Is IRS-Gate actually worse than Watergate?

Remember that one reason Richard Nixon was impeached was his siccing the Internal Revenue Service on his political enemies. Which is what the IRS has done to Barack Obama’s political opponents.

Matt Kibbe argues that IRS-Gate is worse than Watergate:

The IRS has admitted that since May 2010 it targeted grassroots-conservative organizations that had applied for tax-exempt status, unfairly subjecting them to rigorous scrutiny due to their political leanings.

Such groups were told they were required to comply with IRS requests, no matter how absurd, in order to obtain non-profit status. Some were ask to provide book reports, names of family members, family members’ political affiliations, lists of donors and more. A report issued by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration this week begins to highlight the extent of misbehavior.

Following the admission, many have accused the IRS of misusing and misrepresenting its power for political advantage, and it’s true that silencing – or at least handcuffing – conservatives in the run-up to the 2012 election could very well have made an impact.

But this abuse extends far beyond the last or next election and strikes at the very core of the people’s relationship with their government.

The Washington Post’s editorial board wrote that, “A bedrock principle of U.S. democracy is that the coercive powers of government are never used for partisan purposes.”

In her apology, Lois G. Lerner, IRS director of exempt organization, insisted that the extra scrutiny was not politically motivated. The narrow focus on partisanship as the primary point of controversy is dangerous. This is not first and foremost a partisan issue.

It doesn’t matter whom the IRS was targeting or what specific beliefs they held: the fact remains that for years the agency used its power to discourage and intimidate Americans from speaking out against what they viewed as bad policies, stifling the First Amendment right of every citizen to hold government accountable.

The president says he was not aware of the problem. If so, then the state of our freedom is far worse than any of us has imagined – the gray suits are in place and already taking over.

Pundits have compared the current scandal to Watergate, but this one, frankly, is worse.

When the abuses of Watergate – which included misuse of the IRS to launch audits against Nixon’s enemies – were discovered, they stopped and the perpetrators were brought to justice.

We don’t yet know just how high the knowledge of the IRS practice reached, but it’s already clear that a broad element of the agency – including those with the power to stop it – knew about this blatant violation of basic constitutional rights for years and did nothing to stop it.

Despite Ms. Lerner’s statements to the contrary, it’s clear the IRS has been using its power for years to discourage and intimidate Americans from participating in their right to hold government accountable.

This abuse of power and “unequal treatment under the law” is truly chilling, and must not be brushed away with apologies or toothless inspector-generals’ reports.

It demands a rigorous congressional investigation and severe punishment of the power-drunk bureaucrats who carried it out.

No government agency must be allowed to abuse its powers so blatantly and get away with it. The freedom Americans hold so dearly is at stake. …

We must stop this abuse of government over the governed and ensure this never happens again to any segment of the American population, regardless of their political leanings.

Think of what Kibbe is saying here. If the Obama administration ordered the IRS to harass conservative organizations, that’s on Barack Obama, and he can be impeached. If someone within the IRS decided to harass conservative organizations on his or her (or their) own, that means the IRS is uncontrollable, answerable only if caught.

The test for this among non-conservatives is for them to ask themselves if this would be equally outrageous had a Republican presidential administration unleashed the IRS on left-wing organizations. Of course it would be. It is outrageous for the IRS to be targeting organizations based on their political beliefs, period. Without evidence of criminal wrongdoing, that is a blatant violation of those organizations’ First Amendment rights.

I’ve never been a supporter of a national sales tax to replace the federal income tax. This might change my mind. (Particularly a national sales tax that was collected by the states and sent to Washington, instead of the other way around, once the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is repealed.) At a minimum, this proves why changing tax law so that only individuals are assessed income taxes, and not corporations or organizations, is worth doing.