In case you missed it, the otherwise obscure Rep. Paul Ryan went all out in the Congressional tribunal staged against the IRS last week. After all the Republicans had the opportunity to shake their fists at the IRS Commissioner, Ryan just flat-out called the man a liar on the record.
Mike Huckabee delighted in his call for a special prosecutor while getting a Nixon mention in there and declaring the IRS to be the closest thing to a Gestapo the United States has. Yes, because the IRS routinely rounds up people and carts them off to camps, right?
Paragon of virtue Ralph Reed is in the mix too, using his Faith and Freedom Road to Majority conference to declare that once Republicans take back the Senate in 2014, they should "raze the IRS to the ground." Praise the Lord and pass the ballot box, my friends!
Ethically challenged Steve Stockman introduced an unserious bill as one of his last hurrahs before he moves to the reject pile. Stockman's bill is called "The Dog Ate My Tax Receipts Act", and would allow taxpayers to offer "flimsy excuses" for not maintaining their tax records:
Under Stockman’s bill, “The Dog Ate My Tax Receipts Act,” taxpayers who do not provide documents requested by the IRS can claim one of the following reasons:
1. The dog ate my tax receipts
2. Convenient, unexplained, miscellaneous computer malfunction
3. Traded documents for five terrorists
4. Burned for warmth while lost in the Yukon
5. Left on table in Hillary’s Book Room
6. Received water damage in the trunk of Ted Kennedy’s car
7. Forgot in gun case sold to Mexican drug lords
8. Forced to recycle by municipal Green Czar
9. Was short on toilet paper while camping
10. At this point, what difference does it make?
This is easy pickings for Republicans. After all, who wants to stand up and defend the IRS? I don't know too many people who love to file their tax returns every year, so there's no better target to ramp up the outrage machine than the IRS, particularly now that they don't have Obamacare to kick around anymore.
None of this creates jobs or addresses real issues which Congress should be addressing, like minimum wage, gun safety, or immigration reform. It does, however, keep their base of aging white bigots engaged. Let's hope the rest of us who give a damn about real issues bother to cast ballots in November.
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