Scandal-Bound IRS Prepares To Assume Health Care Powers

Dealing with the tax man is already like a colonoscopy

While promoting Obamacare, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi encouraged Americans to think of it as a kind of Christmas present. "We have to pass the (health care) bill so that you can find out what is in it," she told the National Association of Counties in March 2010, days before President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act.

Now we know that the surprise inside Obamacare includes an historic expansion of the IRS, arguably the most hated of federal agencies.

That role was no accident: When Obamacare eventually passed constitutional muster one year ago, it was only because, conservative Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts argued, the Affordable Care Act relies on Congress' power to tax.