TRoaches

@jim_uk: The economy is broken on many levels, and it is far too complex to condense into a few issues. It is the result of many interconnected problems. Many of the problems are admittedly way above my understanding, but some of it can be understood to an extent just by talking to the older generations and putting the pieces together as far as what has changed. I live in Pittsburgh, a town that was once the industrial jewel of the nation. I have talked to many of the old retired mill workers, and many seem to agree after a beer or two that they have themselves to blame for the decline of industry here. The common explanation goes something like this: Their great-grandfathers were poor, uneducated immigrants who jumped at the opportunity to work themselves, literally, to death under terrible conditions in the steel mills and related industries. They welcomed this opportunity because it meant upward economic mobility for their families. They flocked here to take advantage of it. The work conditions were terrible by our modern standards, but they did not entirely see it that way. Working 365 days out of the year meant more wealth in their family than ever had in its history, and was not really a change from their old lives anyway since the agrarian lives that they immigrated from also required 365 days of work simply to survive with no hope of upward mobility. Some of the conditions, however, were truly unacceptable and this led to unions being formed, then busted, then strengthened in resolve by the busting. Their sons followed in their footsteps, and through the unions further improved the conditions, pay, and benefits. Eventually the economy became globally linked through advances in shipping and communication technologies, around the same time that the next generation gradually became greedy. They attempted to continue to demand more and more while others in the world were willing to do the work for less money, because they were still at that point of agrarian survival struggle. The steel companies moved to places like South America and China, were the workers had the same desire that our workers once did, and took the supporting industries with them. The town went down the economic toilet along with our manufacturing and export production. This is an admittedly very condensed and simplified summary of what happened to much of the manufacturing industry in the US, and manufacturing and export are the thing that really makes any economy truly strong. There are similarities between where our economy was 50-100 years ago and where the economies of much of South America and China are today. The people in those places are hungry for the work, and are willing to do more for less. From the perspective of the industries who need workers it is a very simple equation when it comes to working out where they should build the next factory. I imagine that a similar decline occurred in England with regard to a loss of industry because I do not see many consumer goods stamped "Made in England", and likely for similar reasons. It could be summed up as a sense of entitlement run amok, and is in many ways an insult to those initial immigrants who worked those 365 day careers so that their progeny could be wealthier and more educated than they could have ever dreamed, only to demand more. I particularly remember talking to a very old man (90+) who was expressing his disgust at his grandchildren's lack of employment, and comparing their lack drive to his life experience of going to work at the mill as a teen, being handed a broom and told to start sweeping, and eventually working up to a management position that earned him a house that his father would have considered a mansion fit for a king. His grandchildren were on the dole and producing babies that they could not support with multiple women, and one was in jail. It was obvious that this caused him immense emotional pain, to the point that a man who was once so strong and proud of his achievement seemed like he wanted to die and get it over with so he wouldn't have to watch the decline of his offspring. Again, this assessment of the cause of our economic decline a highly simplified explanation of very complex and intertwining issues, and is based only on my personal experience talking to a relatively small sample of old-timers while having a drink with them in bars. It is, however, a story that I have heard enough times that I can't help but consider it to have some merit. @LisnPuppy: Your experience really highlights one of the big problems when it comes to our welfare programs, and that is the fact that they are not really based on need or merit. A person in the situation you describe should absolutely qualify for assistance, but the sad fact is that the programs are not designed to help people like you. If they were there would have been no issue. They are, instead, designed to subsidize poverty itself. They actually incentivize continued reliance on aid, and a person like yourself who begrudgingly applies for aid is not the "target audience" when the programs are being funded. Its a shame. I'm about as anti-socialist as they come but I think a single parent should receive the utmost in aid. They should be prioritized well above anyone without children, to the point that the parent should have the option of not working at all to parent the child full-time at least until their mid-teens. One of the biggest reasons that I would feel personally ashamed to receive aid regardless of my income level is that I have no dependents, and would feel like I was literally stealing from the plates of needy children. The same goes for the elderly and the disabled.

