In some sense, there’s nothing remotely funny about the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party organizations.
It is disgusting that a powerful arm of the government became a corrupt vehicle for illegal partisan politics.
But it’s better to laugh rather than cry, so let’s enjoy this new video from Remy at Reason TV.
And let’s not forget that the IRS rewarded itself with big bonuses after the scandal!
President Obama infamously claimed there wasn’t a “smidgen” of corruption at the IRS. This Glenn Foden cartoon is the only appropriate response.
P.S. Switching to another topic, I explained recently that the left was wrong about unemployment insurance. The statists told us that paying people to be unemployed wouldn’t increase joblessness, but virtually all the evidence is on the other side.
Now we have even more research emphasizing that point. Here’s a blurb from some new research published by the St. Louis Federal Reserve.
…we find that the extension of unemployment benefits affected the labor market status of long-term unemployed workers in late 2013. Without extended UI benefits, these unemployed workers would have been more likely to be employed, more likely to exit the labor force, and on average 1.9 percent less likely to remain unemployed in the following period. In short, our simulated early termination of the EUC program lowered the unemployment rate by 3 to 5 basis points, suggesting that the December 2013 expiration of the EUC program might have slightly lowered the unemployment rate in early 2014.
However, since most leftists are not very literate about economics, let’s simplify the issue. Maybe they can understand some cartoons. Here are some options from Michael Ramirez, Robert Gorrell, and Chuck Asay, as well as a great Wizard-of-Id parody.
If the Republicans had a party platform that included enactment of some form of flat tax (a progressive hybrid flat tax would be best) the “IRS scandal” could be seen as an anti-Republican effort, however, they do not. When in power, they like to manipulate the tax code as much as the Democrats.
The “IRS scandal” was that agency’s attempt at self-preservation against groups that want to simplify the tax code and in the process reduce IRS staff and budget by more than half. You shouldn’t be surprised that individuals act in their own best interest. To paraphrase Milton Friedman, government would run well if only you could find arch-angels to run it.
You don’t need a study to understand the disincentives associated with unemployment insurance. Everyone knows someone who is or has been taking it easy while receiving benefits, rather than finding or creating a job for themselves.
Yet, unemployment benefits do run out in the end. Imagine what the incentives are with ObamaCare, which never runs out, keeps giving for a lifetime regardless of how you choose to live it.
Is the remaining residual American desire to work still enough to outcompete the rest of the world? That is the fifteen trillion prosperity question. When will the next shoe drop? When voter-lemmings who experience the malaise of subpar growth rush to the polls for more redistribution in a desperate and even more distorting futile war against fundamental realities?
On the route to decline with the safety exits closed by FATCA, extraterritorial taxation and exit taxes. The pressure is building. I am increasingly worried that sad as loss of American top prosperity will be, the end will also be explosive. Voter lemmings under pressure will dig their heels in to a nasty death spiral.