Read Online Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff: A Libertarian Manifesto by Matt Kibbe - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Matt Kibbe
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Cincinnati office. The targeting and intimidation of tea party groups started right before the 2010 elections and continued, despite knowledge of the practice by supervisors, all the way up the chain of command, right to the desk of IRS chief counsel William Wilkins, an Obama political appointee.
When summoned to address this issue before the House Oversight Committee, Lerner said, “I have done nothing wrong,” before promptly clamming up and refusing to answer any questions on the subject. The Obama administration clammed up as well. President Obama’s qualified outrage acknowledged even less than Lerner did in her first admission. Obama apparatchik David Axelrod argued that the “vast” size of the federal government makes it impossible for the president to know what is going on beneath him in the executive branch. Democrats quickly went into attack mode, trashing the inspector general and accusing the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Darrell Issa, of a “partisan witch hunt.”
In Washington’s parlance, this is called “spinning.”
So what happened to the promise of a better world under the benevolent hand of big government? If you really do believe in the “awesome authority” of the state, wouldn’t you be the first in line demanding accountability from those who abused power? The whole spectacle felt more like the actions of a Third World junta, not the executive branch of the United States government.
A H ISTORY OF A BUSE
Needless to say, this is not the first time agents at the IRS have picked winners and losers for the benefit of a sitting president, or for the benefit of a zealous bureaucrat. In 1963, having determined that Martin Luther King was “the most dangerous Negro” in America, J. Edgar Hoover set out to destroy him. One of the more powerful tools at the FBI’s disposal was the IRS, and the agency’s access to confidential data, particularly the donor list of MLK’s organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The FBI “hoped to use the IRS’s list of SCLC donors to send them phony SCLC letters warning that the organization was being investigated for tax fraud. This, they hoped, would dry up the funding of King’s group and thereby neutralize it.” 15 King and the SCLS were both audited by the IRS at Hoover’s behest. 16
During his term as president, John F. Kennedy used the IRS to target conservative nonprofits and other political foes, as well as to obtain the confidential tax information of rich conservatives H. L. Hunt and J. Paul Getty. 17
Robert Kennedy commissioned a report from labor leader Victor Reuther on “possible administration policies and programs to combat the radical right.” The report argued for using the IRS as a weapon. “Action to dam up these funds may be the quickest way to turn the tide.” Reuther suggested denial of tax-exempt status and investigations of corporations suspected of being right-wingers. Reuther said: “[T]here is the big question whether [they] are themselves complying with the tax laws,” indicating that he may have supported audits against these organizations. 18
Richard Nixon’s presidency ended abruptly for crimes including his willingness to use the IRS to selectively punish his political enemies. Former IRS chief Johnnie Mac Walters reports that under Nixon, he was handed an enemies list of two hundred people and instructed that the White House wanted them “investigated and some put in jail.” 19 Nixon, of course, resigned his office when faced with the possibility of impeachment for his crimes, and for repeatedly engaging “in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens.” According to Article 2 of the Articles of Impeachment:
He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed [sic]
When summoned to address this issue before the House Oversight Committee, Lerner said, “I have done nothing wrong,” before promptly clamming up and refusing to answer any questions on the subject. The Obama administration clammed up as well. President Obama’s qualified outrage acknowledged even less than Lerner did in her first admission. Obama apparatchik David Axelrod argued that the “vast” size of the federal government makes it impossible for the president to know what is going on beneath him in the executive branch. Democrats quickly went into attack mode, trashing the inspector general and accusing the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Darrell Issa, of a “partisan witch hunt.”
In Washington’s parlance, this is called “spinning.”
So what happened to the promise of a better world under the benevolent hand of big government? If you really do believe in the “awesome authority” of the state, wouldn’t you be the first in line demanding accountability from those who abused power? The whole spectacle felt more like the actions of a Third World junta, not the executive branch of the United States government.
A H ISTORY OF A BUSE
Needless to say, this is not the first time agents at the IRS have picked winners and losers for the benefit of a sitting president, or for the benefit of a zealous bureaucrat. In 1963, having determined that Martin Luther King was “the most dangerous Negro” in America, J. Edgar Hoover set out to destroy him. One of the more powerful tools at the FBI’s disposal was the IRS, and the agency’s access to confidential data, particularly the donor list of MLK’s organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The FBI “hoped to use the IRS’s list of SCLC donors to send them phony SCLC letters warning that the organization was being investigated for tax fraud. This, they hoped, would dry up the funding of King’s group and thereby neutralize it.” 15 King and the SCLS were both audited by the IRS at Hoover’s behest. 16
During his term as president, John F. Kennedy used the IRS to target conservative nonprofits and other political foes, as well as to obtain the confidential tax information of rich conservatives H. L. Hunt and J. Paul Getty. 17
Robert Kennedy commissioned a report from labor leader Victor Reuther on “possible administration policies and programs to combat the radical right.” The report argued for using the IRS as a weapon. “Action to dam up these funds may be the quickest way to turn the tide.” Reuther suggested denial of tax-exempt status and investigations of corporations suspected of being right-wingers. Reuther said: “[T]here is the big question whether [they] are themselves complying with the tax laws,” indicating that he may have supported audits against these organizations. 18
Richard Nixon’s presidency ended abruptly for crimes including his willingness to use the IRS to selectively punish his political enemies. Former IRS chief Johnnie Mac Walters reports that under Nixon, he was handed an enemies list of two hundred people and instructed that the White House wanted them “investigated and some put in jail.” 19 Nixon, of course, resigned his office when faced with the possibility of impeachment for his crimes, and for repeatedly engaging “in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens.” According to Article 2 of the Articles of Impeachment:
He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed [sic]
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