I always bugs me when a person who made great contributions has their reputation dragged through the slop for every moment of imperfection or weakness they ever may have had. I doubt Mandela himself would have claimed worthiness of sainthood, and it is sadly predictable that he is being attacked now that he can't respond. It is equally sad that other people are wasting no time piggybacking on his achievements to build themselves up. On the upside, I suspect that such controversial and divisive opinions about your life are a good indicator that you made a difference in all of the right ways. Holding a mirror to society and forcing it to recognize its flaws hardly ever leads to universal popularity, and pissing off the right people is something to be proud of in itself. Precedent predicts that in a few decades or less the politicians will be invoking his name in an attempt to associate themselves with his legacy despite being in complete opposition to what he stood for. When this happens it bothers me even more than the aforementioned character assassination.

I wonder how someone with one job, never mind two, would have difficulty affording basics like food unless they are maintaining other expenditures that are beyond their financial means. I think the answer to that question would also go a long way towards answering jim_uk's question. I am saying this as a person who grew up fairly poor, and who is fairly poor now. I have been amply and nutritiously nourished the entire time, and it was not thanks to food stamps. It is because I spend wisely and am necessarily frugal. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic or judgemental towards people who rely on such programs but it really is that simple. Programs like that should be reserved for people who cannot earn sufficient income due to disability, injury, age, or the time requirements of single-parent child rearing. They should not to be used to enable people to purchase luxuries from the extra income. And by luxuries, I don't mean nice cars or trips to ski resorts. I mean things that many people consider necessary but really are not, like cable TV and iPhones. I find it very hard to believe that such a high percentage of the population would actually be unable to feed themselves if they simply trimmed the fat from their budgets. Food is cheap in our country. There are places in the world where the food supplies are controlled by gangsters and war lords, and where large segments of the population resort to things like prostitution to feed their children. They would consider basic education to be a luxury, but here the kids are coddled through school and every idiot seems to have a cell phone that costs around $1000/year (enough to nourish several people for months if spent wisely). It is shameful and embarrassing, and it is something that I think about every time I am at the grocery store in line behind someone who pays for their groceries with food stamps then pulls out cash to buy a few cartons of cigarettes, 20 lotto tickets, and a case of beer. Happens almost everytime I'm there. If we truly wanted to help the poor we would limit the spending of that money to the aforementioned people who truly need it, and spend the rest on health care and education. We won't do that, however, because any politician who suggests such a thing is attacked as someone who "doesn't care about the poor" when, in fact, such cutting measures would be beneficial to those who are truly disadvantaged. Welfare at this point has very little to do with actually helping anyone, and more to do with gathering votes from (sorry to be blunt) the lazy, greedy, and uninitiated. The act of splitting the food stamp program out of the "Farm Bill" is a smart one, because farm subsidies and food stamps are only peripherally related at best. One of the things that our congress likes to do is marry two unrelated issues into one bill, so that they pass or fail together. That way a congress person who opposes farm subsidies can be labeled as an "enemy of the poor" for also opposing food stamps, or vice versa. It doesn't mean that food stamps are doomed like the OP suggests. It simply means that a dedicated food stamp bill will be required for the first time since the 70's, and such a bill will hopefully be more focused and will make the system efficient and effective. The issue is also not as partisan as the OP suggests, as Republicans are already talking about the need for that bill. They just didn't want it lumped in with the farm subsidies bill. It deserves its own dedicated legislation. 80% of the farm bill's cost went to food stamps before it was axed, so even calling it the "farm bill" was politically dishonest until now.

@jim_uk: I have a family member by marriage who grew up in the USSR and that video reminds me of listening to him talk. Americans who claim to be communists and speak admirably about communism set him off big time. He is fascinating to listen to as he describes what life was like there. To be honest I was always skeptical of the stories about how bad Soviet life really was and figured that much of what we learned in school about the bleakness of life in Russia was patriotic propaganda. He says that it really was unbelievably bad, to the point of being comical at times. He is a very good natured and friendly and he laughs about the absurdity of the rationing and corruption and bribery and all of that, but he really has no tolerance for self-proclaimed communists who have never actually experienced communism in action. One of the most interesting things that he describes is the fact that, before leaving the country, they really thought that they had it good because they had nothing to compare it to. They used to mock us "poor Americans" because we "suffered" under capitalism. It could be said that the kid in the video has a sort of inverse of that misconception, in that he does not realize how good he has it here because he likely has little or no experience living in a communist system. It is interesting that sometimes the most patriotic people you meet are immigrants. He's not the type to wave flags around in parades or wear his patriotism on his sleeve, and he is extremely critical of our policy trends and our politicians in general, but he truly does have a deep appreciation for living here. Every self-proclaimed American communist should spend some time with an opinionated Russian expat.

