“The IRS And The Real Scandal”: Enabling America’s Financial Elite To Further Entrench Their Wealth And Power
“This systematic abuse cannot be fixed with just one resignation, or two,” said David Camp, the Republican chairman of the House tax-writing committee, at an oversight hearing Friday morning dealing with the IRS. “This is not a personnel problem. This is a problem of the IRS being too large, too intrusive, too abusive.”
David Camp has it wrong. There has been a “systematic” abuse of power, but it’s not what Camp has in mind. The real scandal is that:
The IRS has interpreted our tax laws to allow big corporations and wealthy individuals to make unlimited secret campaign donations through sham political fronts called “social welfare organizations,” like Karl Rove’s “Crossroads,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and “Priorites USA.”
This campaign money has been used to bribe Congress to keep in place tax loopholes like the “carried interest” rule that allows the managers of hedge funds and private equity funds to treat their income as capital gains, subject only to low capital gains taxes rather than ordinary income taxes, and other loopholes that allow CEOs to get special tax treatment on giant compensation packages that now average $10 million a year.
Despite a growing number of billionaires and multi-millionaires using every tax dodge imaginable – laundering their money through phantom corporations and tax havens — the IRS’s budget has been cut by 17 percent since 2002, adjusted for inflation. To manage the $594.5 million in additional cuts required by the sequester, the agency will furlough each of its more than 89,000 employees for at least five days this year.
Finally, all of this, coming at a time when the Supreme Court has deemed corporations “people” under the First Amendment and when income and wealth are more concentrated at the top than they’ve been in over a hundred years, has enabled America’s financial elite to further entrench their wealth and power and thereby take over much of American democracy.
This is the real scandal and the real abuse, Congressman Camp. Your indignation over the IRS’s alleged “targeting” of conservative groups is a distraction from the main event.
By: Robert Reich, The Robert Reich Blog, May 17, 2013
“Why Scandal Politics Don’t Work”: Perhaps Republicans Should Focus On A More Effective Use Of Their Time
A president’s critics can’t help themselves when the whiff of scandal is in the air. Yet more often than not, the obsessive pursuit of scandal fails to lift the political prospects of the opposition party.
Republicans might want to pause and ask themselves: Is flogging Benghazi, the IRS, and the Associated Press really the best way to get the majority back?
Every party on the outside of the White House envisions replicating Watergate — forcing a president out of office and riding the aftermath to an Election Day triumph. But the post-Watergate scandal-mongering record falls far short of that holy political grail.
The Iran-Contra affair may be a blot on the Reagan record, but it didn’t propel Democratic Gov. Michael Dukakis into the White House. During his convention speech, he tried to tar then-Vice-President George H. W. Bush for “sit[ting] silently by when somebody at the National Security Council comes up with the cockamamie idea that we should trade arms to the Ayatollah for hostages.” A few days later, Dukakis also tried to make hay with a less-remembered scandal involving fraudulent procurement in the Pentagon. “A fish rots from the head first,” said Dukakis, in some of his harshest words of the campaign. His emphasis on ethics were soon drowned out with a barrage of attacks regarding his views on national security and crime.
Ten years later, with Bill Clinton in the Oval Office, Republicans took scandal-mongering to new heights. Charging the president with perjury and obstruction of justice to cover up his extramarital affair, the House Judiciary Committee advanced articles of impeachment one month before the 1998 congressional midterm elections. The opposition party historically gains seats at the “six-year itch” point of a president’s tenure. But the backlash from the impeachment obsession allowed Democrats to pick up five House seats. Speaker Newt Gingrich was compelled to quit Congress. House Republicans barreled ahead and formally impeached Clinton anyway. Clinton’s approval rating then spiked above 70 percent.
During George W. Bush’s first term, Democrats sought to drive outrage surrounding the Abu Gharib torture scandal and, to a lesser extent, the outing of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame. Michael Moore sought to spark a scandal with his documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, which characterized Bush’s foreign policy and energy policy as flowing from a scandalous relationship with Saudi Arabia. John Kerry’s acceptance speech, delivered one month after the movie was released, called for “an America that relies on its ingenuity and innovation, not the Saudi royal family.” A well-financed independent group, The Media Fund, aired a series of ads criticizing Bush’s Saudi ties. Bush ended up winning the popular vote (unlike 2000).
