Dem
47
GOP
53
Perhaps you've heard about an agency called the Department of Government Efficiency, led by an enterprising up-and-comer named Elon Musk. Ostensibly, the reason that DOGE is taking a hatchet to anything and everything is to "save money" and "balance the budget." This is particularly the justification offered for the arbitrary terminations of hundreds of thousands of federal employees.
Yesterday, The Washington Post reported that the chaos at the IRS, most importantly the termination of more than 20,000 staffers, is going to hit the government's bottom line hard. The best guess is that, in a world where there is much less enforcement, and much less potential for a return to be reviewed closely, income tax revenue will drop by 10% this year. That works out to around $500 billion, which is vastly more than all of the people terminated by DOGE earn in salary and benefits, and is certainly more than the 20,000 IRS staffers earn. In case you are wondering, the loss to the government works out to about $25 million per IRS staffer that has been cashiered. We may need to put the staff researcher on the job, but we're pretty sure the average IRS employee does not take home $25 million per annum.
And there is more. The IRS isn't the only agency that enforces tax law. The Department of Justice does, too, through its Tax Division. Or, at least, that's what used to happen. The DoJ's tax division was created by statute, so the Co-Presidents cannot legally eliminate it by fiat (admittedly, not always an obstacle for this administration). What they have done is slash the agency to the bone, so that it has no real power to do anything. The administration is hoping that the division will just wither and die, but either way, it's not going to be forcing millionaires and billionaires to pay up anytime soon (if ever again).
And there's more still. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have made a deal that IRS tax data will be shared with ICE, so that ICE can use that information to go after undocumented immigrants. This is a gross enough breach of law and ethics that acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause resigned rather than be a part of it.
This action is doubly hollow. As with the CBP One folks (see above), using tax records to go after people is a case of pursuing low-hanging fruit. If they are actually following the rules, and paying taxes, then they are pretty much by definition not criminals/lawbreakers/drug smugglers. So, this has nothing to do with making the American people safer. Further, targeting these folks and booting them out of the country will not only deprive the government of the taxes that they are paying, it will strongly encourage anyone whose citizenship status is anything less than ironclad to engage in tax evasion. After all, why would you freely give this administration your details, especially when there's nobody left to enforce the tax rules anyhow?
We have never believed, for one minute, that Donald Trump and his underlings are actually interested in improving the government's balance sheet. That's 100% pure unfettered bull**it. We may not grasp the full agenda, but a big part of it is freeing rich people from paying taxes, and another big part of it is keeping businesses from being scrutinized when they do shady things. The THREE DIFFERENT STORIES from a single 24-hour period all serve to make this as clear as it could be. (Z)