New IRS staff would help stop tax cheats

Republicans in Washington are nuts about the money being spent to hire much-needed staff at the IRS. The staff will help taxpayers like me who needed to get through to someone in the IRS offices and had to spend weeks on the phone, not even being able to leave a message. The new staff at the IRS will also work to ensure more taxpayers are properly paying their taxes, complying with the law.

When these Republicans heard some nut shout “defund the police” a couple of years ago they got their bowels in an uproar which has yet to subside. They are still screaming about it and won't stop. No! We can't lower the staff we need to catch criminals! But, which criminals are we interested in catching? All of them? No. Some of them.

The Republicans do not want to spend money to enforce the tax code because people with money are the people breaking those laws. Why would we want to bother those people? Let's defund the IRS, say the Republicans. Those good people need to be left alone. Let them steal from the government (and, by extension, their neighbors.)

The criminal who steals a car? Or sells loose cigarettes on a street corner? Those are poor people's crimes. We must have all the police we need to arrest each and every one of them. We need to keep our prisons full with those folks. Catch them all and punish them harshly for their misdeeds. And, they rarely have lawyers and accountants to slow things down and make trouble.

So Republicans insist we defund the IRS police whose job it is to catch rich folks committing crimes. And fully fund the local precincts where they can catch all of the (relatively few) poor people committing crimes.

Peter Lerman Danbury