As for President Obama — the conservative cries of “Solyndra” and “Fast and Furious” failed to interrupt his march to a second term.
Why do scandal politics usually fail? Of course, some scandals fizzle out because the charges lack merit or import. But as you see above, even more significant scandals can lack political punch. Perhaps that is because by attempting to quickly topple the president and short-cut a path the White House, the attackers end up distracting themselves from their own primary mission: discrediting the president’s ideology and substantive agenda in the eyes of the public, and elevating their own.
A more plausible objective, short of impeachment or electoral gains, would be to consume a White House with scandal management and distract the administration from executing the president’s agenda. But for today’s Republicans, that objective doesn’t make much sense. Obama’s main legislative goal this year is shared by leading Republicans: immigration reform.
In fact, pro-immigration Republicans may be stoking the fires about Benghazi, the IRS and the AP not to distract the president, but to distract fellow conservatives who otherwise would rally the Tea Party base to pressure Congress and undermine the bipartisan Senate bill. As the Daily Caller’s Mickey Kaus told BuzzFeed: “I think these distracting scandals actually help its chances of passing. Every time [the bill] is at center stage, its chances of passing go down.”
And note that some of Obama’s chief antagonists on Benghazi — Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham — are also Obama’s key shepherds of immigration reform.
For those conservatives more deeply opposed to President Obama’s agenda, they should ask themselves: Do we really think any of these “scandals” seriously threaten President Obama’s hold on the Oval Office? And if they don’t, might there be a better use of our time?
By: Bill Scher, The Week, May 16, 2013
“They Just Can’t Make Up Their Minds”: Let The Inevitable GOP Overreach Commence
There’s a not-so-subtle theme in much of the day’s political coverage, which is tough to miss.
House Republicans say they will not overreach on probing the Obama administration, having learned lessons from investigating the Monica Lewinsky scandal during the Clinton administration.
The most pressing question for Congressional Republicans is no longer how to finesse changes to immigration law or gun control, but how far they can push their cases against President Obama without inciting a backlash of the sort that has left them staggering in the past.
Republicans are worried one thing could screw up the political gift of three Obama administration controversies at once: fellow Republicans. Top GOP leaders are privately warning members to put a sock in it when it comes to silly calls for impeachment or over-the-top comparisons to Watergate. They want members to focus on months of fact-finding investigations — not rhetorical fury.
As a strategic matter, this certainly makes sense. Congressional Republicans don’t have any real incentive to overreach — much of the media is already eagerly running with the “White House in crisis!” narrative; the GOP base is already riled up; the stories can be dragged out for months with investigations and hearings; and all of this happening despite no evidence of wrongdoing from anyone at the White House.
Indeed, Republican leaders have every reason not to overreach. It’s easy to imagine the Democratic base rallying in response to a perceived effort to tear down President Obama, without cause, thanks to dubious scandals embraced by the GOP and the Beltway media. It is, after all, what happened in 1998, so there’s recent precedent to be aware of.
What’s more, don’t underestimate the potential for a backlash from mainstream voters outside either party’s base, who may also have a limited appetite for endless investigations. Incumbent Republicans running in the 2014 midterms should probably be cautious about telling voters, “I ignored job creation, but vote for me anyway because I participated in 11 Benghazi hearings.”
And yet, despite all of this, many congressional Republicans are already overreaching and the advice about caution is already being ignored.
I can appreciate the image GOP leaders are eager to convey: congressional Republicans are being serious and deliberate, seeking answers to legitimate questions without flying off the handle and making wild, baseless accusations. The more Americans see a reasonable and methodical process, the less likely they are to perceive an unhinged partisan vendetta.
But aren’t we well past that point? Can anyone seriously characterize congressional Republicans as “serious and deliberate” when it comes to alleging Obama administration wrongdoing?
