Cancer and IRS

"Cancer" and "IRS" are fear-inducing words to most people. We want nothing to do with either because both are powerful, often uncontrollable forces with the capacity to destroy. Now comes the revelation that the IRS has been used as a malicious weapon to traumatize and destroy political enemies.

Yet unless Obamacare is repealed, IRS's destructive potential will grow exponentially. Writes Byron York:

A look at the text of the health care law reveals that much of it consists of amending the Internal Revenue Code to give the IRS more power. When Obamacare goes fully into effect in January, every American will have to prove to the IRS that he or she has "qualifying" health coverage...

The IRS will also decide who is, and who is not, eligible for Obamacare's subsidies. The law authorizes the IRS to share confidential taxpayer information with the Department of Health and Human Services for the purpose of determining those subsidies. And since subsidies don't just apply to a relatively small number of the nation's poorest citizens — under the law, they can go to a family of four with a household income of nearly $90,000 — they will affect a huge segment of the population.

In addition, the IRS will keep track of even the smallest changes in Americans' financial condition. Did you get a raise recently? You'll need to notify the IRS; it might affect your subsidy status. Have your hours been reduced at work? Notify the IRS. Change jobs? Same . ... If Americans don't keep the IRS up to date on their financial status, they might incur penalties, which the IRS will collect by withholding income tax refunds.

In the next few weeks, the details of the IRS' apparent misconduct will be spelled out in a series of hastily arranged congressional hearings. Most of the discussion will focus on political nonprofits and the selective treatment they received from the IRS. For millions of Americans, the hearings will do what [Senator] Charles Grassley noticed at those town meetings in Iowa: reduce their faith that the federal government will treat them fairly.

And that will mean even more anxieties about the coming of Obamacare. "Now every American understands there are elements of the IRS that go off on their own," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told MSNBC Monday morning. "Why would you trust the bureaucracy with your health if you can't trust the bureaucracy with your politics?"

At least with cancer, we have the assurance that our health professionals are working in our best interests. Not so with the IRS.

Luce Institute Summer Events for Students

Quote of the Day

White House press secretary "Jay Carney ... calls the IRS's behavior 'inappropriate.' No, using the salad fork for the entree is inappropriate. Using the Internal Revenue Service for political purposes is a criminal offense."  —George Will, In IRS Scandal, Echoes of Watergate.

Scandal and Distrust Trifecta

"Let's take a breath and take stock, shall we?" writes Dave Carter @ ricochet.com.

We have the IRS acting more like the KGB, singling out groups and people for harassment on the basis of political philosophy.  We have efforts to learn about the deaths of four Americans under attack overseas, and the subsequent lies that our government told us about that attack, labeled as a sideshow and a political circus by the Commander in Chief.  We have the federal government secretly gathering months of phone records of Associated Press editors and reporters in what AP's management has termed a, "massive and unprecedented intrusion." ... As David Burge observed on Twitter, "MSNBC must be having a hard time deciding which story to ignore first."

As if that weren't enough for Obama, abortionist Kermit Gosnell has been found guilty of first-degree murder for brutally killing newborn babies (a practice Obama refused to vote against as a legislator), Obamacare is going off the rails in a slow-motion train wreck, and immigration reform—Obama's latest play to a political constituency—appears less persuasive after learning the Boston marathon terrorists were recent immigrant-citizens who raked in at least $100,000 in welfare dollars.

The IRS scandal offers valuable lessons, particularly for Obamacare and immigration reform proponents, argues Paul Mirengoff at powerlineblog.com:

Students Don't Want Active Govt in Their Lives

"In a survey launched by Young America's Foundation and conducted by the polling company, Kellyanne Conway, Inc.,  more than 60 percent of college-age students feel that government should not take an active role in their day-to-day-lives," reports Adam Tragone, "and half of respondents believe that the federal government is mostly hurting economic recovery."

YAF Poll of College-Age Students

May 8, 2013

How Government Regulations Hurt You

"Soap doesn't work. Toilets don't flush. Clothes washers don't clean. Light bulbs don't illuminate. Refrigerators break too soon. Paint discolors. Lawnmowers have to be hacked," writes Jeff Tucker. "It’s all caused by idiotic government regulations that are wrecking our lives one consumer product at a time, all in ways we hardly notice. It’s like the barbarian invasions that wrecked Rome, taking away the gains we’ve made in bettering our lives."

When his car ran out of gas, Tucker discovered one more government screw-up: newly regulated gas cans have no vent.

The whole trend began in (wait for it) California. Regulations began in 2000, with the idea of preventing spillage. The notion spread and was picked up by the EPA, which is always looking for new and innovative ways to spread as much human misery as possible.

An ominous regulatory announcement from the EPA came in 2007: “Starting with containers manufactured in 2009… it is expected that the new cans will be built with a simple and inexpensive permeation barrier and new spouts that close automatically.”

The government never said “no vents.” It abolished them de facto with new standards that every state had to adopt by 2009. So for the last three years, you have not been able to buy gas cans that work properly. They are not permitted to have a separate vent. The top has to close automatically. There are other silly things now, too, but the biggest problem is that they do not do well what cans are supposed to do.

[snip]

Ask yourself this: If they can wreck such a normal and traditional item like this, and do it largely under the radar screen, what else have they mandatorily malfunctioned? How many other things in our daily lives have been distorted, deformed and destroyed by government regulations?

If some product annoys you in surprising ways, there’s a good chance that it is not the invisible hand at work, but rather the regulatory grip that is squeezing the life out of civilization itself.

To The Women Who Make a House a Home: Happy Mother's Day

In a poignant tribute entitled Something Wonderful, Donald Todd writes of a mother, whom he lost at a young age in life, and a wife who rekindled the sense of home in him.

In our household, my father was the head and my mother the heart — or, if you will, the glue. She held things together because each of us was an extension of her heart.  She was the connection for each and every one of us. Everything ran through mom. She made the home and we got to live in it.

[snip]

So for several decades I did not have a home. I had a place in a house, or in a barracks. I stayed in a monastery, I lived in a dormitory, and shared an apartment with other men. But I did not have a home. In all of my experience, men do not create homes.

Then I married, and my wife, a homemaker, made a home for me. I finally got to come home. ... A woman inhabited my heart, and I became an extension of her heart.

Each time I find myself using the term 'wonderful' I remind myself that it means "full of wonder." 'Homemaker' and 'homemaking' are words that are full of wonder for me in an age that commonly seems to disparage wonderful things.

I think — actually I hope — we are near the end of this era. It is a particularly difficult era for women. Their own kind condemn them by denigrating marriage as a form of slavery or being a housewife as some kind of evil servitude. There's the discourtesy of being called a “domestic engineer,” and of discounting titles such as ‘wife’ and ‘mother,’ while actively discouraging mutual self-donation (married life) and motherhood. Many reasons are given to avoid that particular wonder.

I might be accused of looking for Ozzie and Harriet, but I don’t believe we can go backward to that time. We might, however, go forward to a new time when good family lives are found around the heart of the family: the woman who makes a home.  Now that would be wonderful.

To all the women who make a house a home, Happy Mother's Day.