Tax Delinquent Dem Backs Plan To Hire Army of New IRS Agents
Matt Cartwright, who has a history of tax delinquency, endorses bill that more than doubles agency's size
Collin Anderson • August 10, 2022 2:00 pmCongressman Matt Cartwright has a history of tax delinquency. That isn't stopping the Pennsylvania Democrat from backing a plan that would sic an army of nearly 90,000 new IRS agents on the American people.
Cartwright last year owed $436.63 in penalties and interest that stemmed from late property tax payments on his Washington, D.C., condo, the Washington Free Beacon reported last week. The incident was not his first tax-related mishap—from 2013 to 2018, the Democrat racked up thousands of dollars in penalties and interest related to his tax delinquencies. Still, Cartwright on Monday announced his support for the Inflation Reduction Act, Democrats' $430 billion spending bill that does little to fight inflation and gives the IRS $80 billion to hire up to 87,000 additional employees.
Cartwright's history of tax delinquency and subsequent support for the bill could haunt the congressman as he faces a difficult reelection bid against GOP challenger Jim Bognet. Cartwright trails the Republican by 1 point with 9 percent of voters undecided, internal polling obtained by the Free Beacon shows.
Cartwright will also have to overcome Joe Biden's historic unpopularity, which has even extended to the president's hometown of Scranton. In Cartwright's eighth district, which includes Scranton, just 38 percent of voters approve of Biden, compared with 60 percent who disapprove, the Free Beacon revealed Wednesday. Despite Biden's hometown woes, Cartwright is standing by the president—unlike some of his House Democratic colleagues, the congressman has publicly backed Biden to run for reelection in 2024. Cartwright was also a staunch Biden supporter during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, having said in 2019 that he was "honored" to endorse his "friend, northeastern PA hometown boy, Joe Biden for president."
Cartwright did not return a request for comment. His Monday statement voicing support for Democrats' latest spending bill did not include a comment on its IRS-related provisions. Should that bill pass the House, the IRS will receive $80 billion to hire as many as 87,000 additional employees. The hiring spree would more than double the size of the agency's workforce, making the IRS larger than the Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol combined, the Free Beacon reported. Bognet has railed against the proposal, arguing that the Inflation Reduction Act should instead be called the "Audit America Act."
"With that many new IRS agents, every small business can expect to be audited," Bognet said Monday. "We must stop this spending spree, and we must stop this auditing spree."
Beyond the Cartwright-backed bill's proposed IRS expansion, even liberal economists don't believe the $430 billion Inflation Reduction Act will reduce inflation. Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, whom Biden himself routinely cites, said in a new report that the legislation will cause no change in inflation until the third quarter of 2023, when Americans can expect to enjoy a .01 percent decrease.
Cartwright is nevertheless touting the bill as a win for Democrats. In his Monday statement, he called the bill "landmark legislation" that "the American people have been waiting for."
Cartwright's race against Bognet is not his first. The Democrat narrowly defeated Bognet by roughly 3 points in 2020, a result that marked the tightest reelection bid of his career. Bognet has thus far raised $1.2 million to Cartwright's $3.5 million.
GOP Rep. Cammack: Dems Are Lying about IRS Audits, They Rejected Amendment to Prevent Increased Audits on Non-Wealthy
On Wednesday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “Wake Up America,” Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) stated that claims from the Biden administration and Democrats that the increased IRS funding in the Inflation Reduction Act reconciliation bill won’t be used to go after people making less than $400,000 are false because Senate Democrats rejected an amendment by Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) to keep the additional enforcement money for the IRS from being used to target people making less than $400,000 a year.
Cammack said, “Well it’s clear that that’s a lie because the Senate Democrats were — they were able to vote on an amendment to this package and say — and the amendment was quite simple. It said that none of these eighty-seven thousand IRS agents would target individuals or families making less than $400,000. Yet every Democrat shot that amendment down, which again, right there, told us their play. They’re interested in coming after working-class Americans and people who are making less than $400,000. which means that Joe Biden was lying all along.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
Dems Poised To Make IRS Larger Than Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol Combined
Manchin-backed Inflation Reduction Act would more than double agency's size
Joseph Simonson • August 6, 2022 5:00 amIf Democrats have their way, one of the most detested federal agencies—the Internal Revenue Service—will employ more bureaucrats than the Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol combined.
Under the Inflation Reduction Act negotiated by Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), the agency would receive $80 billion in funding to hire as many as 87,000 additional employees. The increase would more than double the size of the IRS workforce, which currently has 78,661 full-time staffers, according to federal data.
