Lies, Damn Lies, and Democratic Operatives

[GURPS]

America’s billionaire class is funding anti-democratic forces​

Decades ago, America’s monied interests bankrolled a Republican establishment that believed in fiscal conservatism, anti-communism and constitutional democracy.

Today’s billionaire class is pushing a radically anti-democratic agenda for America – backing Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, calling for restrictions on voting and even questioning the value of democracy.


Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech financier who is among those leading the charge, once wrote, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

Thiel is using his fortune to squelch democracy. He donated $15m to the successful Republican Ohio senatorial primary campaign of JD Vance, who alleges that the 2020 election was stolen and that Biden’s immigration policy has meant “more Democrat voters pouring into this country.”

Thiel has donated at least $10m to the Arizona Republican primary race of Blake Masters, who also claims Trump won the 2020 election and admires Lee Kuan Yew, the authoritarian founder of modern Singapore.

The former generation of wealthy conservatives backed candidates like Barry Goldwater, who wanted to conserve American institutions.

Thiel and his fellow billionaires in the anti-democracy movement don’t want to conserve much of anything – at least not anything that occurred after the 1920s, which includes Social Security, civil rights, and even women’s right to vote. As Thiel wrote:

The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women – two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians – have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.

 

[GURPS]

Dems Angry After Their Strategy of Legislating via the Judiciary Backfires​

And now, Democrats are furious. Weeks after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Democrats are having hissy fits, and a group of House left-wingers, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is calling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to strip the Supreme Court of any jurisdiction over abortion.

If you don’t understand, don’t worry; it doesn’t make sense.

“We write to urge your support for restricting the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction in the areas of abortion, marriage equality, non-procreative intimacy, and contraception,” AOC’s band of pro-abortion Democrats wrote in a letter to Pelosi and Schumer. “In doing so, we can ensure that, as Congress takes legislative action to codify each of these fundamental rights, a radical, restless, and newly constituted majority on the Court cannot further undermine the protections we would enact.”

This letter comes on the heels of House Democrats passing legislation to codify abortion rights in federal law, which these Democrats are now concerned won’t pass constitutional muster.

“The House of Representatives already passed the Women’s Health Protection Act (“WHPA”) last fall to codify the constitutional right to abortion, and if this bill becomes law, we can expect that legal challenges will eventually come before the Supreme Court again. Once more, the constitutional right to abortion would be put at risk,” their letter continued. “We are concerned by the Court’s dismantling of other statutes duly enacted by Congress, including the Voting Rights Act and the Clean Air Act.”

Their solution? Just wave a magic wand and strip the court of the authority to rule on abortion law.

“As we Democrats plan for further legislative action to protect and enshrine abortion rights, as well as the three other fundamental rights called into question in Justice Thomas’ concurring opinion in Dobbs, we urge the exercise of Congress’ constitutional powers under Article III to include language that removes the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction over such legislation.”

 

[Hijinx]

Dems Angry After Their Strategy of Legislating via the Judiciary Backfires​

And now, Democrats are furious. Weeks after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Democrats are having hissy fits, and a group of House left-wingers, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is calling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to strip the Supreme Court of any jurisdiction over abortion.

If you don’t understand, don’t worry; it doesn’t make sense.

“We write to urge your support for restricting the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction in the areas of abortion, marriage equality, non-procreative intimacy, and contraception,” AOC’s band of pro-abortion Democrats wrote in a letter to Pelosi and Schumer. “In doing so, we can ensure that, as Congress takes legislative action to codify each of these fundamental rights, a radical, restless, and newly constituted majority on the Court cannot further undermine the protections we would enact.”

This letter comes on the heels of House Democrats passing legislation to codify abortion rights in federal law, which these Democrats are now concerned won’t pass constitutional muster.

“The House of Representatives already passed the Women’s Health Protection Act (“WHPA”) last fall to codify the constitutional right to abortion, and if this bill becomes law, we can expect that legal challenges will eventually come before the Supreme Court again. Once more, the constitutional right to abortion would be put at risk,” their letter continued. “We are concerned by the Court’s dismantling of other statutes duly enacted by Congress, including the Voting Rights Act and the Clean Air Act.”

Their solution? Just wave a magic wand and strip the court of the authority to rule on abortion law.

