The two reasons the IRS MUST be ripped out of Obamacare

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obamagate 2

With every day the SS, er, I mean IRS scandal creeps closer and closer to Barack Obama. At first they told us this was isolated to a single office and conducted by “low level” staffers. Then it was disclosed that multiple offices were involved, including the Washington office.

Today Obama’s carney Jay Carney said that some at the White House were “aware” of what was transpiring but chose not to do anything about it.

“I still don’t quite understand the timeline,” said MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, about the IRS scandal. “We had members of Congress complaining about this for two years. Did it just never reach you guys here at the White House that there was these complaints that conservative groups felt they were being singled out and targeted?”

“I’m sure people were aware of and knew some of the stories that had been reported about the complaints, but we were not aware of any activity or of any review conducted by the inspector general until several weeks ago,” Carney responded.

Todd replied, “Should you have been made aware sooner? I don’t understand.”

“Let’s just say that — well, first of all for all the reasons why distance between — you know, why the IRS should not be politicized, you know, there has to be that distance. But on the specific question that you had, I want to wait and see what the report says and wait and see what we actually know happened and what the facts are before we comment beyond what the president said yesterday on this matter and before we make any decisions or pronouncements about what actions should be taken. I mean, you heard the president say what he believed and what he feels what is reported about specific targeting turned out to be true. But we need to see if that’s actually the case,” Carney said.

And the best news of all is that next year the IRS is poised to act as Obamacare’s enforcer:

Get ready for the Internal Revenue Service to play a dominant role in health care. When Obamacare takes full effect next year, the agency will enforce most of the laws involved in the reform—even deciding who gets included in the health-care mandate.

“The impact of the IRS on health-care reform is huge,” said Paul Hamburger, a partner and employee benefits lawyer at Proskauer.

“Other agencies like Social Security will be checking for mistakes, but the IRS is the key enforcer,” Hamburger said. “It’s also going to help manage who might get health care.”

In its 5-4 ruling last year, the Supreme Court upheld the law’s mandate that Americans have health insurance, saying that Congress can enforce the mandate under its taxing authority and through the IRS.

As a result, the agency has to administer 47 tax provisions under Obamacare. They include the right to levy a penalty against businesses and individuals who don’t provide or acquire insurance. Noting that the IRS will collect the penalties, the decision labeled them a tax.

The IRS is in the process of hiring 16,500 more “low level employees” for muscle and the IRS has already been caught leaking confidential information from conservative groups:

ProPublica on Monday reported that the same IRS division that targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny during the 2012 election cycle provided the investigative-reporting organization with confidential applications for tax-exempt status.

That revelation contradicts previous statements from the agency and may represent a violation of federal guidelines. Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS sector that reviews tax-exemption applications, told a congressional oversight committee in April 2012 that IRS code prohibited the agency from providing information about groups that had not yet been approved.

Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) had asked Lerner in March 2012 to provide a list of all organizations that the IRS had subjected to special scrutiny.

And starting next year, we’ll have to report health information to the IRS:

Simply put, there is no way for the IRS to enforce Obamacare’s individual mandate without such an invasive reporting scheme. Every January, health insurance companies across America will send out tax documents to each insured individual. This tax document—a copy of which will be furnished to the IRS—must contain sufficient information for taxpayers to prove that they purchased qualifying health insurance under Obamacare.
This new tax information document must, at a minimum, contain: the name and health insurance identification number of the taxpayer; the name and tax identification number of the health insurance company; the number of months the taxpayer was covered by this insurance plan; and whether or not the plan was purchased in one of Obamacare’s “exchanges.”
This will involve millions of new tax documents landing in mailboxes across America every January, along with the usual raft of W-2s, 1099s, and 1098s. At tax time, the 140 million families who file a tax return will have to get acquainted with a brand new tax filing form. Six million of these families will end up paying Obamacare’s individual mandate non-compliance tax penalty.

What could possibly go wrong?

It’s painfully obvious that the IRS cannot be trusted with health care information, let alone financial information. Barack Obama is claiming ignorance of this abuse of power. We’ll see. And that leaves the two reasons the IRS MUST be ripped from Obamacare:

1. Obama knew about the IRS abuse.
2. Obama didn’t know.

You pick.

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I vote 2.
Obama didn’t know.

Why?
1.
An actual White House insider described Obama…..

