→2013→06→07→Comic Strip of the Day→CSotD: Spoiler 1: It’s not a cunning plan Spoiler 2: It’s a rerun
Comic Strip of the Day

CSotD: Spoiler 1: It’s not a cunning plan Spoiler 2: It’s a rerun

Published: June 7, 2013 1 minute 7 comments

Wu130607
Matt Wuerker often cuts through the fog to the heart of the matter. 

If I were one of the Great Rightwing Outrage Peddlars I wouldn't want anyone talking about the IRS convention, because it seriously undermines the conspiracy theory aspect of the Tea Party "investigations."

Wuerker's depiction of very stupid people doing very stupid things is much more credible than any conspiracy theory.

You may, if you like, believe that Obama sat down with top-level IRS officials and said, "I want you to investigate and harass the Tea Party, because they are clearly the most powerful movement of our times."

And, if the IRS had the budget and the personnel to actually make an impact on the Tea Party movement by doing that, well, yes, it would be worth doing.

But they don't.

Unless the Tea Party is, in fact, an insignificant sideshow, if it really is this mass outpouring of grassroots citizen outrage, then turning understaffed, underfunded IRS investigators on it would be as futile as standing in a swamp swatting at the mosquitos.

And if the IRS were funded to the level where, in the wrong hands, it could be be effectively used for that, well, a lot of things would be different.

To start with, you'd have seen better initial oversight of both 501c3 and 501c4 applications that would have resulted in someone getting their paddies slapped early in the game and spreading the word that you're not allowed to use those organizations to do these things.

So there wouldn't be a haystack of invalid applications for a small number of investigators to sort through, with or without either selecting, or being directed by the Evil Overlords to use, politically-stupid-but-eminently-practical search terms.

For another, we'd have fulfilled the sincere, oft-stated dream of conservatives to enforce the laws we've got, and the revenue crisis would never have come about, because, back when the IRS had a full contingent of auditors, cheating on your taxes involved an element of risk and people were more inclined to pay their legal share.

People still get audited despite the cutbacks, but now it's reportedly like winning Satan's lottery: The odds are against your number coming up, but the prize is nothing you want anyway. Not so much a case of "No more Mr. Nice Guy" as one of "We all have to do more with less."

But, whatever it is, it is most certainly not a cunning plan.

Granted, if I were masterminding a cunning plan to harass a couple of hundred Tea Party groups (Out of how many?) I might plan a massive, gaudy, expensive convention, in order to set up the bureaucratic equivalent of an insanity plea.

Because — as Wuerker points out — it sure makes it look like there were no grownups in charge at all, much less any actual "authorities."

But trust me: It's not a cunning plan.

It is not a plan, and it certainly isn't cunning.

Here's what it is: It's a rerun.

Come on, people: Is the collective memory really this short? We've already seen this one!

The GSA had a big splashy convention in 2010, and, when it came to light, everyone screamed and shouted and a few heads rolled and the GSA shut down the Big Splashy Convention Machine.

And if the IRS was stupid enough to hold a big splashy convention after all that uproar, then they are truly both evil and stupid, with a large dose of arrogance as a bonus.

But they didn't hold a big splashy conference after all that uproar.

They held it before all that uproar and even before the big splashy conference that caused all that uproar. 

August, 2010: IRS holds big splashy conference in Anaheim, California.

October, 2010: GSA holds big splashy conference in Las Vegas.

May, 2012: News of big splashy GSA conference surfaces. Heads roll, reforms are pledged.

May, 2013: News of big splashy IRS conference surfaces. World is shocked, shocked.

One of the things we couldn't possibly remember since it has been, gosh, a whole year since it was pointed out, is that the process of planning a convention is such that a 2010 gathering would have been budgeted, set up and approved during the Bush administration.

However, to be fair, it was also said that, while some deposits would have been lost, once someone smarter and more competent than George W. Bush was in charge, there was still sufficient time to shut the GSA convention down before it happened.

I'm not sure the GOP phrased it quite that way, but they made it clear that, given that the federal government is very small, efficient and well-organized, and that Obama is clearly smart enough and capable enough to personally manage every possible facet of it, then he was obviously to blame.

How could we forget? Well, never mind. They're reminding us now.

