The White House Lied About Its IRS Funding Only Targeting the Rich
Plus: A listener asks the editors for examples of left-leaning thinkers who also hold libertarian ideas.
In this week's The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman consider President Joe Biden's updated response to the war in Gaza following a strike by Israeli military forces that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers. And with tax day on the horizon, the editors reflect on how Biden's plan to hire new IRS agents is resulting in more audits of the middle class.
03:02—Biden's response to Israeli military forces killing seven aid workers in Gaza
27:04—The IRS hires more workers, and more middle-class audits result.
36:16—Weekly Listener Question
47:56—Eclipse day!
53:25—This week's cultural recommendations
Mentioned in this podcast:
"Biden Says Arab States Ready To Recognize Israel in Future Deal," by Jordan Fabian
"Should pro-Hamas students be blacklisted?" by Nick Gillespie
"The West Bank Comes to New Jersey," by Matthew Petti
Nancy Rommelman's dispatches from Israel
"Russ Roberts on October 7 and the Future of U.S.-Israel Relations," by Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe
"Throwing Money at the IRS Won't Fix Its Problems," by Katherine Mangu-Ward
"Promise-Breaking IRS," by Liz Wolfe
"In 2022, the IRS Went After the Very Poorest Taxpayers," by Liz Wolfe
"Massive Scale of Improper Payments Show Govt is Too Big NOT to Fail," by Veronique de Rugy
"3 More Reasons To Fear the IRS," by Nick Gillespie and Meredith Bragg
"Remy: What Are the Chances? (An IRS Love Song)," by Remy, Austin Bragg, and Meredith Bragg
"Remy: Best Song Ever! (One Direction Parody - Tax Code Edition)," by Remy, Austin Bragg, and Meredith Bragg
"W-2 WTF?!?!: Tax Facts to Make Your Head Explode!" by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie
"The New Philosophers Rock France," by William Bonner
"Velvet President," by Matt Welch
"Was Foucault a Libertarian? Nick Gillespie Explains Why Philosopher's Greatest Protégé Was the Free Market," by Davis Richardson
"Libertarian Postmodernism: A Reply to Jordan Peterson and the Intellectual Dark Web," by Zach Weissmueller and Nick Gillespie
"Goodbye True World," by Nick Gillespie
"'We Are as Gods and Might as Well Get Good at It,'" by Nick Gillespie
"Václav Havel's Funeral: Why Truth Needs Love," by Matt Welch
"Curb This, Mofo," by Nick Gillespie
"Enthusiasm, Curbed," by Nick Gillespie
Send your questions to roundtable@reason.com. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.
Today's sponsors:
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Audio production by Ian Keyser; assistant production by Hunt Beaty.
Music: "Angeline," by The Brothers Steve
- Producer: Hunt Beaty
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The White House Lied About Its IRS Funding Only Targeting the Rich
You don't say?
Impossible.
I was assured by hundreds of journalists, dozens of fact-checkers and the entirety of pre-Musk Twitter that the army of 87,000 new IRS employees was only about making billionaires pay their fair share.
That's also why they need to be armed.
Yep, there are 756 billionaires in the USA. Each of them so adept at avoiding paying taxes that we needed to hire 115 agents per billionaire to keep an eye on them.
2020s news reported today!
Also, Some people starting to question Biden’s cognitive abilities. Inflation may be higher than reported. This new ESG/DEI stuff seems to guiding a lot of of what we see, hear, and do in media, at school, and at work, virtually everywhere in the western world. Defunding the police not always a panacea for curbing inner city violence. Vaccine mandates may not be constitutional per se, and some conspiracy theorists think they may have something to do with critical shortages in the military and medical, airline industries. Wide open borders still super awesome in every scenario all the time (story by Fiona).
Well, akshually, anyone not below the poverty line is kinda “rich”.
Inflation pressure raises incomes just enough to put working folks into higher tax brackets thus making more rich people. Their spending power is reduced but their taxes increase.
Again, how could anarchy be worse?
Inflation is our friend!
Wouldn't you like to own a $4,000 suit, and smoke a $75 cigar, drive a $600,000 car?
I know I would!
Everybody will be a millionaire!
The whole thing is a cover for their lack of spines.
It tales a hedgehog to teach a confederacy of squirrels
I'd show you my shocked face, but it got worn out and is in the shop for repairs.
"The White House Lied..."
Who'd you vote for, Welsh? Are the cocktail parties worth it? Do you look in the mirror in the morning and realize what a slimy, lying, TDS-addled piece of shit you are?
Or do you just shave and go into the office?
Would not be surprised if the answer were the second; Welsh has a seat on the DC gravy train and he's not about to risk it.
No, he and most of his Reason brethren have sold whatever whatever was left of their souls to be part of the gang. I really hope AI renders them all unemployable.
But hey, they can learn to code, right?
Is it really a "lie" if everybody knows it isn't true?
The White House Lied About Its IRS Funding Only Targeting the Rich
well DUH!
Here's the Murray Rothbard article that Gillespie talks about. It really is shocking.
https://reason.com/1975/07/01/the-death-of-a-state-2/
let me fix this for you and make a nearly universally true statement.
The Whitehouse Lied.