The US has not "officially" been at war with any nation since 1945. Declarations of war have been replaced in a very Orwellian way with "congressional military authorizations" or deployments authorized by the President under the War Powers Act. I think when people accuse Snowden of "treason" what they really mean to say is "espionage", which is applicable to nearly any aid given without authorization, perhaps even if the country receiving the aid is an ally. I'm not so sure that what Snowden did even qualifies as espionage because he did not do it to strictly aid any other particular country, and it is arguable whether he did it with the intent of harming the US.

No, it is hopeless to argue ineffectively with me. Fairness is essential when levying taxes. Again, what changes do you propose that would "fix" the tax code? It is easy to say that it should be fixed, but determining what fixes should be applied is a bit more difficult. The allegation is not that the IRS has been unfairly targeting political groups since its creation. It is that they began doing so under the current administration. My statement about Jefferson Davis was obviously satire in response to your statement that Eisenhower was to blame.

Neither Klein or O'Donnel claim that the majority of the new applicants were tea party groups. They only theorize that "many" of them were tea party groups, and they do so under the questionable premise that a perceived increase in tea party activity during that time would correlate to an increase in such applications. This is not the same as assuming that a "huge majority" were tea party groups. I did not make any claims regarding the statistical composition of the new applicants. I only questioned your claim. There is no need for me to cite a source to back a claim that I did not make.

Your claim is that a "huge majority" of the new applicants were tea party groups. The article that you cite does not specify the nature of the new applicants, only that the number of applicants increased. You have not cited a source that backs your claim. It does not make mathematical sense because it is based on an assumption that is not supported by facts, not an educated guess.

Can you cite a source to back either of these claims?

You completely disregard that "if" is a speculatory statement about something that is not up for speculation. If there had been an increase in applications for tea party groups then perhaps the argument would be valid, but such an increase has been proven not to have occurred. Only the people who want to understand what happened, and why. Again, if that had actually happened then it would be relevant, but it has been proven that this did not occur. If the IG's audit shows that liberal groups were not selectively flagged then....it shows that liberal groups were not selectively flagged, which indicates political bias in the IRS procedure.

This claim has been proven false. The targeting was not a response to a rise in applications. The increase in application workload occurred from 2011-2012, well after the targeting began. source The inaccurate article that you linked made no attempt to answer rizon72's question, which was: "I want to know the answer to the question who made that list". I do not. Likewise with Eisenhower. I think the current President, well into his second term, should be held accountable for the current policies of the IRS. Also, you have maintained up until now that the President should not be blamed for what happens at the IRS. Why is Eisenhower different? Why should he be held accountable for the actions of the IRS under his administration, but the current President should not?

If we are going to look backwards in time for a place to pin the blame for the IRS's recent conduct we may as well go back a bit further to 1939 when Title 26 was codified, or we could go back a bit farther to 1913 when the sixteenth amendment was ratified, or we could even go all the way back to 1862 when the IRS was created. Eisenhower is off the hook. It was Lincoln's fault! But wait, he only did it to pay for the civil war, so......the real blame should fall on Jefferson Davis! Or we could focus on the current events, and the people who are creating them. Here is another article that includes scanned IRS memos that include instructions on how to handle various situations. Included in the memo are mentions of groups that are flagged for the phrase "Tea Party" (instruction: send them up the chain for further review) and "Progressive" (no special instructions). The memo shows a disparity between the procedures for liberal and conservative groups, and in doing so pokes a hole in the argument that the IRS also targeted liberal groups in the same way in that it targeted conservative groups.

Who, specifically, was abusing the tax code, and in what way?

None, but we already established that Issa's conduct is irrelevant to the issue (yet you continue to focus on him), and the current administration's possible involvement is only a peripheral issue. It is unlikely that Elijah Cummings, Xavier Becerra, or Sander Levin want this to fall on the President, but they have all stated that the investigation should continue. Because abuse of power for personal or political gain is wrong, regardless of any possible benefit that may come from it. It should not be tolerated for the same reasons that a city should not tolerate a police officer who profits by stealing cash from the criminals that he arrests. A good deed does not undo a bad one.