“As we Democrats plan for further legislative action to protect and enshrine abortion rights, as well as the three other fundamental rights called into question in Justice Thomas’ concurring opinion in Dobbs, we urge the exercise of Congress’ constitutional powers under Article III to include language that removes the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction over such legislation.”

This doesn't worry me too much because Congress, the House AND the Senate cannot make such a lw it isn't Constitutional; and it won't fly.
I am surprised anyone in Congress is stupid enough to try such a play.

 

[GURPS]

Democrats Are Now Begging Biden To Act Like A Dictator​

The left is freaking out because Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., won’t sign onto a bill that includes carbon emission mandates at a time when gasoline prices are way up, inflation is rampant, and the economy is almost certainly in a recession. Plus, the Supreme Court just tossed an attempt by the EPA to control the nation’s power grid in the name of fighting “climate change.”

On Monday, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, told reporters “There is probably nothing more important for our nation and our world than for the United States to drive a bold, energetic transition in its energy economy from fossil fuels to renewable energy.”

Merkley said time is of the essence because it’s not clear when Democrats will be able to pass a climate bill.

“Am I concerned that it will be a decade before we have a climate majority? I am damn concerned about that,” he said. “We have to use every tool at our disposal, and certainly the tool right now is bold, intense executive action.”

He wasn’t finished. Merkley also declared war on the Supreme Court. “We cannot sit still for fear of what the Court might do,” he said. “Let’s pursue every option and if a few of them are struck down, they’re struck down, we’ll double down on the rest.”

He added that declaring a climate emergency “also unchains the president from waiting for Congress to act.”

“Unchains the president”? Isn’t that the very definition of a dictatorship? A leader unconstrained by a constitution’s separation of powers, free to act however and whenever he wants?

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley notes that when the founders set up the separation of powers, they assumed that each branch of government would jealously guard its prerogatives.

James Madison, who wrote Federalist 51, “clearly did not envision many of our current leaders in Congress who often call for presidents to circumvent their own institution when they are unable to prevail with legislation,” he writes.

Turley goes on to instruct the public – because ignorance of civics is so clearly rampant – why separation of powers matters.

Many Americans misunderstand the separation of powers as simply a division of authority between three branches of government. In fact, it was intended as a protection not of institutional but of individual rights, by preventing any branch from assuming enough power to become tyrannical. No branch is supposed to have enough power to govern alone.

 

[vraiblonde]

Today’s billionaire class is pushing a radically anti-democratic agenda for America – backing Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, calling for restrictions on voting and even questioning the value of democracy.

OMG

Yeah, all those Trump supporting billionaires - Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, the Twitter guy, Oprah, GEORGE SOROS...... Progs are the stupidest most dishonest people in history.

 

[vraiblonde]

“Unchains the president”? Isn’t that the very definition of a dictatorship? A leader unconstrained by a constitution’s separation of powers, free to act however and whenever he wants?

Yup, that would be the very definition alright.....

 

[GURPS]

Democrats Discover Another ‘Threat to Democracy’


Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe warns, “Adopting the independent state legislature theory would amount to right-wing justices making up law to create an outcome of one-party rule.” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) predicts, “If accepted, this extreme theory would lay the groundwork to allow rogue state legislatures to overturn the will of the people in future elections.” The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State issued the following hysterical statement: “The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the ‘independent state legislature’ theory behind the Moore v. Harper case brings us one step closer to a judicial coup.”

You will note that the above-quoted harangues focus on a single constitutional hobgoblin — the independent state legislature doctrine (ISL). Despite all the hyperbole, ISL is neither new nor radical. The doctrine has been applied on various occasions during the 19th and 20th centuries. Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court relied on ISL a century ago to uphold the constitutionality of the 19th Amendment. Leser v. Garnett challenged the right of some legislatures to ratify the amendment because their state constitutions explicitly limited suffrage to males. Writing on behalf of the Court, Justice Louis Brandeis said:

n the Constitutions of several of the 36 states named in the proclamation of the Secretary of State there are provisions which render inoperative the alleged ratifications by their Legislatures. The argument is [that] by reason of these specific provisions the Legislatures were without power to ratify. But the function of a state Legislature in ratifying a proposed amendment to the federal Constitution, like the function of Congress in proposing the amendment, is a federal function derived from the federal Constitution; and it transcends any limitations sought to be imposed by the people of a state.

