Byron York: IRS scandal raises fears about enforcing Obamacare: “The Internal Revenue Service scandal would be bad enough if the IRS just handled issues like collecting income taxes and granting nonprofit status. But the immensely powerful federal agency is about to become even more powerful with the arrival of national health care, and that makes the still-unfolding scandal even more troubling.
‘When I hold town meetings, a great deal of distrust comes through about the size and increasing power of government,’ says Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa. ‘The IRS targeting crystallizes that distrust in a very big way because of the IRS’ reach into taxpayer information. What’s happened heightens fears about how the IRS will handle taxpayer information and wield its power when it enforces Obamacare starting next year….’”
In the next few weeks, the details of the IRS’ apparent misconduct will be spelled out in a series of hastily arranged congressional hearings… For millions of Americans, the hearings will do what Charles Grassley noticed at those town meetings in Iowa: reduce their faith that the federal government will treat them fairly.
And that will mean even more anxieties about the coming of Obamacare. “Now every American understands there are elements of the IRS that go off on their own,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told MSNBC Monday morning. “Why would you trust the bureaucracy with your health if you can’t trust the bureaucracy with your politics?”
Oh, but nothing bad will ever come of having the IRS invovled in health care! All those people saying that government is too big and intrusive must be the crazy ones. Right?
Friends: this is exactly the type of thing that people in favor of a smaller government always warn against.
And somehow the message just Will. Not. Sink. In.