Given last week’s revelation that the IRS was targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, it’s worth recalling President Obama’s commencement speech at The Ohio State University. The president condemned “voices” warning “that tyranny is always just around the corner.”
He no longer lurks. It’s here.
Testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee by outgoing acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller, as well as numerous statements from people claiming to have been harassed and intimidated by IRS agents, reveal that the government agency is out of control, or more specifically in other words, under the control of political hacks. It is doubtful that this was an independent activity. J. Russell George, Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, testified that he knew as early as June 2012 that the IRS was targeting conservatives but did nothing during the presidential campaign to stop it. Who else knew?
The delay in approving the tax break prevented some conservative groups from donating money to Romney’s campaign or groups supporting his candidacy. The IRS even asked one of the groups organizing the Richmond Tea Party to identify all financial donors and volunteers.
There’s a plain way to stop the IRS from making sure these types of hacks don’t happen again: get rid of them. This is what Steve Forbes proposed during his presidential candidacy in 1996 and 2000. Former presidential candidate, Republican Ron Paul (Texas), did the same. Forbes proposed a flat tax of 17 percent and a plain tax code. Individuals could submit their tax returns using a postcard.
“In the late 19th century, when Congress first attempted to impose an income tax, the idea of taxing a citizen’s hard work was considered radical,” Paul wrote in 2001. “There was a public outcry; “More importantly, the Supreme Court ruled that the income tax was unconstitutional. It was only with the passage of the 16th Amendment that Congress gained the ability to tax the productive efforts of its citizens.” And the tax did it. And so it happened.
Paul says income taxes make up only about one-third of federal revenues. I’m willing to bet that if unnecessary government agencies and programs were eliminated and the remaining ones were reformed or privatized, the savings would more than offset the loss of revenue.
Democrats in Congress – and some Republicans – will be reluctant to propose such a “radical” solution because too many are focused on revenue and too little on inappropriate spending and dysfunctional agencies and programs.
The testimony that emerged during a recent hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee is just part of what constitutional lawyer John W. Whitehead writes about in his novel book, “A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State.” This sounds alarmist, but reading this should alarm every American.
The book’s cover summary says that Whitehead “paints a terrifying portrait of a nation in the final stages of its transformation into a police state.” Examples include the growing number of “surveillance cameras, drug-sniffing dogs, SWAT raids, roadside searches, blood draws at DUI checkpoints, drones, GPS tracking devices, zero-tolerance policies, over-criminalization, and free speech zones.”
In the book’s introduction, writer and First Amendment authority Nat Hentoff says: “…I believe we are in worse shape in this country today than ever before. In the face of an looming surveillance state, we fight to keep our country free from our own government.”
Like most tyrannies, this one is implemented with a smile. The public is led to believe that it is for our “safety” and that it is good for us. When it comes to taxes, we are told that the government “needs” our money, and if we complain that it takes too much and wastes it, we are considered “greedy” and “unfair.”
Thomas Jefferson predicted what could happen when power corrupts: “Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have, over time and by slow action, transformed it into tyranny.”
Jefferson would consider the IRS scandal and Whitehead’s warnings as prime examples. Repeal the 16th Amendment, eliminate the IRS, place government back within its constitutional boundaries, and tyranny will be defeated.
