Originally posted by: Kevin Lewis
...has decided to squelch the hiring of enough additional IRS agents so that the rich Republican tax cheats could finally be prosecuted. This is, of course, the play for pay from all those fat campaign finance checks, etc. that the fat cats wrote to the RepubliQ.
The CBO has said that the money spent on additional enforcement would generate a 500% return. The RepubliQ always whine about taxes, the deficit, etc. Both would be lower if the IRS were adequately funded.
The RepubliQ are corrupt hypocrites.
Complaining about excessive and wasteful taxation is an old subject. Can you say "Boston Tea Party"?. I'm still complaining about it. My objections are based on wasteful, abusive, and fraudulent spending applications by our government. I have no problem when my tax dollars are spent on meaningful education, infrastructure, law enforcement, or any truly essential good or service that directly assists the citizenry with their well being. Now I guess we have to define "meaningful" and or " directly useful" goods and services paid for via the tax base. That means we'll be arguing through infinity, I'm aware. No end to it, granted.
You can disagree, but this past year (2022) here's a few areas of tax dollar spending in the US that irks me.
Verifying that kids love their pets - $187,500 (National Institute of Health - NIH)
Radio campaign telling drivers to stop at RR crossings $200,000 ( Dept of Transportation -DOT)
Using mice to study racial aggression - $519,828 (NIH)
Studying social life and collective ant intelligence $675,000 (National Science Foundation - NSF)
Study of parrot romance - $689,000 ( NSF)
Training mice to binge drink alcohol - $1.1 M (NIH)
Observing hamsters fight on steroids - $3 M (NIH)
Unused hotel rooms for undocumented immigrants - $17M ( Dept Homeland Security -DHS)
Overpayment to govt. contractors for terminated contracts - $69M (Govt Services Agency - GSA)
Assistance to undocumented immigrants to avoid deportation - $168M (DHS)
Interest payment on the US debt - $475B (US Treasury)
Starbucks espresso machines - $192,000 (Dept of Defense - DOD)
Funding a 1.5 mile park for yoga and concerts in Austin, TX - $1.9M (DOD)
There's much, much more..but these support the contention, imo. This small sample list was somewhat cherry picked to support my conservative argument, admittedly. Feel free to counter with your own left-side list of wasteful / errant conservative spending / mistakes ( you guys do that anyway daily here..and I'm quite certain you'll have no problem identifying legitimate R screw-ups...they've contributed I'm aware). Do you liberals want your tax dollars invested in ant intelligence or the romantic proclivities of parrots? Or do you think I just don't have the visionary foresight to see the eventual benefit of these studies for the US citizenry? Whether R's, D's, or independents are involved..these allocations and many others are ridiculous..and we're all paying for it.
Re: your tax cheats points, they should be investigated (there's that silly word again) / prosecuted / jailed if the final evidence supports it. I'd strongly disagree that your typically lumped tax cheat group are restricted to R's. You're out of your mind to suggest that..and I don't know where you'd get any real proof of that claim. You'll have to do some of your own serious cherry picking to convince me of that claim. Regardless of political affiliation, tax cheats exist. If they break the law, they should pay the consequences.
I don't have an objection in the hiring of more IRS agents if it would in any way expedite their services or enhance efficiencies of their operation for the people. Roughly half of the $80B potential spending in the bill was slated for 'enforcement' actions. Would any of those potential actions approach that observed in the IRS targeting of conservatives observed in 2017? Will that spending contribute to more of that? Do we know? No, we don't.
And the Cowboys sucked last weekend..horrendously. You guys didn't pray enough..step up.
Cheers
