More money for IRS audits?

According to the Clinton administration and top Internal Revenue Service
officials, there aren't enough auditors around to catch the nation's worst
tax cheats.

The IRS wants a 9 percent increase in the agency's budget this year --
the largest hike, adjusted for inflation, in 13 years. Clinton supports the
idea, and key Republicans in Congress seem ready, once again, to go along
for the ride.

If approved, the plan would permit the IRS to hire 633 more auditors who
would target people with incomes over $100,000, especially business owners,
professionals and investors in partnerships.

This proposal raises a number of questions in my mind. The first would
be, whatever happened to the Republican plan to scrap the entire tax code
and the IRS by 2001? I'll bet you haven't heard Dennis Hastert mention that
one, have you? How about Trent Lott? No, he's been quiet, too.

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As a matter of fact, two of the Republicans who have been most critical
of the IRS in the past - Rep. Bill Archer, R-Texas, and Sen. William Roth,
R-Del., co-chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, both seemed to lend
moral support to the IRS beef-up plan in New York Times interviews over the
weekend.

This is stark proof that the fundamental problems plaguing the U.S.
government -- like a rogue, out-of-control, unconstitutional agency that
thrives on fear, force and intimidation -- will not be addressed by either
of the two major political parties. Forget about it. Won't happen. Not in
this lifetime.

But this proposal out of left field raises other questions.

If the IRS is so short of agents to conduct audits, how does it explain
the long string of Clinton adversaries targeted for some of the most
thorough, drawn-out, costly examinations even though there was little money
at stake for the government?

I think of Paula Jones, for instance. She and her then-husband were
subsisting on around $35,000 a year, as I recall, when their audit was
launched -- just days after she refused to settle her lawsuit against the
president.

She joined other Clinton victims Billy Dale, Elizabeth Gracen Ward, Pat
Matrisciana of "Clinton Chronicles" fame, organizations such as Citizens for
a Sound Economy, Center for the Study of Popular Culture (David Horowitz),
Peoples Network Inc. (Chuck Harder), Manufacturing Policy Project (Pat
Choate), American Life League, Christian Film and Television Commission,
National Rifle Association, National Center for Public Policy Research,
American Policy Center, Heritage Foundation, American Cause (Pat Buchanan),
Citizens Against Government Waste, Citizens for Honest Government, Freedom
Alliance (Oliver North), Concerned Women for America, Abraham Lincoln
Opportunity Foundation, Progress and Freedom Foundation, GOPAC, talk-show
host George Putnam, National Review, American Spectator, former White House
usher Christopher Emery, presidential protesters Patricia and Glenn Mendoza,
"Waco, the Rule of Engagement" editor William Gazecki and a cast of
thousands, including, of course, me and my organization.

Here's another angle to consider: Does anyone in this country believe
that Bill and Hillary Clinton's financial dealings over the last eight years
alone would hold up under the kind of scrutiny the average IRS auditor
directs at you and me? Wouldn't that be the logical place to look if the
goal is to find cheating and looting that would actually mean something to
the general revenue fund?

Listen to the euphemisms IRS Commissioner Charles O. Rossotti employs in
defending his plan. He said the decline in enforcement in recent years has
become so significant it threatens to "undermine our entire system of
voluntary tax compliance."

"Voluntary?" They still use that term. Yet every one of us knows what
happens if you don't "voluntarily" pay your taxes -- they confiscate your
money, your property and they throw you in jail. That's not exactly what I
call "voluntary."

Not to put too fine a point on it, but here's what I suggest to every
member of Congress considering voting for this increase in taxpayer
expenditures to extort even more money from taxpayers: I think a reasonable
expectation for every person voting for this plan would be to submit
themselves for a "voluntary" IRS audit. I mean it. Not just a simple review,
either. It needs to be the full proctological exam.

After all, it would be the right thing to do. It would set such a good
example. It would be so good for the country. And it would prove that they
are not hypocrites -- that they believe what's good for the goose is good
for the gander.

So, how 'bout it guys? Who's first?

Related links:

Journalists press case against IRS

Congress must investigate political audits, senator says

2 more congressmen urge IRS probe

A call for hearings on IRS political audit

Congress afraid of the White House?

Clinton fails to name IRS oversight board

The amazing, vanishing IRS political audit probe

Congress still expects political audit report

Additional background articles