TPM ran a list the other day of GOP lawmakers who are already speaking publicly about possibly impeaching President Obama. Has the president committed any high crimes? Well, no. In fact, none of the current controversies seem to relate to the White House at all. But the list of Republicans throwing around the “I” word is already pretty long. Indeed, Republicans can’t seem to make up their minds as to why they should impeach the president, but they seem to enjoy talking about it anyway.
It’s against the backdrop that Boehner & Co. are urging caution and hoping to avoid overreach? I think it’s a little late for that.
Update: GOP lawmakers have spent the last couple of days trying to argue that the IRS mess is a good reason to undermine the Affordable Care Act. That’s foolish, but more importantly, it’s also a good example of overreach.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, May 17, 2013
“Benghazi Syndrome”: An Irrational And Absolutely Rabid Dislike Of President Obama
The American Psychiatric Association’s latest handbook — the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) — is about to be published. It is the handbook of mental health, and if you’re not in it, you are among the fortunate few. Even though the hour is late, I beseech the DSM’s publishers to consider one additional entry, the seriousness of which will be apparent to anyone who watches Fox News: Benghazi Syndrome.
Benghazi Syndrome is a grave malady of the noggin, the symptoms of which are a compulsion to grossly exaggerate matters and to compare almost anything to Watergate (see Watergate Syndrome, DSM-IV). Patient Zero in this regard is Sen. Lindsey Graham, a usually affable Republican from South Carolina who has suggested that the Benghazi episode warrants an investigation by a special congressional committee, just like Iran-contra and — drum roll, please — Watergate.
Others have gone even further. Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma and a man who once suggested the Environmental Protective Agency has something in common with the Gestapo, called the Benghazi whatchamacallit the “most egregious cover-up in American history” and possibly an impeachable offense. These charges are so serious we can only conclude that l’affaire Benghazi has the potential to bring down the Obama administration — the proverbial thread that, if pulled, could unravel the entire garment. Such drama!
So what is Benghazi? It is the place in Libya where the United States maintained two installations — a consulate and a much larger CIA outpost. Both of these were attacked on Sept. 11, 2012, a date of some significance. The assaults, we all now know, were conducted by a jihadist group and were not — as the Obama administration initially maintained — a spur-of-the-moment thing precipitated by the airing of an anti-Muslim video. We also know that the administration either was unsure of the facts or simply didn’t like them. So it knitted together the infamous talking points that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice repeated on all the Sunday talk shows. Aside from “good morning,” little of what she said was true.
President Obama was then really Candidate Obama and he surely did not want the words “terrorist attack” uttered during the presidential campaign. In addition, the CIA and the State Department were in a cat fight and could not agree on the wording of the talking points — or even, from a fair reading of their clashing e-mails, who the fanatical enemy was: al-Qaeda or members of Congress?
In all this, it’s almost possible to forget that four Americans died in Benghazi. The event was a tragedy and it hardly matters, as then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vociferously maintained, if the attack occurred spontaneously or was planned. Either way, it was a success for the terrorists and a debacle for the United States.
It is good to find out how this happened — who’s responsible for the inadequate security, etc. — and it is also good to hold the Obama administration accountable for putting out a misleading statement. But the record will show that a thorough report was, in fact, compiled. Its authors were Thomas Pickering, an esteemed retired diplomat, and Adm. Mike Mullen, an equally esteemed retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They found the standard mistakes and snafus — but no crime.
Watergate, though, was a crime. Iran-contra was a crime. Government officials were convicted and some of them went to jail. Fudging a press release is not a crime. Compromising on wording is not a crime. Making a decision — even if wrong — that there was no time to call in the cavalry is not a crime. And having inadequate security is not only not a crime but partly a consequence of congressional budget cuts.
It is not a crime either to make a mountain out of a molehill, but this particular one is constructed of a fetid combination of bad taste and poisonous politics. Dig down a bit and it becomes clear that some — many? — Republicans suspect that Barack Obama and-or Hillary Clinton are capable of letting people die to cover up a terrorist attack. Either that, or this is what they want us to think.
In the end, it all comes down to an irrational and absolutely rabid dislike of Obama that so clouds judgment that utterly preposterous statements are uttered, usually within the precincts of the Fox News studios. This, as you might have guessed, is classic Benghazi Syndrome. There is no known cure.