This captures the essence of ISL: The U.S. Constitution directly confers certain powers on the legislatures, and states have no authority to infringe upon them. That is precisely the argument the North Carolina legislature is making in Moore v. Harper. The legislature adopted a congressional map pursuant to the 2020 census, whereupon a swarm of Democratic attorneys descended on the Tar Heel state like so many flying monkeys and began filing lawsuits. A lower court nonetheless upheld the map, but the state’s Democrat-dominated Supreme Court reversed that ruling and usurped the legislature’s redistricting function.

This illustrates the actual reason Democrats object to ISL. It would clip the wings of the flying monkeys by depriving them of the ability to weaponize state courts against state legislatures. In 2022, Democratic attorneys have filed dozens of lawsuits in state courts challenging legislative redistricting maps. The “nonpartisan” Brennan Center for Justice reports that 72 cases have been filed in 26 states. Leading this assault is controversial election attorney Marc Elias. He objects to ISL on the grounds that it interprets the term “legislature,” as it is used in the U.S. Constitution’s election clause, to mean … well … “legislature.” He writes,

The independent state legislature (ISL) theory is a right-wing constitutional theory about who has the power to set rules for federal elections. The theory interprets the word “legislature” in the U.S. Constitution to mean that state legislatures — and only state legislatures — can make laws regulating federal elections. This differs from the standard interpretation, in which “legislature” means the state’s general lawmaking process, which includes the governor’s veto, citizen-led ballot measures and rulings of state courts.

 

[GURPS]

Democrats Decriminalized Drugs to Help Black People. Black Overdoses Skyrocketed​

Over 1,300 people died from drug overdoses in San Francisco in the last two years on pro-crime DA Chesa Boudin’s watch. "The days of giving dealers a free pass to flood the streets with fentanyl are over," DA Brooke Jenkins, the black female replacement for the white leftist pro-crime activist, promised. “We cannot allow our residents to die on the street of overdose."

Supporters promoted Oregon’s drug decriminalization as a way to “dismantle systemic racism.”

Oregon's Secretary of State and the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission claimed that racial disparities would be almost entirely eliminated by drug decriminalization.

But racial disparities in drug convictions were caused by disparities in drug use. And while you can eliminate disparities in sentencing by eliminating the crime, you can’t eliminate the real world consequences.

That’s what the latest CDC report shows.

Drug overdose deaths shot up 44% among black people nationwide.

The number of black overdose deaths rose from 5,452 in 2019 to 7,467 in 2020 leading to over 2,000 extra black deaths.

Among young black men, 15 to 24, the demographic that Democrat and some Republican politicians had particularly taken care to protect from the impact of the so-called "prison pipeline" through drug decriminalization, overdoses skyrocketed 92%. Among black people 25-44, drug overdoses climbed 55% and even among black people in their sixties, overdoses were up 44%.

 

[stgislander]

Democrats Decriminalized Drugs to Help Black People. Black Overdoses Skyrocketed​

Over 1,300 people died from drug overdoses in San Francisco in the last two years on pro-crime DA Chesa Boudin’s watch. "The days of giving dealers a free pass to flood the streets with fentanyl are over," DA Brooke Jenkins, the black female replacement for the white leftist pro-crime activist, promised. “We cannot allow our residents to die on the street of overdose."

Supporters promoted Oregon’s drug decriminalization as a way to “dismantle systemic racism.”

Oregon's Secretary of State and the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission claimed that racial disparities would be almost entirely eliminated by drug decriminalization.

But racial disparities in drug convictions were caused by disparities in drug use. And while you can eliminate disparities in sentencing by eliminating the crime, you can’t eliminate the real world consequences.

That’s what the latest CDC report shows.

Drug overdose deaths shot up 44% among black people nationwide.

The number of black overdose deaths rose from 5,452 in 2019 to 7,467 in 2020 leading to over 2,000 extra black deaths.

Among young black men, 15 to 24, the demographic that Democrat and some Republican politicians had particularly taken care to protect from the impact of the so-called "prison pipeline" through drug decriminalization, overdoses skyrocketed 92%. Among black people 25-44, drug overdoses climbed 55% and even among black people in their sixties, overdoses were up 44%.