This is why I asked what the definition of scandal is. The criteria for a scandal rests on the perception of the person observing the act. Calling something a scandal is a subjective assessment. It may not be scandalous to you, but that does not mean it is not scandalous to many others. You should be outraged because the end result of enforcing tax law does not justify the means of using the IRS as a political weapon. If a police officer KNOWS that a person is a drug dealer should he be allowed to steal his money? Does the known guilt of the offender give the police officer an excuse to abuse his power? If police officer is robs a drug dealer should we be outraged, or should we accept that the police abused their power in a positive way? Abuse of power for personal gain is wrong, regardless of any potential positive outcome. Is an abuse of power acceptable to you as long as you are not the victim? The direct involvement of the President is not the central question being investigated. The question is "How high up the chain was the misconduct authorized?". It is unlikely that the President was directly involved, but a lack of involvement on the part of the President does not mean that there is nothing to investigate at any level. The investigation does not start at the President and work its way down. It starts with the lower-level agents involved and works its way up. Yes, it does. The primary duty of the President is to oversee the executive branch. If a business owner found out that an employee was embezzling the employee would be stealing from the business owner, so the question of involvement or culpability on the part of the owner makes no sense at all. A better analogy would be to compare the government to a publicly owned corporation. If the company were publicly owned and an employee were embezzling the chief executive would absolutely be investigated as well. If it is discovered through the investigation that the chief executive knew about the embezzling but failed to act against it he would be criminally charged, even if he was not directly involved. If he was not aware or involved in the embezzling he would still be held accountable by the company's shareholders because, as the chief executive, it is his responsibility to ensure that such a thing does not happen under his leadership. He would be very likely to lose his job as a result, regardless of his level of involvement. I am avoiding the question because it is irrelevant. Issa is not under investigation, and a lack of presidential involvement does not "solve" the investigation. The president is not being investigated. A bureau of the Treasury Department, which the President controls, is being investigated. There is evidence of misconduct. Are you saying that the misconduct should be tolerated as long as the President is not directly involved? By that logic Nixon should not have been impeached for Watergate, because he maintained that he had no direct involvement in the break ins and no evidence was ever presented that proved otherwise. He was impeached though, because it happened under his administration. One of the more scandalous allegations that stemmed from Watergate was that the Nixon administration was using various resources within the executive branch, including the IRS, to target political opponents. Imagine that!

What is the definition of "scandal"? The House Oversight Committee is where these IRS hearings are being held. If congress wanted to fix the tax code that would likely take place in the Joint Committee on Taxation. If the joint committee wanted to attempt to rewrite the tax code they could do that at any time, and the hearings in the oversight committee would not divert any resources from that effort. I thought we had agreed that Issa was irrelevant? Yet you continue to focus on him. These are congressional hearings about alleged government corruption, not a judicial process, so the question of presumed guilt or innocence is not applicable in the same way that it is when an individual is accused of a crime. It is not an abuse of power. The precise purpose of the oversight committee is to investigate this sort of thing. The allegations were not made without evidence. There has been plenty of incriminating testimony given by IRS officials, and more than one IRS official has refused to testify by invoking their right to protection against self-incrimination. It seems odd that they would refuse to testify under the premise that they may incriminate themselves by doing so if there was no possibility of discovery of wrongdoing through their testimony.

You avoided answering the question. Would you consider it scandalous if a conservative administration targeted abortion rights groups? I think that would be very scandalous indeed. I think any political targeting by the IRS is wrong. Congress is not wasting its time pursuing this question. If the IRS was operating under a political agenda it is not doing its job, and it is not following the law, let alone upholding it. It is the responsibility of the House oversight committee to investigate the allegation. They cannot and should not ignore it under some pretense of efficiency, any more so than a police oversight committee should overlook police misconduct so as to avoid hindering the police from doing their job. Then why do you continue to focus on him? You dedicated yet another entire paragraph to Issa. The allegations have not been proven false. The President's involvement in the incident in question is not the central question to be answered in the investigation. The IRS is a part of the executive branch, therefore the President is accountable for misconduct that occurs there under his administration. A lack of direct involvement by the President does not excuse the misconduct, or absolve the President of responsibility.

