Following the unfolding scandal of the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of the Tea Party, I keep the following thought in mind:
Neither party in Congress can be relied upon to satisfactorily resolve this issue. They created the IRS, fund the IRS, and oversee the IRS. All of this abuse happened on their watch,” said Mark Meckler, President of Citizens for Self-Governance.
As many Legal Insurrection readers know, I am a Tea Party Democrat and a fan of Governor Sarah Palin. So, I read with interest this piece from Craig Shriley (the First Reagan Scholar at Eureka College) in Breitbart: Why the IRS Went After the Tea Party Instead of Establishment Republicans
As I stated elsewhere recently, The Republican Establishment is pea green with envy but also embarrassment “that the IRS did not think them worthy of harassing, or even worse, on the same side as the IRS. In other words, the IRS saw the GOP as too feckless to worry about. Either explanation is not very appealing for the national Republicans.”Of course, the only thing going through the minds of the pecuniary consultants who run the Republican Party is they are missing out on a fundraising bonanza which is necessary to feed their army of mediocre consultants.Let’s face it, the Tea Party movement is comprised of breakaway elements of populist conservatives disgusted with the Big Government Bush Republicans beginning in 2006. They remain separate and apart even today, seven years later, because they perceive the national GOP has not changed, still a part of the corruption of Washington…As far as the Tea Party and it sympathizers are concerned, nearly everybody in Washington is a suspect. The Tea Party has found the enemy, and it is the Washington Establishment.
Sarah B. is a co-founder of the SoCal Tax Revolt Coalition, the first San Diego area Tea Party group. She expresses some concern about the history: “Republicans knew about the IRS targeting of Tea Party, before the 2012 election. I don’t see how Tea Parties can let the establishment GOP benefit from it. I was in a high-end book store yesterday with elite progressives thinking they victims of statism. As a Tea-Partier, I actually am. And if I had walked into an establishment GOP event, I would have the same thought.
Indeed, Sarah is correct. One Tea Party had contacted candidate Mitt Romney with specific complaints:
And the head of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, whose application languished with the I.R.S. for more than two years, sent out e-mails to members about Mitt Romney campaign events and organized members to distribute Mr. Romney’s presidential campaign literature.
MSNBC anchor and former DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney had this question: “Why didn’t Romney make more of a big deal of it during the election?”
She means the question as a way of diminishing the magnitude of the scandal. I ask the same question, but to highlight that the elite from both parties were OK in kicking Tea Party to the curb, in terms of IRS “scrutiny”.
I wonder how much of the Republican outrage is genuine, and how much is kabuki theater. I would ask my citizen compatriots to gauge how their representatives handle the IRS situation closely, and make sure the actions correspond with their words.
In fact, I will offer that at least Democrats are consistent: The blame for the scandal will fall on Bush.
(Note: Tea Party representatives who are interested in joining the lawsuit against the agency should check www.SueTheIRS.com or click HERE to complete the application form directly.)
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