I have to hand it to Dems. They keep coming up with ingenious ways to eliminate minorities.

 

[GURPS]

DCCC chair Sean Patrick Maloney endorses using 'spoiler candidates' to thwart GOP in tight races​

One party typically lends support to a candidate in the opposing party's primary that it considers the easiest to beat. In Maryland, for example, the Democratic Governor's Association bought campaign ads supporting Republican state Rep. Dan Cox, a Trump-backed conservative, in the GOP primary.

Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who backed a more moderate candidate to succeed him, derided what he called "unprecedented collusion" between the Democrats and Trump allies, asserting Cox's win likely foreshadows a Democratic victory in the gubernatorial race.

Republicans hold a narrow lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average for a generic congressional ballot and the poll aggregator currently labels 223 House seats as "solid," "likely," or "leans" Republican, enough for a majority.

 

[Hijinx]

If you want to stop overdoses, make Narcan illegal.
They will stop themselves.

 

[GURPS]

Supersizing the IRS Will Hurt the Working Rich, Not Fat-Cat Tax Evaders​

But the bill also beefs up IRS enforcement capabilities, allowing our tax cops to audit far more people than before—including many working-professional high earners, while the richest continue to employ teams of accountants to take advantage of every possible loophole (as they darn well should). Is this really what Biden thinks the American people have been waiting for?





"Another new Democratic administration, another hollow promise to discover hundreds of billions of unreported tax obligations under the national mattress," wrote Reason's Matt Welch last year. "A staggering $700 billion in currently undetected taxpayer IOUs is grabbable over the next decade, and $1.6 trillion the decade after, if only we give the IRS an extra $80 billion worth of rope with which to close the 'tax gap.'"

But the Biden administration's claims might seem familiar, noted Welch, because the Obama administration had claimed it was going to crack down on overseas tax evasion, scrounging up $210 billion.

This, for the most part, did not happen, but President Barack Obama's efforts did end up creating the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), a set of onerous reporting requirements for Americans that keep more than five figures' worth in overseas accounts (and the financial institutions that serve them). "The results were predictable," noted Welch. "Expats were locked out of banking services, record numbers of mostly middle-class Americans renounced their U.S. citizenship, and IRS collections went essentially unchanged."

"Conservatives are obsessed with making it as easy as possible for rich people to cheat on their taxes. It's genuinely sick," tweeted Slow Boring author and pundit Matthew Yglesias earlier today.

But that's not why most fiscal conservatives and libertarians are concerned. They're concerned because beefed-up IRS enforcement is frequently billed as a means of cracking down on fat-cat tax evaders and shoring up federal government coffers, when in reality it allows a privacy-infringing government agency to harass the working rich, finding very little additional revenue in the process. There's no reason to think this time will be different.

 

[BOP]

America’s billionaire class is funding anti-democratic forces​

Decades ago, America’s monied interests bankrolled a Republican establishment that believed in fiscal conservatism, anti-communism and constitutional democracy.

Today’s billionaire class is pushing a radically anti-democratic agenda for America – backing Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, calling for restrictions on voting and even questioning the value of democracy.


Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech financier who is among those leading the charge, once wrote, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

Thiel is using his fortune to squelch democracy. He donated $15m to the successful Republican Ohio senatorial primary campaign of JD Vance, who alleges that the 2020 election was stolen and that Biden’s immigration policy has meant “more Democrat voters pouring into this country.”

Thiel has donated at least $10m to the Arizona Republican primary race of Blake Masters, who also claims Trump won the 2020 election and admires Lee Kuan Yew, the authoritarian founder of modern Singapore.

The former generation of wealthy conservatives backed candidates like Barry Goldwater, who wanted to conserve American institutions.

Thiel and his fellow billionaires in the anti-democracy movement don’t want to conserve much of anything – at least not anything that occurred after the 1920s, which includes Social Security, civil rights, and even women’s right to vote. As Thiel wrote:

It's a shame these rich morons don't know the history of what happens to rich morons like them in totalitarian countries where said rich morons run afoul of the regime.

Morons: they always think it'll never happen to them.

