Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Who is Voting to Shrink the IRS?

On the whole, David Cay Johnston has a very important point:
Congress will spend a trillion dollars more than it levies this year, so how do Washington’s politicians respond to the 11th consecutive year of federal budgets in red ink? They plan to shrink the IRS … if you believe government is too big and that cutting everywhere is the best way to shrink government. But this is the staff that generates revenue, and there is easy money to be made.
But then he goes a little astray with the politics:
So why would President Barack Obama and Congress cut the IRS budget? Their actions illuminate the rise of corporate power and values, and the diminishing voice of Joe Sixpack, thanks partly to how we finance election campaigns.
The how we finance elections part may be right but let’s recall that Joe Sixpack votes Republican and it is mainly the Republican Party that wants to hamstring the IRS in its enforcement of the tax laws against the larger corporations.

1 comment:

Erik Hetzner said...

What does "Joe Sixpack" mean? Have you ever looked at the Pew Research reports on party affiliation? Being poor is highly correlated with Democratic party affiliation.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2067/2012-electorate-partisan-affiliations-gop-gains-white-voters