Blog: Blumenauer and the IRS Commissioner Should Get a Room

Statement

On June 20, 2014, the House held a Ways and Means Committee hearing on the IRS' unprecedented efforts to cripple political opposition by targeting and discriminating against right-wing organizations. This is very serious misconduct that was among the articles of impeachment for Richard Nixon, but the Obama Administration has done far worse, targeting effective political opponents, above all else those, like Catherine Engelbrecht, who would fight the rampant vote fraud that blemishes our elections.

During the hearing, Congressman Earl Blumenauer gave a remarkable and extended speech passionately defending the IRS and its Commissioner John Koskinen, who stood before the Committee attempting to sell the statistically impossible scenario that all seven of the key IRS employees involved in the scandal not only lost all their e-mails, but suffered catastrophic hard drive failures that made it impossible ever to recover them. To make matters worse, Commissioner Koskinen told Congress months ago that the IRS was sending all the e-mails.

Blumenauer, however, began his Committee participation with an effusive "thank you" to Commissioner Koskinen, using the word "appreciate" over and over. And then he really "jumped the shark" is when he insisted, in substance, that the lost e-mails happened because Congress has "systematically assaulted the IRS" and "assault[s] the IRS at every turn". Use of the term "assault" provides insight into the progressive mindset. One gets the impression from his impassioned tone that Blumenauer envisions the IRS in a torn dress, lying on the ground, sobbing about those terrible Republicans who had the audacity to introduce the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

Blumenauer based his claim of "assaults" on IRS budget cuts. Regardless of the wisdom of budget cuts, it is ridiculous to suggest that the e-mails disappeared, and hard drives failed, because of budget cuts. There certainly weren't any witnesses testifying about the IRS' inability to buy modern computers. Blumenauer even brought up the government shutdown, insinuating that Republicans were somehow responsible for sending the IRS agents home. In fact, the Republicans put forth multiple bills to keep the government going--so long as we didn't continue throwing money down the giant rathole that Republicans knew Obamacare would become. It was Democrats that shut the government down to force Republicans to fund Obamacare. And that was all irrelevant too because the IRS now claims it lost the e-mails long ago, before the shutdown.

Ultimately, rather than ask any questions about the subject at hand, Blumenauer apologized yet again for Congress daring to exercise its oversight functions, and said he wanted to "give you [the IRS Commissioner] an unfettered minute or two if there is something you would like to say". So long as we elect government lovers who think their job is to turn oversight hearings into a slavish lovefest for dishonest or incompetent bureaucrats, things are going to get worse and worse. It is a very bad sign when honesty in government is no longer a bipartisan issue.

Source