The president doesn’t like the Oval Office much – he’s made that point repeatedly to more than a few at the White House.
He prefers to be upstairs, no suit. No shoes. No joke —

Obama, when he is in his de facto office upstairs – the one that is closer to Jarrett’s own office, and a short hop over to the residence, he spends his time there often in shorts, or sweats, a t-shirt, and those sandal things…flip-flops.
There is a large screen television in there and that’s where hours of his time are spent when he is actually at the White House.
Day in and day out.
He started to take regular briefings in there.
And the instructions that went out on those briefings to the president were that they were to be most importantly – brief.
Anything more than about 15 minutes is unacceptable to Obama.

You knock on the door – it’s always closed.
Always.
Often you have to knock for some time before being given approval from inside to enter.

The big screen will be on – the volume loud.
You can easily hear it from outside the door.
The sports channels are the ones most commonly playing, though sometimes the channel will be set to music, or Fox News.
Sometimes Valerie Jarrett might be there, but most often it is just the president and his personal aide. [Reggie Love]
That’s where you’ll most often find the President of the United States – the most powerful man in the free world. He often sits with one leg draped over one of the chair’s arms and the other leg stuck straight onto the floor. Shorts, sweats, a t-shirt, and like I said, no shoes or just those sandal things that so many of the younger people like to wear these days.
And that leg that’s draped over an arm of the chair will be bopping up and down, like…like someone with a lot of nervous energy. Like a kid does.

And there’s the smell of smoke hanging on the president.
The guy never quite smoking.
In fact, there’s one of those smokeless ash trays on the desk in there.
And that desk, it’s a mess.
Magazines spread out all over it. Real low brow reading material the president is into. People. Rolling Stone. Lots of those tabloid things.

http://theulstermanreport.com/2012/02/02/white-house-insider-a-look-back-at-an-earlier-description-of-president-obama/

2.
There are plenty of Obamites willing to stretch the rules to support their main man.

Why IRS senior official Lois Lerner MUST GO.
Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years.
According to the organization’s filings, Lerner approved the foundation’s tax status within a month of filing, an unprecedented timeline that stands in stark contrast to conservative organizations that have been waiting for more than three years, in some cases, for approval.
More:
http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/14/irs-official-lerner-approved-exemption-for-obama-brothers-charity/

Can individuals who are SO biased be trusted with personal, health information?
I think not.
The bias was obvious in how tax status was changed either quickly or s-l-o-w-l-y.

@Nan G: #2,
The status of the foundation was apparently back-dated to 2008, to cover it for having raised funds illegally without the status. Lerner may be in hotter water than is being reported. She seems to have been given marching papers by people inside the Admin over four years ago.

J Carney says…
“I want to wait and see what the report says and wait and see what we actually know happened and what the facts are before we comment beyond what the president said yesterday on this matter and before we make any decisions or pronouncements about what actions should be taken.”

I am not sure what the President said yesterday but, I do know he made reference to the following:
The President “did” say “IF” these claims are true…bla bla bla”….IF THEY ARE TRUE?, IF THEY ARE TRUE?, IFTHEY ARE TRUE….???

Well Mr President, [OFraud] aparently you didn’t, once again, get the MEMO!!! OF COURSE THE CLAIMS ARE TRUE!!!…the Shameful IRS ALREADY APOLOGIZED for their INAPPROPRIATE “ACTIONS”!!!!!!

SHEESH!!! Can these people BE ANYMORE FRUSTRATING????

The statement by Carney is the same narrative and position this administration ALWAYS TAKES…on every scandal they have encountered [except Bhengazi] “no one ever knows what the the left hand is doing…no one ever knows what the HELL is going on…

These people make a very sound argument for SMALLER/LESS GOVERNMENT…

@James Raider:

She backdated it to the Bush administration.

Interesting.

NanG@#1 – Yea, I would have to go with #2 as well…apparently the Ofraud doesn’t have much of a clue to what is going on [Much of the time it seems huh?] …In one of his press conferences recently after this broke… he said “IF” these claims are true…bla bla bla …”

“IF” these claims are True???? Seriously??? and Good Lord Mr President!! Now, Mind you… He said this AFTER the Shameful IRS APOLOGIZED!!

Can this Administration “Get” anymore Frustrating???

@James Raider:

James

According to the article, Lerner made the BHO Foundation illegal the moment she backdated it.

Obama has dropped the IF.

