<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1666642308604,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000168-ed7d-d9d9-a9ec-ff7daffb0002","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1666642308604,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000168-ed7d-d9d9-a9ec-ff7daffb0002","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_66131903", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1120530"} }); ","_id":"00000184-0b9f-d791-abd4-1fdf60230001","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedRepublicans are mobilizing for an escalating and prolonged battle against the IRS and its Democratic-backed plans to hire tens of thousands of more employees with money from the climate and health bill signed by President Joe Biden.
The GOP hopes to use public skepticism of added funding for the tax agency to win back the House and even the Senate. From there, the party hopes to use control of congressional committees to investigate and oversee the IRS. Then, it is plotting legislation to defund it or rein it in. While opportunities to enact such measures will be limited while Biden is in office, Republicans are planning for legislation in 2025 — and sound open to the possibility of risking a government shutdown as leverage to extract reforms in the meantime.
BIDEN RISKS ‘FAILURE’ ON BEEFING UP IRS FOR ONE BIG REASON, FORMER CHIEFS SAY
Although the Republican Party has been hostile to the IRS for decades, the party’s emphasis on reform has taken on new life in recent months for two reasons.
The first is the $80 billion influx of funding to the IRS, which, according to a 2021 Treasury report, could translate to 87,000 new employees over a decade. The funding was approved as a revenue raiser in the partisan Inflation Reduction Act. The second is the still-unexplained leak last year of the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people.
During the Trump years, relations between the GOP and the IRS had been thawing following controversy over the scandal regarding the agency’s acknowledgment that it had targeted Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny. Funding for the agency modestly increased in 2020 and 2021 following years of cuts after Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin lobbied to give it more money. And in 2019, President Donald Trump signed bipartisan reforms into law.
But now the GOP is more focused than ever on reining in the IRS.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, poised to be speaker of the House if Republicans win in November, said in September that reversing Democrats’ efforts to fund the IRS would be the No. 1 priority for his party.
“On that very first day that we’re sworn in, you’ll see that it all changes,” the California Republican said at an event. “Because on our very first bill, we’re going to repeal 87,000 IRS agents. Our job is to work for you, not go after you. Our job is to make America stronger.”
The issue has been a salient one with voters in the lead-up to the midterm elections. Of all the provisions included in the Democratic climate and health bill, the IRS funding has been used to attack the administration the most and appears to do well — at least given the amount of money that has poured into the line of attack.
An AdImpact analysis from early this month found that, since the start of August, GOP groups and candidates have spent more than $12 million on the airing of about 24,000 ads warning about the mass hiring of IRS employees, according to Punchbowl News.
“In Washington, Kelly’s gone kind of soft,” blared a National Republican Senatorial Committee attack ad against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ). “He went along with nearly $300 billion less in Medicare spending for seniors … 87,000 IRS workers, enough to fill Sun Devil Stadium.”
(It is worth noting that the IRS has pushed back on the characterization that it is simply adding 87,000 more workers, given that it expects more than half of its 80,000 employees to retire over the next five years.)
All three Republicans vying for the open top spot on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee — Vern Buchanan of Florida, Adrian Smith of Nebraska, and Jason Smith of Missouri — told the Washington Examiner that they would plan aggressive oversight over the IRS.
The IRS funding proposal is the only section of the legislation of which more voters disapprove than approve, according to a Politico-Morning Consult survey. All three candidates said it is an issue that resonates with voters and has generated concern.
“The first thing is we’ve got to get over and do our work, and that means having some hearings and really figuring out exactly where these 87,000 agents are going and where all the money is going from that standpoint,” Buchanan said of Republicans taking control of the House.
Adrian Smith has already introduced legislation to defund the Biden administration’s plan to beef up the IRS workforce.
All three running for the chairmanship declined to rule out blocking government funding, as has been done during budget battles in the past, in order to claw back the IRS funding and hiring, although none committed to such a tactic.
“Let me tell you — we’re going to have to look at ways to be effective, and I’m not going to box myself in on anything,” Jason Smith said, “but we need to defund this $80 billion. How we do it, I’ll leave it up to leadership to decide what’s best with that, but the American people want this $80 billion eliminated and defunded.”
Alex Conant, a GOP strategist and a partner at Firehouse Strategies, said IRS funding could be the subject of high-stakes negotiating over legislation that must pass — such as bills keeping the government open or a measure to raise the federal debt ceiling.
“Nobody likes the IRS, and so politically, it’s just going to be very difficult for the Biden administration to draw a line in the sand on IRS funding,” Conant told the Washington Examiner.
Jason Roe, a veteran Republican consultant, told the Washington Examiner a Republican majority would prioritize rolling back Biden’s IRS initiatives.
“Going back to the symbolism of the IRS to conservatives, to me, I think the IRS could be the first target of oversight when the new Congress is sworn in in January,” Roe said.
The war against the IRS will go deeper than just funding.
Hearings into the leaks of tax records and other issues — for instance, the finding that the IRS destroyed data for some 30 million paper-filed information return documents — should be expected.
The GOP should use oversight hearings to draw a contrast for voters wondering why the same questions weren’t asked while Democrats were in power, said Grover Norquist, the head of the anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform.
“I think they’re terribly vulnerable,” Norquist said of the IRS. “We know scandals exist; we know the Democrats didn’t look into it.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
He said the Republicans could hold appropriations to the IRS hostage until it conducts hearings, and if some individuals won’t testify, they could vow not to give the agency a penny more until lawmakers get answers to their questions.
“Why would you give them $80 billion when there are these unanswered questions of corruption?” Norquist said.
