The IRS Scandal - One Example of the Federal Government Out of Constitutional Control

There's a story in the news today that, in its own way, focuses attention on the state-federal government tension envisioned and encouraged by the US Constitution. ~~~~~ The Obama administration is refusing to release to the public more than 500 documents relating to the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups prior to the 2012 presidential election. Twenty months into the IRS scandal, there are still many unanswered questions about who was spearheading the agency’s scrutiny of conservative-leaning organizations seeking IRS approval as tax-exempt §501(c)4 organizations -- a tax status that would allow them to collect dues and donations and participate in civic activities, including lobbying and political action, without paying taxes on their income. The Hill web-media site asked for 2013 emails and other correspondence between the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The request specifically sought emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner and Treasury officials, including Secretary Jack Lew, while the inspector general was working on its explosive May 2013 report that revealed that the IRS used “inappropriate criteria” to review the political activities of conservative-leaning tax-exempt groups. TIGTA opted not to release any of the 512 documents covered by the FOIA request, citing various exemptions in the law. The Hill recently appealed the FOIA decision, but TIGTA denied the appeal. In its written response to The Hill denying the FOIA appeal, TIGTA cited FOIA exemptions ranging from interagency communication to personal privacy. It also claimed it cannot release relevant documents “when interference with the law enforcement proceedings can be reasonably expected,” although congressional Republicans say there is no evidence of any preparation of a prosecution, and media reports indicate that the Department of Justice and the FBI have already determined that no charges will be filed. Representative Jim Jordan, a senior member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that has held numerous hearings on the IRS scandal, says that eight months after Lerner was held in contempt of Congress for not testifying at two hearings, the matter has not yet been referred to a grand jury. The contempt citation is in the hands of Ronald Machen, the US attorney for the District of Columbia appointed by President Obama. Jordan also notes that neither the IRS nor TIGTA informed Congress in 2012 of the harassment of conservative groups - less than six months before the presidential election. Jordan also points out that Shulman didn’t correct his March 22, 2012, testimony to the Ways and Means oversight subcommittee, on which he said “there is absolutely no targeting” of Tea Party groups. Last week, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said the IRS recently delivered 86,000 pages of new documents to the panel : “These documents...were given to us without notice or explanation roughly twenty months after we made our initial document request [on the targeting].” Republicans in both the House and Senate are stepping up investigations of the IRS, criticizing it and TIGTA for not informing Congress about the Tea Party targeting before the 2012 presidential election -- a fact that casts the entire IRS targeting and cover-up as politically motivated to help Obama win a second term. GOP lawmakers say the Obama administration has stonewalled them, while Democrats have called the probes “a witch hunt.” ~~~~~ TIGTA’s FOIA practices have come under criticism before. The US District Court for the District of Columbia admonished the agency for its use of FOIA exemptions. Cause of Action, a nonprofit group that has sued TIGTA, announced that the agency declined to hand over more than 2,000 documents related to a FOIA request. Judicial Watch, another group that has sued the Obama administration on FOIA, said that the DOJ withheld 832 documents pertaining to meetings between the IRS and the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section and Election Crimes Division. Some of the documents that The Hill requested were released to Judicial Watch last year after a federal judge ruled in favor of the conservative group’s lawsuit. ~~~~~ The IRS scandal reveals the extent to which the federal executive branch under the President has somehow used the taxation power granted to it in the Constitution not only to collect taxes, but also to approve which American organizations can be exempted from paying taxes - who can be permitted under the tax exemption to advocate for its political opinions and positions, and who can be prevented from these activities - and how the President and his Attorney General can misuse the power to tax to support their own political goals and keep opponents out of the political process - all while delaying and even preventing Congress from performing its constitutional oversight function. ~~~~~ The US Constitution says in Article I, Section VIII, 1 : “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and General Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.” The federal government picked away at the constitutional requirement of uniformity until it passed in 1909 what became the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1913, which made it clear that uniformity no longer matters. The 16th Amendment states : ”The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.” The 16th Amendment gutted the taxation limits on the federal government and enabled lawmakers and bureaucrats to turn the straightforward act of collecting taxes into a vast, complex tool of social engineering. Congress routinely makes some states “donors” and others “beneficiaries.” Donor states pay more in federal taxes than they recoup in federal spending. Beneficiary states pay less in federal taxes than they receive in federal spending. The same thing is true of individuals. Today 45% of all adults who earn income pay no federal income tax, and 50% of all persons receive financial assistance from the federal government in the form of Social Security checks, Medicare payments, food stamps, or other entitlements funded by the shrinking number who pay federal taxes - taxes that fall disproportionately harder on some than on others, depending on their tax bracket. The Heartland Institute notes that the tax code covers a mind-boggling 3.4 million words and grows each year. With 60 lines per printed page, it fills more than 7,500 letter-size pages and includes numerous cross-references to other sections of the US Code that have a connection to federal taxes. This monumental mess is the result of countless attempts by countless interest group over the years to twist the tax code to its advantage or to use it as a tool to put others at a disadvantage. Congress and Presidents use the tax code to reward and punish, to manipulate businesses and individuals, and to 'buy' votes. ~~~~~ Dear readers, America’s first President - George Washington - wrote, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” The Constitution, as its author James Madison told us, was designed to give the federal government “few and defined” powers. Instead, the federal government has become a monstrous master with nearly limitless powers, including the power to raise and spend as much money as it likes in whatever ways it chooses. The only recourse for Americans is to look to the Constitution and its clear grant of only enumerated powers to the federal government. All non-specified powers belong to and rest with the states. And state legislatures are beginning to exert their constitutional rights by passing laws that limit the effects of federal legislation and regulation within their borders. The truth is that "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance." America has begun to waken up to its loss of freedom under a rapacious and all-powerful federal government that has outrageously exceeded its constitutional role. Americans will have only themselves to blame if this unconstitutional federal power grab continues.