IRS, The Emblem Of Big Dirty Government, Gets Dirtier
Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell concedes the election in November 2010. Now she's charging political intimidation by an IRS... View Enlarged Image
Christine O'Donnell, a Tea Party candidate from a few years ago, may not be everyone's cup, but she was spot-on when she told the Washington Times on Sunday: "Unless this is all exposed, unless every level of inappropriateness and corruption is exposed, I certainly won't be the last person to be politically intimidated like this."
Back in 2010, as she campaigned for a Senate seat in Delaware, O'Donnell's private tax records were leaked by the IRS to her political opponents and phony claims about her tax liabilities were leaked to the press, all in a sleazy subterranean effort to keep her from winning that election.
And by remarkable coincidence, that was done by the same agency that has since admitted to targeting Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status, harassing them with insanely intrusive questions and delaying their applications for years at a time — all to repress political groups disliked by President Obama, who made it clear his administration considered them "terrorists."
And let's not forget that Joe the Plumber's tax records were leaked in 2008 and conservative Commentary magazine was targeted for a "corruption" probe in 2009. Now Chuck Heath Jr., brother of Tea Party manque Sarah Palin, has declared on his Facebook page that their father was "horribly harassed" six times beginning in 2008, after 50 years of faithfully paying his
During the tax-exempt debacle, IRS operatives such as Lois Lerner admitted wrongdoing but were allowed to resign with zero consequences and a full pension and invoke their Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination before Congress, a privilege never extended to taxpayers. The travesty was compounded earlier this month by an FBI probe that insisted "nothing to see here, move along" and took no further action.
Now the dodge is getting creepier. The Washington Times is reporting that the IRS is stonewalling the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate
The agency cites employee confidentiality rules, so too bad about all the citizens who've had their rights violated, because nothing trumps an IRS operative's right to operate in secret.
"Only the chairmen of the investigating committees — Rep. Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican who heads Ways and Means, and Sen. Max Baucus, the outgoing Montana Democrat who heads the Senate finance panel — can learn exactly what happened in a case such as Ms. O'Donnell's," the Times reported, noting that by law — that's right, by law — they cannot reveal the depth of the corruption they discover.
What is this, Zimbabwe? Turkmenistan? Ecuador? The point of a civil service over a political spoils system is to have an impartial system based on merit, not a collection of political operatives who gladly serve as attack dogs and then retreat behind illegitimate legal protections to await their next opportunity to strike again. And as O'Donnell noted, they will.
The fact that they won't cooperate based on "confidentiality" requirements is nothing but a shield law for wrongdoers who have turned what should be an honorable profession to the ultimate manifestation of Big Dirty Government, unrestrained by law, unmoved by conventions of professionalism and unwilling to adhere to any sense of right or wrong.
Congress is not helpless, and with Baucus on the case there is evidence the issue could have bi-partisan
If Congress can't force the IRS to live within limits, it should begin talks about new laws or, failing that, cut funding. If it doesn't, Congress will watch this monster feast on new victims in ever-more outrageous attacks on dissent.
Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/012714-687790-irs-is-the-worsening-emblem-of-big-dirty-government.htm#ixzz2uIQ8UMPb
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