Obama said in a statement Tuesday night that the IRS engaged in “intolerable and inexcusable” targeting of conservative political groups, pledging to hold accountable the civil servants responsible.
“The federal government must conduct itself in a way that’s worthy of the public’s trust, and that’s especially true for the IRS,” Obama said. “The IRS must apply the law in a fair and impartial way, and its employees must act with utmost integrity. This report shows that some of its employees failed that test.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/299793-obama-pledges-accountability-for-intolerable-and-inexcusable-irs-targeting#ixzz2TK8DL4Lu

His day of IF probably was an attempt to pretend he was unaware.

@drjohn: #7,
The foundation raised money without that status so it broke the law, but of greater concern is how an IRS EMPLOYEE gets to a point where she has become part of a conspiracy to defraud the taxpayers through the act of retroactively assigning the status. A conspiracy is 2 or more people.

I suspect we’d be treated to a serious sideshow if anyone questioned her on who instructed her to commit this fraud and become part of the conspiracy.

@James Raider:
I disagree.
We are not dealing with the country’s brightest bulbs here.
Obama spent years inculcating an ”us VS them,” mindset into these dimwits.
How easy it was to simply use whatever position they were in to assist the ”us” and hurt the ”them.”
When Obama propagandizes the low information voter this is one of the expected consequences he gets.
BUT can their crimes be tied to Obama?
When imam’s instigate ”jihad” inside their Mosques during Friday ”prayers,” are they ever found criminally involved when one of their congregants violently acts out?
Prosecutors and Atty Gens don’t even try to make that connection.
Nor will anyone with Obama’s inflammatory speech.

Another thing Obama achieved by making so many incomprehensibly complicated and unworkable laws was an easy out for his adoring syncophants who happen to be in positions to carry out those laws.
In 2010 blogger Tigerhawk quoted a Romanian who escaped the communist bloc:

One recurring tool of socialist tyranny is the capricious enforcement of unworkable laws.

Today another blogger, Kurt, at the Gay Patriot, re-quoted this and applied it to Obama’s laws and Administration.
http://www.gaypatriot.net/2013/05/14/capricious-enforcement-a-sign-of-the-times/

[T]hat observation could just as easily have been applied to our byzantine tax code, our environmental regulations, and even laws pertaining to press freedoms under the Obama administration.
In the case of the Obama administration, though, it’s not strictly capricious enforcement, but selective enforcement, always with a partisan goal in mind. The IRS targeting of the Tea Party and conservative organizations is appalling, but one would have to be naive not to believe, as ABC’s Trey Hardin noted today, that it wasn’t authorized by someone in the West Wing. Hardin observed (audio at the link):

I will tell you this on the IRS front. I’ve worked in this town for over 20 years in the White House and on Capitol Hill and I can say with a very strong sense of certainty that there are people very close to this president that not only knew what the IRS were doing but authorized it. It simply just does not happen at an agency level like that without political advisers likely in the West Wing certainly connected to the president’s ongoing campaign organization.
http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/2013/05/14/abc-trey-hardin-west-wing-of-white-house-authorized-irs-video/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=abc-trey-hardin-west-wing-of-white-house-authorized-irs-video

Earlier today it came out that the EPA waived fees for leftist organizations and leftist journalists who requested information, but not for conservative ones: “Conservative groups seeking information from the Environmental Protection Agency have been routinely hindered by fees normally waived for media and watchdog groups, while fees for more than 90 percent of requests from green groups were waived, according to requests reviewed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.” http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2529609#.UZIq1hQ69Ts.twitter

[I]t should surprise no one that while oil companies are prosecuted for the deaths of eagles and other protected species, the bird-killing wind farms are naturally given a pass. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/14/obama-administration-gives-wind-farms-pass-on-eagle-deaths-prosecutes-oil/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29

[T]oday Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection is reporting that the White House played Jake Tapper by selectively leaking one e-mail with the apparent aim of creating a diversion in the reporting about the Benghazi cover-up. Jacobson writes: “Like I said, this entire diversion of leaking a single email out of a chain of emails to Tapper was simply meant to put critics of the administration back on their heels and to provide an excuse for White House defenders to throw around words like ‘doctored.’”http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/05/was-jake-tapper-played-by-white-house-through-selective-leak-of-just-one-email/

Quick! Some of the Congresscritters out there need to strike while the iron is hot! Now is the time to introduce legislation to change the tax code to: a) a flat tax; or b) a national sales tax. I dare say it would get lots of support right now.

I go for ONE
it was offer on a cushion, with his favorite glass,
and he smile at it and said, that’s good thinking , we got them,
fill up my glass again, I”LL drink to that, and JARRET laugh with him,

The republican House voted for the 37th totally pointless time today to repeal all or part of Obamacare.

Consider it an example of tax dollars at work.