 

[Hijinx]

As I said: There is no way the rich in the Congress are going to raise the taxes on themselves.

 

[BOP]

Dems Angry After Their Strategy of Legislating via the Judiciary Backfires​

And now, Democrats are furious. Weeks after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Democrats are having hissy fits, and a group of House left-wingers, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is calling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to strip the Supreme Court of any jurisdiction over abortion.

If you don’t understand, don’t worry; it doesn’t make sense.

“We write to urge your support for restricting the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction in the areas of abortion, marriage equality, non-procreative intimacy, and contraception,” AOC’s band of pro-abortion Democrats wrote in a letter to Pelosi and Schumer. “In doing so, we can ensure that, as Congress takes legislative action to codify each of these fundamental rights, a radical, restless, and newly constituted majority on the Court cannot further undermine the protections we would enact.”

This letter comes on the heels of House Democrats passing legislation to codify abortion rights in federal law, which these Democrats are now concerned won’t pass constitutional muster.

“The House of Representatives already passed the Women’s Health Protection Act (“WHPA”) last fall to codify the constitutional right to abortion, and if this bill becomes law, we can expect that legal challenges will eventually come before the Supreme Court again. Once more, the constitutional right to abortion would be put at risk,” their letter continued. “We are concerned by the Court’s dismantling of other statutes duly enacted by Congress, including the Voting Rights Act and the Clean Air Act.”

Their solution? Just wave a magic wand and strip the court of the authority to rule on abortion law.

“As we Democrats plan for further legislative action to protect and enshrine abortion rights, as well as the three other fundamental rights called into question in Justice Thomas’ concurring opinion in Dobbs, we urge the exercise of Congress’ constitutional powers under Article III to include language that removes the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction over such legislation.”

Not so long ago, I'd have laughed at the ludicrosity (or ludicrousness, if you prefer) of it.

Now: not so much.

The two-facedness of this kind of thing is just stunning. The left has always been in favor of judicial activism when it supports their cause, but the manufactured outrage at even the perception of the right doing the same thing is one of atomic proportions.

 

[BOP]

This doesn't worry me too much because Congress, the House AND the Senate cannot make such a lw it isn't Constitutional; and it won't fly.
I am surprised anyone in Congress is stupid enough to try such a play.

I forget who said it - Shapiro, maybe - but this is what the left always does. They propose something so outrageous that no sane person could even comprehend how they could come up with something so far out there in the first place. Then, when they're called on it, they dial it back, not to reasonable levels, but to less insane levels, call it a "compromise," and push it through the legislative process.

It's like if they said "let's ban all guns, everywhere, for everyone." The right: "that's insane! That's unconstitutional, and you know it!" And we've all seen what plays out with the back-and-forth. The end result: they end up banning SOME guns, and in the meantime, they continue to work with the media and the educational racket to normalize all guns being scary and dangerous, not only all on their own, but that ANYONE besides the po-po or the military who even owns a gun is likewise scary and dangerous. Rinse and repeat, ad nauseum, and eventually, the left will get what they want: a disarmed population, with not only a police and military to ensure compliance, but an armed thug nation to keep the law-abiding cowed, scared, and dependent upon the gov't for an illusion of "safety" - gov't that doesn't give a damn about the safety of its citizens.

But that's what they do, and how they've gotten as far as they have, while the rest of us sit and wonder how it got to be this way.

 

[BOP]

Democrats Are Now Begging Biden To Act Like A Dictator​

The left is freaking out because Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., won’t sign onto a bill that includes carbon emission mandates at a time when gasoline prices are way up, inflation is rampant, and the economy is almost certainly in a recession. Plus, the Supreme Court just tossed an attempt by the EPA to control the nation’s power grid in the name of fighting “climate change.”

On Monday, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, told reporters “There is probably nothing more important for our nation and our world than for the United States to drive a bold, energetic transition in its energy economy from fossil fuels to renewable energy.”

Merkley said time is of the essence because it’s not clear when Democrats will be able to pass a climate bill.

“Am I concerned that it will be a decade before we have a climate majority? I am damn concerned about that,” he said. “We have to use every tool at our disposal, and certainly the tool right now is bold, intense executive action.”

