Posted on 03/24/2015 2:10:16 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Weeks before other Republicans are expected to announce their presidential candidacies, Ted Cruz has already injected a very nasty little virus into the right-wing primary process: the ridiculous idea that the IRS should be abolished.
While some have been quick to conclude this idea indicates Cruz is truly stupid, I don’t think he is. You just have to understand that the real intent of the abolish-the-IRS campaign pledge cannot be publicly stated.
As The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell notes, the IRS is a cash-flow-positive agency, generating around $255 in income for every $1 assigned to it in federal funding. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities adds that although every $1 spent on the IRS enforcement division generates about $6 in recovered cash, Republican-backed budget cuts have reduced the agency’s enforcement staff from 50,400 in 2010 to 42,800 in 2014.
Putting aside the fact that Cruz has repeatedly gotten basic facts about the IRS wrong (such as claiming there are 110,000 IRS “agents,” when there’s really somewhere around 20,500), the Texas senator claims that entire IRS can be replaced by a flat tax that can be filled out on a “postcard.” But he has yet to discuss what kind of agency would replace the IRS to actually review, process, and enforce compliance with the new system. That’s intentional. He doesn’t want one; he’s fundamentally opposed to the entire notion of progressive taxation itself
No IRS means no enforcement capability and thus massive tax fraud. No IRS means a dramatic collapse in federal revenue. No IRS even dooms his own proposed tax reform, since no one will be around to actually implement it. These are all also intentional.
These are features, not flaws. If rich right-wingers are better able to successfully break more tax laws with even less scrutiny, then they’re just job creators struggling under the yoke of socialist oppression. If federal tax revenues collapse, then that’ll just give Congress an excuse to finally cut off all those parasitic welfare programs and privatize more services. If no IRS means the federal government can’t actually set up or implement his radically retrogressive tax plan, then whatever. It’s just intended as presenteeism anyways.
Cruz is aggressively advancing the Republican agenda set by Grover Norquist back in 2001: to reduce the federal government to “the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” Never mind that this agenda is, well, manifestly evil, designed to entrench a ruling plutocratic elite and further reduce the power of the powerless.
In an age where most people agree that the rich should pay their fair share in taxes, cloaking this agenda with faux-populist attacks on a historically disliked federal agency that is frankly an easy target makes perfect sense.
By entering the primaries so early and doing so in an incredibly reactionary way, Cruz has already succeeded in pushing the GOP presidential contest much further to the right. Some kind of dramatic change to the IRS that goes further than already-disastrous budget cuts is now firmly on the GOP table. Cruz may have little chance of winning, but the past decade has seen many far-right ideas infiltrate the mainstream. Abolishing the IRS is exactly the kind of right-wing soundbite that could become very dangerous if Republicans somehow simultaneously sleaze their way into a congressional supermajority and the White House.
It’s easy to dismiss Cruz as a know-nothing idiot. But he’s stupid like a fox, and the henhouse is America’s progressive tax system. We should be a little more worried.
The UN should be placed in Syria or Yemen. That will teach those one- worlders what happens when they appease the Middle East.
The IRS the the gestapo of the Obama administration. Put them on trial and send them to the brig.
Which of course would mean a tax REDUCTION if correct (not common core) math were used.
Take away the IRS and the government shrinks and has less and less to do with your everyday life, which they have no business in anyway.
Charity is a virtue of personal giving. If you are forced to pay taxes in order to provide others their “benefits,” you are forced to earn, so that the government looks to be the benevolent giver.
I think Cruz said that they are seeing him as “crazy.”
Or, what you earn is siphoned away
But he has yet to discuss what kind of agency would replace the IRS to actually review, process, and enforce compliance with the new system.
A tax enforcement agency is required, however, there is no requirement that the current IRS does that job. I would suggest all current employees of the IRS be fired and receive a lifetime ban on Federal employment, because they have allowed their agency to be used as a weapon by one political party. Also a further reform I would require is that the new tax enforcement agency has no garnishment or seizure without obtaining a warrant from a federal grand jury. I would also refuse them the authority to issue any firearms.
