To Cut the Deficit, Expand the IRS

[Lasher]

As any good free-marketeer will tell you, you've got to spend money to make money. Just not, Republicans insist, when it comes to collecting federal tax revenue. The GOP, after all, gutted the Internal Revenue Service in the late 1990's. And two weeks ago, House Republicans voted to cut $600 million from the agency this year with more to come in 2012. But with tax fraud, cheating and underpayment now costing the U.S. Treasury over $300 billion a year, the perpetual Republican war on the IRS is as fiscally irresponsible as it is politically opportunistic.

On Tuesday, the Washington Post's Ezra Klein summed up the Republicans "penny-wise, pound-foolish spending cuts":

"Converting dollar bills into $10 bills is an excellent way to pay off your credit card. Except, it seems, if you're a House Republican...

As the Associated Press reported, "every dollar the Internal Revenue Service spends for audits, liens and seizing property from tax cheats brings in more than $10, a rate of return so good the Obama administration wants to boost the agency's budget." It's an easy way to reduce the deficit: You don't have to cut heating oil for the poor or Pell grants for students. You just have to make people pay what they owe."

And what they owe is a lot.

http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/002128.htm

[lbrtbell]

1. Or we could just make the rich pay their fair share

That includes pursuing them when they fail to pay their taxes, instead of going after some little guy who owes three grand. :mad:

[midnight]

5. Wow what a great idea. And also they can end all the wars....

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[Lasher]

3. I look in on that website every now and then.

Good stuff there.

[Sherman A1]

4. K&R