By: Richard Cohen, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, May 13, 2013
“Stalag America”: John Boehner Wants Someone Jailed Despite No Evidence Of An Actual Crime
Given the recent trifecta of what has,to date, added up to mostly false but politically effective allegations of scandal involving Benghazi, the IRS and the Department of Justice, transparency within the walls of the Obama White House has very much come into question.
But when it comes to the GOP leadership in Congress, there can be no such question of transparency as their behavior could not be any more open or obvious.
Indeed, the Congressional Republicans have been crystal clear in revealing that they could not care less about getting to the real truth of any of the upsetting issues now before the American public, just as they have no interest in focusing on these events for the purpose of making government better for the American people. Their concern is clearly, openly and unabashedly focused on the political opportunities they perceive to be available to them now that they’ve been able to successfully focus the public’s attention on these alleged scandals and away from critical issues of substance.
The problem is that the all too transparent political goals of these people have the unfortunate byproduct of shining a light on the stunning degree of hypocrisy being practiced by these so called leaders. Should you require quantifiable proof of this, I offer up Speaker John Boehner’s comments of this morning as Exhibit A.
While speaking to the press about the IRS matter, Mr. Boehner bellowed, “My question isn’t about who is going to resign. My question is whose going to jail over this scandal?” The Speaker then bounded from the stage leaving his words to hang in the air.
Ah…the drama….the intrigue…the utter and complete disregard for the American justice system spat from the lips of the most powerful man in the United States Congress.
While the Speaker demands to know who is going to jail over the IRS fiasco, the rest of us are, apparently, falling behind as we are still trying to find out what—if any—criminal laws have been violated. You see, Mr. Speaker, in this country one is supposedly required to be convicted of actually violating a criminal law before prison time is to be handed out as punishment—even when this rather fundamental rule of law proves to be an inconvenient impediment to your fundraising activities.
If Boehner has the answer to the somewhat relevant question of whether or not the behavior at the IRS jumped the line between really bad judgment and highly inappropriate behavior into the sphere of criminality, he elected not to share the specifics with us during this morning’s press conference. That was an unfortunate choice as the federal government is about to spend a whole bunch of taxpayer money to ascertain if there was any actionable criminal activity.
If Speaker Boehner has already conducted the investigation and concluded that somebody (we don’t know who) needs to get put in prison, he might consider sharing his findings with the FBI. And if Mr. Boehner has not conducted such an investigation, maybe he could see the benefit of at least pretending to honor the American justice system and keep his lust for incarceration to himself until we know if there is actually a crime.
Most of us will agree that there was clearly wrongdoing in the ranks of the IRS in how they improperly targeted applicants seeking 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status. For anyone who may be struggling to accept this, I would suggest reading the Inspector General’s report of what occurred which is now available for your full review.
While the IG account points to serious managerial errors and confused employees over at the IRS, nowhere in the report do we find any allegation of criminal behavior —just as we see that the IG could find no evidence that anyone from outside the agency (translation: the White House) was involved.
This is not to say that there was no criminal behavior.
It is to say that, at this point, while the Inspector General was able to uncover the instances of improper behavior that clearly reveals a serious problem, no criminal activity has yet to be alleged.
Still, given the gravity of the infractions, the Attorney General has ordered the FBI to investigate the Internal Revenue Service to determine whether there was, in fact, a criminal violation of the law. But as this investigation has likely not yet even begun (it was just announced this morning), one struggles to work out how Speaker Boehner has managed to conclude that someone needs to go to jail.
I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised that Boehner has no real grasp of one of the most fundamental principles of American law—that would be the one that requires that those suspected of criminal activity must be charged with a specific violation, tried and proven guilty before we begin clamoring for jail time.
I say I shouldn’t be surprised because this is a Speaker very well versed in blocking the passage of laws but not particularly knowledgeable in the procedures involved in actually making law—a process that would require him to actually understand the law.
This is a Speaker who cares deeply about making dramatic pronouncements—such as what he shared with the nation this morning—in the hope that his declarations will inspire his political base to make large contributions. If clamoring for someone to go to jail—despite any evidence of criminal activity—is what it takes to bring in the big bucks, the notion that we might hope for a more measured and informed tone from so powerful an elected official is a detail that is, apparently, to be ignored and discarded.
