Don’t Blame The IRS, They’re Just Doing Their Jobs

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – The American sheeple want free airports.  The American sheeple want the TSA.  The American sheeple want all the subsidized power companies.  The American sheeple want their vainglorious military dispatched hither and yon to every corner of the globe.  The American people want nonstop, never-ending war, it seems.  The American people want all these government services.  The American people want subsidized crops.  The American people want and demand subsidized ethanol in our fuel.  I could go on from now until the end of the next century.  Somebody’s gotta pay for it.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  I wanted to get into Walter Williams for just a moment here.  I know everyone is all ginned up about the TVA and the electric companies and deregulation and all that stuff.  We covered all that in the second hour.  Hell, we even covered privatizing parking meters.  That reminds me, I knew there was something I left on the table.  I never liked the term “privatizing.”  Let me clarify that.  I do not like nor approve of the term “privatizing,” and I’ll tell you why.  Privatizing implies that the government’s confiscation, coercion, co-opting of, managing of any commodity, service, whatever it may be, it implies that it is a worthy endeavor that must continue but we just don’t want government want it; we want it to be privatized.  We’re going to continue the tyranny.  We’re going to continue the harassment or whatever the case may be, we’re just going to let private companies benefit from the process.

I’ll give you a great example.  How many of you have been ticketed in your local hamlet by a remote-operated surveillance camera on a stoplight or on a rural highway or above a stop sign or something?  You got a ticket in the mail and it said: Congratulations!  You ran a red light.  We got you on candid camera.  Please send $250 to this address or otherwise we’ll suspend your license and that’ll cost you $500.  Then we’ll fine you another $1,000.  That’ll be 1,500 total smackers.  Thank you very much for playing our game.  People start complaining about this.  [mocking] “All right, all right, we’ll take it away from the sheriff and we’ll job it out, we’ll privatize it.”  You’ve implied that the surveillance  cameras are things that we need and that the public has demanded and we must have more of, we just don’t want the government running it; we want Uncle Bobo running it.

Mike Church Show Transcript: IRS’ Lois Lerner Pleads The Fifth Because She Has Nothing To Hide?

As anyone that has ever studied this particular issue knows, anytime a private entity runs those cameras and those services, the corruption is just massive.  We have a story locally here in the New Orleans area about this.  I’m sure there are hundreds and hundreds of them across the amber waves of fuel.  The lesson of the exercise is: take the damn cameras down.  If you work hard in your locale, you can work against this and you can get those cameras removed.  Was there ever a vote on this?  Who votes for this kind of stuff?  It’s another one of these instances where democracy trumps in a not-so-pleasing manner over republicanism.  [mocking] “The people thought it was a good idea.  We voted on it.  We got 50 percent of the population plus one that wanted nonstop, 24/7 video surveillance.”  Really?  So they get a ticket in the mail.  [mocking] “Wait, wait, can we undo it?”  Yeah, you can undo it.  Good luck with all that.

Switching over to Walter Williams real quick, “Americans Deserve the IRS.”  I have said the exact same thing myself and I concur.  The American sheeple want free airports.  The American sheeple want the TSA.  The American sheeple want all the subsidized power companies.  The American sheeple want their vainglorious military dispatched hither and yon to every corner of the globe.  The American people want nonstop, never-ending war, it seems.  The American people want all these government services.  The American people want subsidized crops.  The American people want and demand subsidized ethanol in our fuel.  I could go on from now until the end of the next century.  Somebody’s gotta pay for it.

They want all these things, but [mocking] “Government is too big.  You need to cut back.  Wait a minute, don’t cut back on the TVA.  We didn’t mean that government,” as today’s discussion illustrates.  [mocking] “You mean if I fly, there are fees and they’re different for every airport?”  That’s right.  Gee, how did that happen?  Because the government stopped subsidizing.  [mocking] “I don’t want to pay those fees.  Get Delta to pay those fees.”  If Delta pays those fees, they’re going to charge you.  But wait a minute, we’re running debt up in your name.  We are charging you.  Your plane ticket is now subsidized by the next generation of air travelers.  If they have to repay the debt, they probably won’t be able to travel through the air, not nearly as much as you enjoy today.

Mike Church Show Transcript: Big Government Needs The IRS Like We Need The Sun

So somebody has got to be the bad guy, the tax collector.  As I have pointed out — there’s a monologue and a transcript at MikeChurch.com.  The IRS works for the Congress.  The IRS is the tax collector of first resort for the Congress.  Congress wants the IRS to collect the money.  They hire them and instruct them to collect the money so they can spend it.  The idea here that the IRS is the bad guy, no, Congress is the bad guy.  The imbeciles that elect the members of Congress are the even bigger bad guys.  Williams, just in the headline, is correct in my book. The American sheeple do deserve the IRS.

[reading]

Since the 1791 ratification of our Constitution, [Mike: Actually, Williams, it happened in 1788.] until well into the 1920s, federal spending as a percentage of gross domestic product never exceeded 5 percent, except during war. Today federal spending is 25 percent of our GDP. State and local government spending is about 15 percent of the GDP. That means government spends more than 40 cents of each dollar we earn. If we add government’s regulatory burden, which is simply a disguised form of taxation, the government take is more than 50 percent of what we produce.

