  Not wanting to assume responsibility for their own doings, after the war is over they tend to slough it off on welfare and social programs.  That's what is going on in both of our countries today.  You Brits speak of austerity and call for privatization, while Republicans over here oppose taxes.  The irony is that it was all their doing in the first place.

It's a well-studied pattern.