That seems very scandalous to me. If Romney were president and the IRS were found to be targeting abortion rights groups would that be scandalous? I would certainly think so, but it seems like you would see nothing wrong with this, because we should not expect the IRS to be "perfect". I don't expect perfection, but when something underhanded happens I expect action to correct it. Darrell Issa is irrelevant. The truth or lack thereof with regards to the allegations against the IRS do not rest on Darrell Issa's credibility. I am more interested in what a relevant person has to say, such as Lois Lerner. Unfortunately, she refused to say much at all for fear of incriminating herself. The media's editorial coverage of the investigation is also irrelevant to the veracity of the allegations. Again, if there was abuse of power occurring that is scandalous. It does not necessarily mean that the President ordered the abuse, but it happened in his administration. Managing the executive branch is his primary responsibility, and anything criminal that occurs within his administration is ultimately his responsibility. It is his responsibility to be made aware of it and to correct it if necessary. This does not mean micromanaging the IRS, but it does mean appointing people who can do that for him and holding them accountable for such problems, lest he be held accountable himself. Also, it is not a purely partisan issue like you are implying. There are Democrats who are disturbed by the allegations and have aggressively pursued the investigation as well, including the ranking member of the House oversight committee.

Nobody said that they only audited tea party groups, but that such groups were being audited more frequently than other similar groups. Earlier you stated that 1/3 of the audits were of liberal groups. We could draw a parallel example in racial profiling in law enforcement. If a police department is arresting people of one race twice as often as another, despite that race being a statistical minority in the community, then they are obviously targeting the people of that race. If the police response to an allegation of profiling was "but 1/3 of the people we arrested were (majority race)!" would it disprove the allegation of racial profiling? Of course not. In fact, it would be further evidence that the profiling is occurring, given that the majority racial group is being arrested at a much lower rate. Going back to the IRS targeting, if one type of group is being audited at a higher rate it is evidence of them being profiled in a similar way, and pointing to the 1/3 of the audits occurring against other opposing groups actually supports the notion rather than refutes it. I put these two quote together to demonstrate that you answered your own question. If larger groups that can afford better legal counsel were ignored while smaller groups were targeted it is further evidence suggesting a political motive behind the audits. Perhaps they ignored the larger groups and focused on the smaller ones because they were easier targets. If a law enforcement agency is focusing on easy targets while ignoring "big fish" they are doing a very poor job of enforcing the law. It would be like a police officer who only writes parking tickets and ignores armed robberies occurring right in his vicinity. All it does is present more questions to be answered, and more definitions that must be clarified. For example, what does "substantial" mean, as it is used here? The rest of it seems to limit the group's activities only with regards to campaigns and legislation. Which group is violating this law, and in what way? You say that they "spend most if not all of the their money" on these prohibited activities, so it should be easy for you to give an example of a group that does this. Here is what I am getting from this statement, and your general premise: A) The IRS is accused of politically motivated misconduct and abuse of power B) You do not deny or disprove the allegation of misconduct C) You assert that the focus should be shifted from the IRS's conduct to that of the alleged victims of said conduct D) You refer to the initial allegations as a "red herring" The term "red herring", as you are using, it means an attempt to direct attention away from a particular topic and on to another. Ironically, this is precisely what you are doing by saying that the focus should be on the groups in question, rather than the IRS's handling of those groups. It is entirely possible that the groups were violating the law, but that is not the topic of discussion. It is the IRS's response to those possible violations, and the evidence that they were selective in their enforcement.

@Lisnpuppy: I assumed that when you wrote "laws on control" that "on" was a typo, and that "or" was the intended word but apparently I was mistaken, and "on" was supposed to be "that". I stand corrected. Saying that any IRS rule is "very clear" ignores the massiveness of the IRS code, as I summarized in my previous post. Nothing is simple or clear in a law with 9834 sections. If the question is "Are you spending money on political things?" then there are several definitions that must be made: -define "spending" -define "money" -define "political things" Surely those definitions are codified somewhere, but I would wager that the definitions themselves are vague enough to be open to further questioning and interpretation. You say that 1/3 of the groups audited were liberal groups. 1/3 of what total? All audits? All non-profit audits? All non-profit, suspected political group audits? If it is limited to political groups and 1/3 were audited it is reasonable to assume that around 2/3 were conservative groups. This means that twice as many conservative groups were audited. Now ask yourself if there are more conservative or liberal political groups in the country. I don't know the true statistics, but I would guess that there are more liberal groups in existence, given that forming a group to tackle an issue is more of a liberal trait than a conservative one. If there are more liberal groups in total, but more conservative groups being audited at a ratio of 2:1 then this seems to indicate that conservative groups were targeted being. The fact that they were not exclusively targeted and that about 1/2 as many liberal groups were targeted does not lessen the level of misconduct or prove a lack of bias in the auditing process. You say in your post that the questions surrounding the IRS conduct are worthy of investigation and pose several good questions with regard to that conduct, then dismiss as a "red herring" the idea that conservative groups were targeted and state that this is "not true". If you are so sure that it is not true then why is it worth investigating? If it is worthy of investigation than why definitively state that it is not true?