If a flat tax is good enough for Russia, it’s good enough for the USA.
Great idea...except if the guy has a business. Or do you want a business “post card” as well? Or if the guy has 4 rentals. Or do you want a rental “post card” as well? Or if the guy has a farm. Or do you want a farm “post card” as well? Or if the guy trades stock. Or do you want a stock trading “post card” as well? Or if the guy divorced his wife and pays alimony. Or do you want a divorcee “post card” as well? Who would read your post cards? Wait...we already have this: Called the IRS.
At no point did he mention anything evil or even negative. The evil is in trapping people within the FedGov welfare system. The best thing we could do for the poor would be to help them become independent, with intact families raising their own children as much as possible. The pure evil is on the other side of this battle - in our White House and behind a keyboard at The Daily Banter.
The best thing that can happen to this country, is when we get rid of the IRS. Among all the ALPHABET GOVERNMENT AGENCIES, this organization has been the biggest elephant in the room. And now, that this organization has been politicized by this administration, it has become more imperritive that we get rid of it. Other than these bureaucrats in Washington, who would miss the IRS? Maybe the politicians that have used the IRS as a hammer to subdue their opponents.
Internal Revenue for Socialists (IRS)
Socialism Is Legal Plunder - Bastiat
Plunder backed by forced subjugation.
6. But the grand nostrum will be a public debt…
8. (4) A great debt will require great taxes; great taxes, many taxgatherers and other officers; and all officers are auxiliaries of power.
Rules for Changing a Limited Republic…
11. As soon as sufficient progress in the intended change shall have been made, and the public mind duly prepared according to the rules already laid down, it will be proper to venture on another and a bolder step toward a removal of the constitutional landmarks.
/Freneau
It always has been and that is what was intended. There were a few voices in the Republican party that opposed the income tax strongly such as Richard E Byrd:
A hand from Washington will be stretched out and placed upon every man’s business; the eye of the Federal inspector will be in every man’s counting house . . . The law will of necessity have inquisitorial features, it will provide penalties, it will create complicated machinery. Under it men will be hailed into courts distant from their homes. Heavy fines imposed by distant and unfamiliar tribunals will constantly menace the tax payer. An army of Federal inspectors, spies and detectives will descend upon the state . . . Who of us who have had knowledge of the doings of the Federal officials in the Internal Revenue service can be blind to what will follow? I do not hesitate to say that the adoption of this amendment will be such a surrender to imperialism that has not been since the Northern states in their blindness forced the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments upon the entire sisterhood of the Commonwealth.
But The Progressive wing of the Republican party (It was a progressive Republican President who urged the income tax after all) Joined with the Democrats to push through the sixteenth amendment sticking us with the tyrannical monstrosity we have now.
The fair tax is not perfect but it is better
At least wolves and puppies can be fun to play with. The Internal Revenue Code? Not so much. (My sister knows a guy who keeps a wolf. He’s nice.)
I am perfectly ok with paying my fair share.
What pisses me off is all the deadbeats, illegal aliens and greedy politicians that suck the juice of life out of our country.
The IRS is an UnAmerican agency that cast guilt until one proves their innocence. They have the power to seize your home, bank accts and throw citizens in jail...even when their is an error and or an error on their part.
The IRS has been used as a weapon to silence political decent and enemies of a particular administration.
Sure, will there be an investigative arm of the U.S. Treasury...probably, but it should never ever ever ever be used to attack American citizen as it has again.
Some stupid ASSumptions on the part of the author -
for some reason, he believes Cruz intends to keep the present taxing structure with no IRS.
Of course, that’s unworkable.
We’d have to go to a NRST only.
There might be an enforcement agency, but it wouldn’t ever interact with individual taxpayers. It would only interact with those entities that collect sales tax.
The biggest reason to get rid of the IRS goes against the left’s assumption that you can trust gov’t.
The IRS has proven itself to be a corrupt political entity that cannot be allowed in our gov’t.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.