The additional IRS funding is integral to the Democrats' reconciliation package. A Congressional Budget Office analysis found the hiring of new IRS agents would result in more than $200 billion in additional revenue for the federal government over the next decade. More than half of that funding is specifically earmarked for "enforcement," meaning tax audits and other responsibilities such as "digital asset monitoring."
That would make the IRS one of the largest federal agencies. The Pentagon houses roughly 27,000 employees, according to the Defense Department, while a human resources fact sheet says the State Department employs just over 77,243 staff. The FBI employs approximately 35,000 people, according to the agency's website, and Customs and Border Protection says it employs 19,536 Border Patrol agents.
The money allocated to the IRS would increase the agency's budget by more than 600 percent. In 2021, the IRS received $12.6 billion.
Although Democrats say the hiring of additional IRS agents will help root out tax cheats and other criminals, federal tax revenues have steadily risen over the past several decades. Federal tax receipts are projected to hit $5.7 trillion in 2027, up from just over $4 trillion last year without additional IRS agents.
But the roughly $450 billion in new spending proposed by Democrats requires new funding mechanisms. Some of the new spending includes $161 billion for clean electricity tax credits and $64 billion in new Affordable Care Act subsidies.
The majority of new revenue from IRS audits and scrutiny will come from those making less than $200,000 a year, according to a study from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. The committee found that just 4 to 9 percent of money raised will come from those making more than $500,000, contrary to Democrats' claims that new IRS agents are necessary to target millionaires and billionaires who hide income.
Senate Republicans argue that the roughly $45 billion the bill puts towards hiring IRS agents could be better spent on other priorities, such as helping students rebound from the learning loss suffered during COVID school closures. A proposal by Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.) would amend the spending bill to put the IRS money towards education tax credits.
"When faced with the decision to spend $45 billion on America’s largest revenue collection agency, or give it back to parents to help them get their kids the help they need, the Senate needs to choose the latter option every single time," Scott told the Free Beacon.
The Washington Free Beacon previously reported that, despite White House claims to the contrary, the Inflation Reduction Act does little to combat inflation. A report from Moody's Analytics found the Democratic bill will shave just .33 percent from the Consumer Price Index over the next decade.
Exclusive — Rep. Ted Budd Amendment Would Redirect Billions in IRS Funding to Border Security
Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) is planning to submit an amendment to the so-called Inflation Reduction Act on Wednesday that would redirect billions in Internal Revenue Service (IRS) funding to boost border security, Breitbart News has learned exclusively.
Budd’s proposed amendment is in response to Democrats’ attempt to unleash the IRS on middle-class Americans by hiring more agents and massively bulking up IRS audits and criminal investigations to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. The amendment would redirect more than $69 billion of that funding to combat the U.S.-Mexico border crisis overseen by the Biden administration.
“Instead of hiring 87,000 more IRS agents to treat working families like tax cheats, that funding should be directed to the crisis on the southern border. In FY 2022, there have been over 500,000 ‘got-aways’ at the border, and 8,400 pounds of fentanyl has been seized,” Budd told Breitbart News in a statement.
READ:
BUDD — Amendment Redirecting IRS Funding to Border Security by Breitbart News on Scribd
While the amendment would retain $15 million for the IRS to create a free e-file system, it would redirect $25 billion to build the border wall, more than $20 billion to hire 10,000 more border patrol agents, and more than $20 billion to hire 10,000 more ICE Enforcement and Removal agents. It would also provide $3.87 billion in IRS funds to hire 366 immigration judges (bringing the total to 1,000) and 60 staff attorneys for the Board of Immigration Appeals.
“We should be devoting more resources to the Biden Border Crisis, instead of making life harder for working families who are struggling under the weight of the Biden Recession,” Budd added.
Lastly, the amendment includes a bill Budd introduced in April, the “Build the Wall Now Act,” which is designed to counteract the Biden administration’s efforts to stall construction of the border wall. That bill would unlock $2.1 billion in unspent funding appropriated for its construction.
On Sunday, the Senate passed the $700 billion Inflation Reduction Act — a scaled-down version of the Build Back Better Act. The legislation focuses on reducing the deficit and curbing inflation, extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies, spending more than $300 billion on climate change programs, and allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of drugs. However, both the Penn Wharton Budget Model and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) contend the legislation would not actually reduce inflation.
The Inflation Reduction Act will go up for a vote in the House on Friday. Barring any major developments, it is expected to pass.
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