Yes you did. I don't think the president had a meeting where he instructed IRS personnel to target anyone. I do think that the President should be held accountable for misconduct within the executive branch, regardless of his prior awareness of the misconduct or lack thereof. This accountability is an inherent responsibility for any chief executive. I agree that the groups in question were most likely abusing the tax code, but I also know that the tax code is begging to be abused and is constantly abused by businesses, corporations, politicians, nonprofits, PACs, local governments, investors, and the IRS itself. The more legal resources and personal connections one has with regards to their tax liability the easier it is to avoid paying taxes. Title 26 is thousands of pages containing millions of words. (ETA: I just checked and Section One of Title 26 contains about 30k words, and there are 9834 sections). It costs over $1000 to purchase a printed copy of the tax code from the government printing office. Assuming that one comes in contact with money at some point during the year it is nearly impossible to avoid breaking the law according to Title 26 of the US federal code. Depending on court interpretation there may even be parts of the law that contradict each other in such a way that following one section means violating another. It is unlikely that any single person could possibly be aware of the totality of the tax code. A corporation with an entire department dedicated to avoiding taxation would fair better, but it would still be difficult to the point of approaching impossibility for an entire law firm or legal department to maximize their retained income while completely avoiding breaking the law. A non-profit is unlikely to have a large legal department dedicated to tax law and would therefore be very likely to violate sections of the code. So what we have is a law that defines as criminal a range of activities so broad that nearly every single group or individual is in some kind of violation. If a person of sufficient level of influence within the executive branch wanted to utilize this system to their advantage all they would have to do is subtly nudge the IRS cannon in the direction of their target and they are sure to get a hit. The person who is aiming the weapon may not be the President himself, but they are surely a member of the executive branch and the President is therefore accountable for their misconduct, should any be found. The fact that such a scenario is possible means that any hint of such misconduct should be examined and pursued to the fullest extent. To downplay the whole possibility as political fiction or a "red herring" is to pave the way for future abuses. I don't know if any misconduct occurred or not, but it is worth examining.

The laws that control the IRS are subject to court interpretation. In the video that you dismissed as irrelevant the former IRS commissioner and general counsel who is interviewed states that the Supreme Court decisions regarding the definition of income and the fifth amendment protection against self incrimination are inapplicable to the IRS's function. In other words, they are considered to be above the law as it is interpreted by the Supreme Court. It is true that the president does not make the laws that control the IRS, but if that well credentialed and highly credible source is to be believed it is also true that the IRS is not concerned with the legality of its actions. You are incorrect in saying that the president does not control the IRS. The IRS is bureau of the Treasury department, which is a part of the executive branch, which the President controls. Even if his control is limited to appointing key people who create policy that ability amounts to de facto control of the bureau's policies.

I don't really like the word "scandal" at all, and I cringe when "-gate" is appended to anything and everything. The IRS issue is an example of corruption, the media's coverage of it is a case study in dishonest journalism from both sides, and in the end nothing will come of it other than perhaps a few fall people losing their jobs or being prosecuted. Your comparison to 9/11 is silly though. An act of war is incomparable to a misuse of executive power, and your attempt to draw a comparison between the two is invalid and borders on offensive. Comparing something to 9/11 is like comparing someone to Hitler, and it makes the person who is making the comparison sound desperate because it is an obvious appeal to emotion rather than logic or law.

Yes. Regarding the IRS, its very existence is a scandal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjQodPBfSUg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE2M7g_IWSE