The IRS Will Come for You Next, Unless Congress Acts Now
...Applications that contained the phrases “tea party,” “government spending,” “government debt,” “taxes,” “make America a better place to live,” “patriots,” and “9/12” were isolated from other applications and subjected to extra paperwork and inquiries, delaying some approvals by as much as 1,138 days. Targeted groups were instructed to disclose hundreds of pages of private information, including the names of volunteers, donors, and even relatives of volunteers; résumés for each governing group member; printouts of websites and social-media content, and book reports of the clubs’ suggested reading materials.
This wasn’t standard protocol—it was opposition research. The IRS abused its power, bullying groups of citizens who didn’t have the financial and legal resources to fight back and violating their First Amendment right to assemble freely and criticize the federal government.
It’s the type of corruption that developing-world juntas aspire to, and not something the greatest constitutional republic in human history should be reduced to. It is unacceptable for a government agency to profile and discriminate against some citizens because of their beliefs, whether it is political, religious, or any other voluntary personal affiliation....
...White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters the White House counsel’s office learned about the IRS’s discrimination against small-government groups last month, on April 22—yet insisted that President Obama had no knowledge of the scandal until reading about it in the news with the rest of America.
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew found a sacrificial lamb in IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, requesting his resignation despite the fact that he was promoted into the position in November 2012—well after the targeting started—and was scheduled to retire from his position next month anyway....
...This is not a political scandal. The implications of unchecked abuses of executive power extend way beyond the battle for Congress in 2014. There are real public-policy issues at hand, such as making sure that citizens who try to obtain health-care coverage through Obamacare are not subject to the same selective abuse by unelected paper-pushers....
