I'm Resolved to Steal (IRS)

I am a Liberal, a Democrat Liberal but before being a political person, I try to be a righteous individual and I will not do what Conservatives do: excuse whatever wrongs those in my Party are caught doing. I said “caught doing” because I am certain that all politicians are crooks, some more than others, but not all have been caught, yet.

The Cincinnati IRS scandal is one of the latest political scandals to hit the airwaves last week. Republicans and obviously the Tea Party – who was the IRS’ target – are all up in arms about it and demanding for heads to roll, and rightly so.

I’ve heard that the reason the IRS targeted Tea Party’s organizations was because after President Obama was elected, and before the elections of 2010, there was an overwhelming number of Tea Party organizations applying for section 501(c)(1), which would provide them tax exempt status and having so many applications, it made their job easier to pin point those that seemed to be political in nature rather than organizations involved in social welfare or charities. Chris Hayes, from MSNBC, showed a graph where you could see that the number of political organizations doubled while the IRS employees decreased in that period of time.

According to many news groups and even on publications so reputable such as Times, the scrutinized organizations applied for 501(c)(4) and if this is true, then the IRS had every right to investigate them because section 501(c)(4) its for organizations whose primary activity is social welfare and not political ones.

Now, why would these political organizations apply for this exemption when there is one that will allow them to do everything they want, legally, and with the tax exemptions they seek?

I understand that for members of the Tea Party what they are doing, in their minds, is for the social welfare of the citizens but anyone with an ounce of gray matter can identify their activities are political, not social. They campaign to have members of their Party elected to office. What social welfare or charity do they engage in to claim exemption on 501(c)(4)? What they should have filed under was 527(e)(2).

What’s wrong here is that the IRS targeted them, but then again, if you have 500 applications and 450 are from the same Party chances are that there will be more applications selected for audit or questioning than from any other group, it’s simple math. But the IRS admits to look for organization’s names that had “Patriot” or “Tea Party” in it, and that is selective scrutiny and no matter how you slice it, it is wrong.

I doubt the President or any other member of Congress – from any Party – were informed of what the IRS was doing. One must keep in mind that the IRS has a special relationship with government, almost as loving as with us mere mortals. While they enjoy almost every perk government officials do, they are not part of the government as the FBI or the CIA is.

I blame Lois Lerner, the person in charge of overseeing the Department of Tax-exemptions. She should have been aware of what was going on and stop it. As I said before, the IRS was right in investigating the applications because they were applying under the wrong section, but targeting a group based on the name of their organizations was and is wrong.

One way to fix this is to end, once and for all, Citizen’s United. Citizen’s United has made of an already corrupt political system a mockery of democracy, where individuals cannot compete with the funds provided by these organizations to support their candidates or agenda and where sooner rather than later, the wealthy will be the ones placing their puppets in the Oval Office and when they do this, it will be the end of America as we know it.

The political party should provide the campaign funds to their candidates and this amount should be a set amount for all candidates of all Parties, as an example a Republican candidate will be given 100 thousand for his or her campaign, the rival will be given the same amount by his/her Party. Ads should be provided by the media, free of charge and as a tax deductible for the media and providing equal space and/or air to each of the candidates. We must make the system work if we are to continue being “We the People.”