Paul L. Caron
Dean





Saturday, August 15, 2015

The IRS Scandal, Day 828

IRS Logo 2 MSNBC, The Rachel Maddow Show/The MaddowBlog:

Fox News’ Martha MacCallum posed a question to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), which he seemed eager to answer. From the transcript:

MACCALLUM: On the same topic, let’s go to Governor Jindal. Carly Fiorina, also on the stage, said that she would go so far as to shut down the government over the issue of defunding Planned Parenthood. Would you do that? Would you be willing to shut down the government when it comes to defunding this group?

JINDAL: Well, a couple of things. Planned Parenthood had better hope that Hillary Clinton wins this election, because I guarantee under President Jindal, January 2017, the Department of Justice and the IRS and everybody else that we can send from the federal government will be going in to Planned Parenthood.

This generated no real follow-up, which is a shame because it was an amazing answer. According to Jindal, his administration would dispatch the Internal Revenue Service to target Planned Parenthood because, well, Bobby Jindal doesn’t like Planned Parenthood.

But there’s a small problem with idea: it’s brazenly illegal.

Remember, Richard Nixon, among other things, tried to use the IRS as a political weapon to target his political foes – and had he not resigned in disgrace, Nixon would have been impeached for having done so. More recently, Republicans and much of the Beltway media accused President Obama of using the IRS to punish far-right Tea Party groups. The allegations proved baseless, but for a short while, Republicans saw this as a devastating scandal involving an abusive, out-of-control White House using the IRS as a political weapon.

And yet, there was Jindal – according to some, one of the smarter GOP officials on the national scene – offering a striking example of a presidential candidate vowing to commit impeachable offenses before the election even happens.

Mother Jones, Bobby Jindal Thinks the IRS Shouldn't Be Used to Target Political Enemies, Except For His

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/08/the-irs-scandal-day-828.html

IRS News, IRS Scandal, Tax | Permalink

Comments

Not that Jindal has a snowball's chance of hell of winning, but if he did win and did as he suggested, we could then impeach him in January of 2017. Whoopee!

Posted by: gator | Aug 17, 2015 5:48:18 AM

It would be nice if Maddow and Mother Jones held the Obama administration to the same standard. If laws are only for non-Democrats to follow, I don't see why non-Democrats can't play the same game.

Posted by: wodun | Aug 15, 2015 9:59:12 AM