by | BLOG, BUSINESS, CONSTITUTION, ECONOMY, OBAMA, OBAMACARE, POLITICS, TAXES
The next big case related to Obamacare, Halbig v. Burwell, is sitting in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The verdict should be announced soon. The crux of the case lies in the wording of the actual bill of Obamacare, which specifically lists state exchanges as a source of subsidies.
There is no mention of federal exchanges in Obamacare. This was created merely by an IRS rule authorizing the subsidies in federal exchanges.
Regardless of the outcome of the case (for a primer, click here), here’s the salient point to take away.
When you look at the plain wording of the actual bill, it really doesn’t make any sense (common sense). Here we have a perfect example of the Democrats trying — and ultimately succeeding — to push something through without looking at it or even carefully thinking through the implications of the words and provisions.
Obamacare was drafted badly, and they couldn’t even get it corrected the proper way because of the crookedness by which it was passed. Now we have a stupid mistake that the judiciary is being asked to fix. And that’s the problem.
What the government is asking the courts to do is to ignore the literal wording of the law. On the other hand, if the literal wording is indeed upheld, the immediate effect of a reversal is going to be extremely terrible.
Think about it. The IRS will have to go after people for refunds of tax credits. That will be a messy and slow and heated endeavor. Many people, especially poor people, are going to argue that they wouldn’t have used Obamacare insurance if it wasn’t for the subsidies. Not sure if that scenario is ultimately good for conservative or libertarians either, because it certainly sets up the sound-byte narratives that conservatives and libertarians want to “take away your health care”, “they hate the poor, etc”. Is it worth it?
My heart of hearts wants literal side to win, but at the same time, I’m not entirely convinced that its the best thing in the long run. Yet, if the government wins, it reinforces the precedent we’ve been seeing that it is okay to ignore the actual wording of the law, much in the same fashion that the wording of the Constitution is being ignored in some instances.
This case perfectly highlights the stupidity and utter disdain for which the Democrats have of procedure and law.
by | ARTICLES, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, TAX TIPS
On July 10 and again on July 11, the IRS will be in court for two separate cases related to the IRS scandal, specifically regarding the missing emails.
The Weekly Standard notes that on Thursday, July 10th, “IRS lawyers will appear in federal district court to explain why they never reported the emails missing in the context of a lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch”.
The following day, July 11th, “the IRS legal team is expected to try to block outside access to the evidence that Lois Lerner’s computer crashed—if such evidence exists”.
I mentioned the July 11th court date last week here, where you can also read the court motion.
These two court dates are significant, because they contrast the internal investigation that has been done so far: “The Department of Justice “investigation”—led by a high-dollar Obama donor, overseen by an attorney general who may be the most loyal of the Obama loyalists, who reports to a president who has already declared that there was not even a “smidgen” of corruption”.
by | ARTICLES, CONSTITUTION, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton called upon the IRS to defend itself in court on July 11th.
According to the Washington Examiner, IRS lawyers will be asked to explain “why the IRS shouldn’t be required to let an outside expert evaluate whether emails on the computer hard drives of former IRS official Lois Lerner and six colleagues really are lost forever.”
The motion filed seeks an outside computer forensics expert to determine the ability to salvage or not the data apparently lost to a crash. At the very least, the IRS was not following proper laws and procedures to protect information.
“If the IRS’s public statements about ‘recycling’ Ms. Lerner’s hard drive are true, that alone establishes spoliation of evidence that violates federal statutes and regulations, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and professional ethics and responsibility.
You can read the motion here:
by | ARTICLES, GOVERNMENT, HYPOCRISY, OBAMA, POLITICS, TAXES
You can’t have anyone that stupid be in charge at NBC.
Chuck Todd, who is NBC’s “Chief White House Correspondent” and also NBC’s “Political Director”, is out there mischaracterizing the IRS scandal. To blame it on 501c4s is utterly incomprehensible.
Yesterday on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown”, Chuck Todd gave this statement:
CHUCK TODD: Time now for my “Takeaway.” The controversy surrounding IRS may be more than a year old but of course we’re still talking about it. On Monday, the IRS Commissioner testified before Congress. A week after the IRS told Senate investigators that two years of e-mails disappeared in a computer crash back in 2011. While this certainly doesn’t make the Obama administration nor the IRS look very good, it’s important to remember what this actual story is about because it’s gotten lost.
The question at hand is whether explicitly political organizations should be filing as tax exempt social welfare groups under the tax code and both political parties are pointing blame. Republicans say that just conservative-sounding groups were targeted by the IRS. That’s why they want to see the e-mails. Democrats have responded by claiming, hey, liberal groups were targeted, too. But here is the story many are missing. Why should primarily political organizations get a taxpayer exemption, basically get a handout from the tax code? Both sides are in an uproar because they couldn’t take advantage of a borderline shady way to raise money for political purposes or launder money for political purposes.
So while the IRS is certainly not a good guy here they have been terrible about being forthcoming. Are there any actual real victims? Folks, this scandal is not black and white since frankly two wrongs don’t make a right. We know what really is working here for Republicans. Beating up the IRS, good for the base. Good politics there makes for great fundraising e-mails. But let’s remember what the controversy itself is about.
The problem is that Chuck Todd is flat-out wrong. 501c4s are not a way to engage in political spending. They are issue advocacy groups, and always have been — for nearly 100 years. Never until this administration has anyone had a problem with 501c4s.
The real crux of the problem is that the IRS attempting to try to turn issue advocacy — which is a first amendment, free speech issue — into political speech, so they can try to curb it. This was clearly evident in the recent uproar with the IRS trying to re-write the rules on 501c4s, which generated tens of thousands of comments in protest.
The short version is that issue advocacy deals with issues (free speech) and is not “political”, whereas advocating for a candidate or a party is “political”. It may not be a perfect divider, but it has worked quite well, and no one has even suggested anything better.
Proving Chuck Todd to be even more clueless is the fact that 501 c4 organizations do not really get any tax benefits from their “tax exemption”. All a 501c4 is, is a group of people pooling their after tax money to pay for a non- deductible expenditure. There are never “profits”, the receipt of funds from its members is not income, and the expenditure of these funds are not “deductions”. Just as there is no tax effect from an individual spending on issue advocacy, there should be no tax effect from individuals pooling their funds for the same spending. The IRS granting of 501c4 status is just recognizing the obvious.
Chuck Todd is either disingenously preying on low-information viewers to not know the differences between 501c4s and other tax-exempt organizations, or else he really is that stupid. Either way, he should submit his resignation today.
by | ARTICLES, CONSTITUTION, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, TAXES
In sworn testimony this morning (Friday, June 20th) IRS Commissioner John Koskinen stated that Obama was told about Lerner’s emails in April. This would be 6 weeks before Congress was told.
“The IRS knew in February, or maybe even in March, and Treasury and the White House knew at least in April — but Congress and the American people didn’t find out until June.”
Congress received a letter from the White House on Wednesday informing them they knew about the emails in April, having been informed by the Treasury Department. IRS head, Koskinen, stated he had seen the letter as well.
“He said his “understanding” is that someone in the IRS general counsel’s office informed someone in the Treasury Department’s general counsel office “that there was an issue and the IRS was investigating.”
And yet, in March “Mr. Koskinen told the House Oversight Committee in March, “if you want them all, we’ll give them all to you, though he added that doing so might take years”.
This is worse than Watergate, indeed.
