Remember when the US made fun of what a failed state Greece was bc they couldn't collect taxes? https://t.co/OJJgnhgcdU
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) July 18, 2021
The Administration hopes the $80 billion for the Internal Revenue Service in the Democrats' bill would raise $700 billion over the next decades because it is intended
to toughen IRS enforcement efforts as part of its "American Families Plan" proposal earlier this spring, as well as specific policy changes such as hiring agents to tackle complex returns, forcing firms to disclose more information and overhauling outdated technology.
But the ghost of Johnny Paycheck hangs over the body politic. If the bill passes, it will be with very few if any GOP votes. Republicans would try to hang Democrats with the charge that the latter have imposed a massive middle class tax increase.
When Republicans cut IRS allocations during the Obama Administration, the agency responded as expected, going after the middle and working classes because their returns were low-hanging fruit. If the Internal Revenue Service gets more money from legislation supported exclusively (or almost so) by Democrats, the latter can't attack Republicans for merely protecting the rich (or even more impotently, for refusing to pay for spending).
They would have to name names. Attack the GOP for being the servile statements of this industry and that, this company and that. It would strike corporations which contribute to both parties as mean, and Democrats might recoil from their responsibility to call Republicans out. But unless they can convince voters that the GOP is representing their donors, those voters will believe Democrats are coming after them.
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