At this moment, I am reminded of something disgraced Congressman Bob Ney wrote in his book, “Sideswiped—Lessons Learned Courtesy Of The Hit Men Of Capital Hill.” For anyone who may not recall, Mr. Ney was one of the Members of Congress swept up in the Jack Abramoff scandal and convicted on corruption charges. Given Ney’s history as a convicted felon, I will leave it to the reader to determine how much credibility to give him when reading what he had to say about Speaker Boehner.
What Ney tells us in his book is that Boehner has always been far more concerned with fundraising and having fun than he was with doing the business of the people.
“Many felt his money-raising focus would make up for his lack of concern about legislation — he was considered a man who was all about winning and money…He was a chain-smoking, relentless wine drinker who was more interested in the high life — golf, women, cigarettes, fun, and alcohol.”
As The Washington Posts further reports:
“Ney goes on to say that Boehner was lazy, took thousands of dollars in booze, food and golf games from lobbyists, and repeatedly slid around ethics rules: “John got away with more than any other member on the Hill” because he was well-liked and well-protected by his staff.”
While it is fair to consider Mr. Ney’s own criminal history when weighing the value of this information, it all sounds about right to me.
Still, what Mr. Ney does not address is Speaker Boehner’s obvious disregard for avoiding the transparency of his own disturbing brand of hypocrisy.
In 2004, Julian Bond—then President of the NAACP—gave a speech that, according to the IRS letter received by Mr. Bond in October of that year, included “statements in opposition of George W. Bush for the office of presidency.” The letter also stated that Bond had “condemned the administration politics of George W. Bush in education, the economy and the war in Iraq.”
Because of Mr. Bond’s speech, the IRS informed him that they were reviewing the 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status awarded to the NAACP.
Note that Mr. Bond never told his audience who to vote for in the presidential election nor, for that matter, did he support or oppose any candidate running in any election. Indeed, his statements were quite tame by any comparison to the pronouncements emanating from Karl Rove’s Crossroads USA 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) organizations not only on a regular basis but more specifically during the 2012 presidential election cycle.
Bond had this to say at the time his organization was targeted by the IRS:
“It’s Orwellian to believe that criticism of the president is not allowed or that the president is somehow immune from criticism.”
And yet, the IRS proceeded to run the NAACP through the mill, claiming at every turn that it’s investigation was, in no way, politically motivated.
In the end, the NAACP retained their tax-exempt status.
In light of Speaker Boehner’s indignation aimed at the current IRS issue, how does one avoid asking how we missed Mr. Boehner’s demands for jail time when the NAACP was the target of an improper IRS investigation during the Bush term of office?
I would agree completely with the Speaker that any criminal activity discovered in the investigation that is soon to get underway should be resolved with charges and, if appropriate, the punishment Mr. Boehner so fervently seeks. But how does Boehner have the nerve to call for jail time based on his assumption that somebody somewhere must have done something criminal when he didn’t offer so much as a peep when workers at the IRS engaged in similar—if not identical—behavior in 2004 when a Republican sat in the White House?
I would remind Speaker Boehner that Americans are not stupid. If someone has engaged in a criminal act, we will demand justice. But we do not go around clamoring for jail time for a crime that even you, Speaker Boehner, have yet to determine has taken place.
I would also remind the Speaker that the copy of the Constitution he pretends to carry with him at all times is really quite clear on this point.
You should actually try reading that copy of the Constitution, Mr. Speaker, rather than simply pledging your fealty to the Founder’s expression when it suits you only to reject it when it becomes inconvenient. I think we’d all be considerably better off if you actually understood just how incredibly inappropriate it is to demand jail time where no criminality has been revealed before storming off the stage to create the maximum dramatic effect.
Of course, I do recognize that it is difficult for you to find the time for this what with the volumes of fundraising letters you will be signing in order to fully capitalize on your highly offensive and irresponsible behavior.
By: Rick Ungar, Op-Ed Contributor, Forbes, May 15, 2013
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