Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats are understandably taking a lot of heat from Republicans for the provision in their bogusly named “Inflation Reduction Act” that calls for over $80 billion in funding for the IRS, which includes adding 87,000 more IRS agents.
As we’ve noted before, whenever Democrats are on the ropes or otherwise have their backs against the wall after being called out for lying and contradicting themselves, so-called “fact checkers” invariably will rush to their rescue in an effort to bail them out.
Such was the case on Thursday when the Washington Post’s resident fact checker Glenn Kessler and his WaPo colleague Marianna Sotomayor teamed up to try and shoot down Republican claims about the number of agents that will be added and who they would be targeting:
What was especially illuminating about their bogus “fact checks” is that in the third and final tweet in his thread, Kessler actually used Biden administration talking points to defend the provision from Republican attacks (something Reuters and FactCheck.org also did):
“The stated goal is” – yeah, sure, because the government has never, ever lied or exceeded their “stated goals” in any proposed legislation that involves expanding federal departments, have they, Glenn?
The problem with Kessler’s and Sotomayor’s supposed “debunking” of Republican talking points on the IRS agents is that the CBO has confirmed that at least $20 billion from future audits from the beefed up IRS will come from those making less than $400,000 a year.
Further, as Phil Kerpen noted, Kessler’s claim about the “net increase” in IRS staff being 25% was not true based on an actual reading of the bill and related government documents:
In May 2021, the Treasury Dept. compiled a report noting what the IRS could do with $80 billion more in funding. Among the suggestions? Adding nearly 87,000 new agents.
Is it a coincidence that $80 billion is what the IRS got out of the Inflation Reduction Act? Nope. Is it true that fact-checking as an institution has become absolutely worthless? Yep.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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