He wasn’t finished. Merkley also declared war on the Supreme Court. “We cannot sit still for fear of what the Court might do,” he said. “Let’s pursue every option and if a few of them are struck down, they’re struck down, we’ll double down on the rest.”

He added that declaring a climate emergency “also unchains the president from waiting for Congress to act.”

“Unchains the president”? Isn’t that the very definition of a dictatorship? A leader unconstrained by a constitution’s separation of powers, free to act however and whenever he wants?

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley notes that when the founders set up the separation of powers, they assumed that each branch of government would jealously guard its prerogatives.

James Madison, who wrote Federalist 51, “clearly did not envision many of our current leaders in Congress who often call for presidents to circumvent their own institution when they are unable to prevail with legislation,” he writes.

Turley goes on to instruct the public – because ignorance of civics is so clearly rampant – why separation of powers matters.

The irony of Merkley's little speech about renewable energy, and him coming from a state that saw such a drop in tax dollars from people switching to cars like the Prius that they proposed (more than once) a road use tax to try and make up for it. Washington state, and others, actually have implemented fees that amount to or exceed the amount of gasoline taxes that hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs) naturally do not pay. Or pay very little, in the case of hybrids.

Oh, and those were either implemented, or proposed before EVs became thing; back when hybrids, hybrids, hybrids were the rage. According to pluginamerica, the lost revenue from EVs not paying gas tax is currently "miniscule," but what happens when there's a plurality (at least) of EVs on the road?

I mean, if they were so hypersensitive as to the loss in revenue that they noticed it when people were still filling their hybrids with gas, how are they going to cope when, presumably, everyone's got an EV?

Without a Gas Tax, How Will EVs Be Charged for Road Use? - Consumer Reports

Consumer Reports looks at where the funding for state and federal roads will come from as more Americans switch to electric vehicles.

www.consumerreports.org

Which States Have the Highest Fees for Electric Vehicles?

Consumer Reports' interactive map shows the fees for electric vehicles today by state and those proposed for 2025.

www.consumerreports.org

 

[herb749]

Supersizing the IRS Will Hurt the Working Rich, Not Fat-Cat Tax Evaders​

But the bill also beefs up IRS enforcement capabilities, allowing our tax cops to audit far more people than before—including many working-professional high earners, while the richest continue to employ teams of accountants to take advantage of every possible loophole (as they darn well should). Is this really what Biden thinks the American people have been waiting for?





"Another new Democratic administration, another hollow promise to discover hundreds of billions of unreported tax obligations under the national mattress," wrote Reason's Matt Welch last year. "A staggering $700 billion in currently undetected taxpayer IOUs is grabbable over the next decade, and $1.6 trillion the decade after, if only we give the IRS an extra $80 billion worth of rope with which to close the 'tax gap.'"

But the Biden administration's claims might seem familiar, noted Welch, because the Obama administration had claimed it was going to crack down on overseas tax evasion, scrounging up $210 billion.

This, for the most part, did not happen, but President Barack Obama's efforts did end up creating the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), a set of onerous reporting requirements for Americans that keep more than five figures' worth in overseas accounts (and the financial institutions that serve them). "The results were predictable," noted Welch. "Expats were locked out of banking services, record numbers of mostly middle-class Americans renounced their U.S. citizenship, and IRS collections went essentially unchanged."

"Conservatives are obsessed with making it as easy as possible for rich people to cheat on their taxes. It's genuinely sick," tweeted Slow Boring author and pundit Matthew Yglesias earlier today.

But that's not why most fiscal conservatives and libertarians are concerned. They're concerned because beefed-up IRS enforcement is frequently billed as a means of cracking down on fat-cat tax evaders and shoring up federal government coffers, when in reality it allows a privacy-infringing government agency to harass the working rich, finding very little additional revenue in the process. There's no reason to think this time will be different.

This is just another tax the rich idea that always doesn't hit the rich but hits everyone but them.

 

[GURPS]

This is just another tax the rich idea that always doesn't hit the rich but hits everyone but them.

The RICH can afford the accountants to avoid the taxes

 

[GURPS]

I mean, if they were so hypersensitive as to the loss in revenue that they noticed it when people were still filling their hybrids with gas, how are they going to cope when, presumably, everyone's got an EV?

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