Previous Post
Check out Oliphant collection on GoComics
Next Post
Video: Lee Salem Silver T-Square award acceptance speech

Comments 7

  1. “However, to be fair, it was also said that, while some deposits would have been lost, once someone smarter and more competent than George W. Bush was in charge,…..”
    Still waiting for that one.
    B/R,
    Dann

  2. “One of the things we couldn’t possibly remember since it has been, gosh, a whole year since it was pointed out, is that the process of planning a convention is such that a 2010 gathering would have been budgeted, set up and approved during the Bush administration.”
    It’s not so much that it was forgotten.
    It’s because it’s okay if it’s done by a Republican.

  3. Nope. Most of the folks currently up in arms would have disapproved of an IRS convention back then too.
    The only difference is that now this abusive government agency is in charge of our health care as well as behaving in a partisan manner.
    Regards,
    Dann

  4. There is no proof that the IRS is being used in a partisan manner, and logic strongly indicates that it is not.
    And “behaving in a partisan manner” certainly means ascribing evil motives where it’s not even clear what happened.

  5. Mike,
    I think “behaving in a partisan manner” might not be received as intended.
    Others (elsewhere) have made a better argument that the IRS is a bureacracy that has a vested interest in an ever expanding federal government. The Tea Party folks want there to be less government. They also seem to be in favor of substantially altering the tax system to improve transparency and simplicity. (“fairness” being far to deep a well to plumb today…)
    Thus there was a systemic incentive for them to be a little less cooperative with the Tea Party groups.
    I’ve yet to see any proof that the IRS was being directed to do anything specifically partisan from the administration. There are some peripheral indicators that should cause a reasonable person to arch a suspicious eyebrow. But certainly not enough to justify any serious panty twisting.
    I have seen all sorts of telegraphing from the administration that might unleash a bureaucratic culture that was already inclined to operate in a partisan fashion.
    Jokes about IRS audits….
    Suggesting that the Tea Party folks are either unpatriotic or a threat to democracy…
    etc.
    Again, not enough to cause any serious panty twisting, but certainly enough to cause a reasonable person to arch an eyebrow with concern.
    The short version being that “partisan” doesn’t necessarily mean “cause Barack said ‘make it so’ “.
    Regards,
    Dann

  6. I think you’re still missing this point: It was foolish, as stated, to use a search term that would pull out groups from one side of the aisle, but the liberal groups don’t furnish such an inviting target by forming so many groups under roughly the same name. But it’s not “partisan” and it’s wrong to suggest that they “targeted conservative groups” because that wasn’t the critical factor and I’ve seen no proof that it was a factor at all.
    Let me suggest another example: A decade or so ago, the people who operate Newspapers In Education programs began to form 501c3 groups so that sponsors could get a tax break. The problems with about 7/8s of these groups were twofold: One is that their boards of directors were all drawn from within one company and second is that the funding was used to purchase copies of that specific newspaper for use in the classroom, thus benefiting one particular company.
    More cautious and well-advised programs, when faced with a sponsor who needed the tax break, would either have them donate to a school and let the school purchase materials, or would have the donation go to the charitable foundation of a state press organization, which was compliant because it supported more than one type of charitable program and, even within NIE, varied its purchases from among all member papers (and it also would have a genuinely diverse, ethically drawn up board).
    Now, given that the word had gone out that this was a great idea and many such 501c3s were formed without benefit of anyone asking if it were really legal, it would be very sensible to do a search for “Newspapers in Education” to pull up a bunch of them for examination.
    It wouldn’t mean anyone was against newspapers or against education — simply that they had realized how many of these non-compliant groups had been formed.
    Ditto with the words “Tea Party.” It’s just a response to a rush of similar, non-compliant applications. An ill-advised one, but mostly because it’s unbalanced and because it’s not good to appear to be singling out people who are already paranoid.

  7. Nope. I think I get all that.
    And at another point in time, I think I’d be willing to believe that such an explanation covers a lot of the behavior in question.
    I do think that the IRS has a vested interest in having a big government. And I do think that the administration’s public comments…in jest on some occasions, on others, not so much…were unhelpful towards the objective of the neutral administration of public policy.

Comments are closed.

Search

Subscribe to our newsletter

Get a daily recap of the news posted each day.
^ Top