On June 4, several leaders of organizations that were
unfairly targeted by the Internal Revenue Service testified before the House Ways and
Means Committee. They told of the abusive treatment they received, invasive and
illegal questions, and long delays in processing their organizations’
applications for tax-exempt status.
Video of the session is available on C-SPAN’s website. Oral statements of the organization leaders
start at about 00:15:40, including an emotional and compelling statement by
Becky Gerritson, president of the Wetumpka, Alabama Tea Party at 00:47:00. Note
that these people represent hundreds of groups who were unfairly targeted by
the IRS as they requested tax-exempt status.
Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), is a member of the House Ways and
Means Committee, one of the committees investigating the IRS scandal. In case
you missed it, he spoke at the June 4 hearing, responding to the members of these
conservative groups. After these quite moving and no doubt sincere statement, McDermott
made rather startling and odd remarks that included some misstatements of fact
as well as seeming to expect the group members to tell him what questions the
IRS should have asked them, instead of the obviously inappropriate, and in some
cases criminal, questions and demands that the groups received.
While saying that the IRS made a mistake in targeting
conservative groups, he as much as blamed the groups themselves for their
troubles because they requested tax-exempt status.
I’m not terribly familiar with Mr. McDermott’s work, but
here he sounds more like a McDoofus. A few observations about his statement:
1. Tax exemption is not a government subsidy.
2. Organizations with 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status are
allowed to engage in political activity, provided it is not their main
activity.
3. Determining the proper level of scrutiny of organizations
seeking tax-exempt status is not the responsibility of the organization, but
the Congress and the IRS. The IRS has standard means of determining such
status, and the questions and demands made to the organizations targeted far
exceeded the established norms, which properly should be applied to all
organizations seeking this status, whether conservative, liberal, or whatever.
4. The IRS scandal is serious enough that “fixing the
problem” must include a thorough investigation to find out precisely what
happened, who ordered what, and who up the chain of authority knew about it and
when.
5. What the IRS did was beyond “mistakes,” and resulted in
material harm to hundreds of groups and individuals, for which the agency must
be held accountable.
6. The groups represented by the witnesses did nothing wrong
in applying for tax-exempt status.
7. Contrary to some excuse makers, there were not more such
applications than usual during the time frame represented by this scandal.
McDermott appeared June 5 on Fox News’ “America Live with Megyn Kelly,” and rudely accused Kelly
of “putting words in my mouth; stop it!”
when she had merely asked him about his remarks.
After McDermott’s remarks at the hearing, Rep. Paul Ryan
(R-WI), 2012 GOP Vice-Presidential nominee, used his time to respond to
McDermott’s ill-advised remarks instead of asking his planned questions:
As the many scandals of the Obama Administration continue to
develop, McDermott has done nothing to help the crisis of trust in the
government, and seems to exemplify the fortress mentality of Obama and his
defenders. In their wisdom, America’s
founding fathers warned that government cannot be trusted on the basis of good
intentions, but must be restrained. Therefore, they gave us the Constitution, which,
if followed, will do the job. But a determined, lawless administration will
find ways to, at least temporarily, get around its wise restrictions.
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