In order to squeeze out of us half of what we produce, a government tax collection agency must be ruthless and able to put the fear of God into its citizens. The IRS has mastered that task. Congress has given it powers that would be deemed criminal if used by others. [Mike: This is exactly what I talked about last week. If you did what the IRS does, you’d be locked up. You can’t go in front of an IRS audit and plead the Fifth Amendment, but an IRS hack can go in front of its employer, Congress, and plead the Fifth Amendment.] For example, the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment protects Americans against self-incrimination and being forced to bear witness against oneself. That’s precisely what one does when he is compelled to sign his income tax form. However, a Fifth Amendment argument can’t be used as a defense in a court of law. The IRS will counter that you voluntarily provided the information on your tax return.

If you’re in debt to Bank of America, Wells Fargo or any other private creditor, in order for it to garnish your wages as a means of collecting debt, it must first get a court order. By contrast, the IRS can garnish your wages without having to get a court order first. If your employer doesn’t obey the IRS and send it a portion of your wages, he will be held accountable for what you owe. At the minimum, some IRS collection procedures violate one of the basic tenets of the rule of law — namely, the law of the land applies equally to individuals (and other private entities) and the government (and its officials and agents).

Our Founding Fathers feared the emergence of an agency such as the IRS and its potential for abuse. That’s why they gave us Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution, which reads: “No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.” A capitation is a tax placed directly on an individual. That’s what an income tax is.

[end reading]

Mike Church Show Transcript: The Power Genie Is Out Of The Bottle And Running Amok In The National Government

Mike:  Of course, the founders also left Article I, Section 8 with the power to collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, but they needed to be uniform.  So when federal spending exceeded what could be collected by duties, imposts and excises, someone had to concoct some manner, some method of collecting the difference, thus the 16^th Amendment was born and thus the Internal Revenue Service.  Williams concludes:

[reading]

You might ask, “How could we be a great nation without all the government spending?” When our Constitution was ratified in 1791, we were a weak and poor nation. One hundred forty years later, with federal spending a mere pittance of what it is today, we became the world’s richest and most powerful nation. No small part of this miracle was limited and unintrusive government.

The bottom line is that members of Congress need such a ruthless tax collection agency as the IRS because of the charge we Americans have given them. We want what the IRS does — namely, to take the earnings of one American so Congress can create a benefit for some other American. Don’t get angry with IRS agents. They are just following orders.

[end reading]

Mike:  And indeed they are following orders, and boy do they follow them.  This is precisely the argument that I was making a week ago or two weeks ago when the IRS story broke.  What are you complaining about?  The IRS is just doing what Congress told it to do.  That’s all that they’re doing.  That’s all that they have ever done, what Congress tells them to do.  If you have a problem with the IRS, what you actually have a problem with is the Congress.  You have a problem with the fact that there are appropriations that must be satisfied.  You have a problem with the fact that there is a gross amount — and when I say gross I don’t mean gross in total, I mean gross as in disgusting — of spending that’s going on.  Someone has to pay for it, and so appears the IRS.  If it weren’t the IRS, it would be some other tax collector from some other agency collecting some other manner of tax.  The fact of the matter is, where do you think the $3.7 trillion the Feds spent, where do you think it comes from?  Someone has to catalog it.  Someone has to collect it.  Congress has hired its minions to do its own dirty work and they just name them not Congress but the Internal Revenue Service.

Mike Church Show Transcript: The Rich Get Richer, The Elite More Powerful, So What Do The Rest Of Us Get?

You get what you asked for.  Next time you go to the TSA, thank Congress for the IRS.  Next time you go to an airport, thank Congress for the IRS.  Next time you drive on the vainglorious interstate highway system, thank Congress for the IRS.  Next time you fill up with ethanol, thank Congress for the IRS.  Next time you eat subsidized grains, fruits, and vegetables, thank Congress for the IRS.  Next time you go and buy drugs at a pharmacy, thank Congress for the IRS.  The FDA micromanages the drug supply, does it not?  Who do you think pays them?  Oh, gee, Congress.  Where does Congress get the money?  They hire the IRS to harass it out of you.  If your problem is really with big government, your problem is not with the IRS.  They are just the henchmen that do the bidding of the real bad guys, and that’s the Congress.  The Congress do the bidding of the other bad guys, that’s the corporatists and all those that have their hands in the cookie jar.

For many of you listening right now, your best friends are the IRS.  If you work for a defense contractor, you should send candy every tax day to the IRS.  [mocking] “Thank you for guaranteeing my salary.  I might actually go out and be productive and do something with my life if it weren’t for the Congress and theirs.  Thank you, IRS.”  You people should be sending greeting cards to these agents and thanking them for their service.  As a matter of fact, since so many of us subsist off of federal largesse, we ought to be in the practice of doing that, thanking our IRS agents for their service.  If only they wore uniforms.  We know they have guns.

End Mike Church Show Transcript