Tom Minear: Freedom really does come at a price in the US

Joe Biden might have thought he was robbing Peter to pay Paul to end the US debt crisis. But Tom Minear argues he was robbing both, as the richest Americans dodge their taxes.

The Republicans with a majority in the US House of Representatives can’t agree on much. It took them 15 rounds of voting in January just to anoint Kevin McCarthy as their leader.

Once that was out of the way, however, they rushed to vote on the one piece of legislation that united them: clawing back $US80bn Joe Biden was spending to beef up the tax office.

The bill died in the Senate, where the Democrats held sway, but the President remembered. Last week, as the US government teetered on the brink of a catastrophic default, Biden offered to cut $US10bn from the Internal Revenue Service in a last-ditch ploy to satisfy McCarthy’s demands for budget savings in exchange for increasing the nation’s debt limit.

The President might have thought he was robbing Peter to pay Paul. But he was really robbing Peter and Paul.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and US President Joe Biden during negotiations in May. Picture: Saul Loeb (AFP)

The IRS is a mess. It still relies on letters, faxes and cheques. Paper tax returns are piled in hallways and processed on computers so old that replacement parts must be made to order. And a series of funding cuts mean the number of staff left to co-ordinate this chaos – prior to Biden’s promised injection – is on par with the 1970s.

The tax office is so unprepared to do its job that it is failing to collect $US175bn in unpaid federal income taxes every year – and that’s just from the richest one per cent.

If Republicans were serious about reining in the nation’s enormous debt bill, and a budget deficit tipped to hit $US1.5 trillion this year, then this would be the obvious place to start.

Australian treasurers of all political persuasions routinely improve their bottom lines with tax compliance crackdowns. But when Biden first bolstered the IRS, Republican Chuck Grassley said: “Are they going to have a strike force that goes in with AK-15s already loaded, ready to shoot … because I think they’re going after middle class and small business people.”

I came across that line last week, not longer after reading about a Maryland man who was actually carrying an AR-15. (The AK-15 is Russian, Chuck.)

Man carries AR-15 at school bus stop to protest against state's gun control measures https://t.co/SSs2zsDgU4pic.twitter.com/PN26JkGehH

— The Messenger (@TheMessenger) May 19, 2023

J’Den McAdory wielded the rifle while walking past school bus stops in his community in a silent protest against stricter gun rules. Kids ran home crying and parents called the police. But they could do nothing – McAdory wasn’t breaking any laws.

Democrat Governor Wes Moore blasted his cowardly and intimidating protest. Not a peep from Republicans though.

Freedom really does come at a price.

Originally published as Tom Minear: Freedom really does come at a price in the US