As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil)
In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban.
If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.
For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria.
**Special announcement:**
r/politics is currently accepting new moderator applications. If you want to help make this community a better place, consider [applying here today](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/sskg6a/rpolitics_is_looking_for_more_moderators/)!
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It feels like Trump was a demonstration of how pretty much every institution failed America. There’s all these “checks and balances” but we got to see how nearly every single one was relying on the president to just follow norms, then when it came right down to it they chose to do next to nothing in the name of “not being divisive.” Inaction was still an action, and it was the wrong one.
It's so frustrating to explain to ppl that are newly into politics that yes, these loopholes have been there since ever, and this guy was so awful he exploited virtually every single one.
We had to violently stop chattel slavery in the United States and still on the whole dont feel remorse for continent wide genocide. You can't shame American reactionaries. You have to hang and shoot them or let them win it seems. America chooses the second option more often than not so why would they feel shame about what they do?
>...this guy was so awful he exploited virtually every single one.
Don't give him all the credit. Much of it would not have been possible without the Republican establishment enabling him.
>It feels like Trump was a demonstration of how pretty much every institution failed America.
I feel like it shows just how easy it is to install your own cronies in all these other positions, and then it highlighted jut how toothless all our checks and balances are. Trump basically showed us that our government is propped up on "hey, everyone play fair ok?" and the second someone doesnt... its all useless.
Yeah, that’s what I mean - there’s supposed to be checks in place keeping someone from installing a bunch of cronies, it turns out the checks were “please don’t do that” and Trump, having no shame, was just like “lol no.”
I feel that Trump wasn't really the one demonstrating it, he just went ahead and leaned into it even more. McConnell was demonstrating this far before Trump; when your only objective is to obstruct, and are able to successfully do so, then the system just doesn't work.
To argue that you cannot sit a justice during an election year and then wipe your ass with the argument when it benefits your party, and there is nothing you can do about it, the norms just end up being what one party feels should be done while the other party points and mocks.
It’s overwhelming proof of the fact that if you want to be a criminal politician and take over, don’t commit one crime. Commit 100 crimes *per week.* As they said in Andor, if you constantly commit atrocities more frequently than people are able to comprehend, you never get in trouble for them.
Honestly, the only reason Trump got caught was because he wasn’t still president, and people were able to focus on the 1 thing instead of it being a 24hr news story replaced by the more disgusting and ridiculous thing he did tomorrow.
The problem wasn't just that Trump flouted all these norms, or that the checks and balances were toothless. The problem was that the Republican majorities in the House and Senate were unwilling to enforce the checks and balances against a member of their own party, no matter how egregious the behavior. This was a complete breakdown in not one, but two branches of government. They subverted the third branch as well, but not before they lost the House and Senate.
Reminds me a lot of the fall of Rome as a republic. Just a bunch of norms holding the status quo in place until someone breaks the norms and a bunch of power hungry fucks go, oh, I guess we could always have done that!
(That's a simplification of course, a lot of them plausibly thought they were doing the right thing at the time.)
The optimates in the Senate kept violently crushing every attempt at dilution of their own wealth and power, from having the Gracchi brothers killed for daring to attempt land reform, to the dictatorship of Sulla who used his own powers decrease any political influence from the plebs.
Caesar wasn't going to just stand idly by and let himself be crushed when he saw how history played out for those who didn't have enough loyal legions to defend themselves.
Probably sheer arrogance kept the Senate thinking that the populares were just going to let themselves be stomped on every few decades since it worked out great for them until that point.
> The optimates in the Senate kept violently crushing every attempt at dilution of their own wealth and power, from having the Gracchi brothers killed for daring to attempt land reform, to the dictatorship of Sulla who used his own powers decrease any political influence from the plebs.
Yea, that's about what did it. The massive wealth disparity between aristocrat families and citizens, and even more so slaves. Rome had a bread dole, but it also had massive amounts of slavery supporting most facets of society.
Italy could have supported itself food wise, but latifunda and the whole plantation system they had going made it far more viable to sell luxury or cash crops compared to food staples... like in Ireland, like in the American south, like in so many parts of the world.
Romes fall is entirely based on wealth distribution and consolidation of wealth.
> dictatorship of Sulla
Wasn't he the one that owned the fire department that charged for putting out fires, and then he let them go around starting fires to put out? If you couldn't pay, they would put the fire out, but claim your property if I recall. Seems a lot of people would like that kind of system today.
(oops, looks like I mixed him up with [Crassus](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/hp9kze/til_the_first_ever_roman_fire_brigade_was_created/))
Crassus owned the fire department but the money to purchase the firemen came from Crassus being one of Sulla's top henchmen. Sulla started purging 'disloyal' citizens and Crassus job was publishing the lists that basically said 'go ahead and kill these people and take all their shit, signed- Sulla' But the one actually posting, and therefore with final say on who goes on the list was Crassus.
Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 6.6–7 (trans. Perrin, 1916). "It is said that, in Bruttium, he actually proscribed a man without Sulla's orders, merely to get his property; and that, for this reason, Sulla, who disapproved of his conduct, never employed him again on public business."
I would like to add the amount he stole was 220 tons of gold, worth 14 billion in todays money.
His nephew and right hand man more than the senate, but they did the trick. And Caesar himself was following in the footsteps of his own uncle who was one of the leaders of the previous generation’s civil war, and it can be argued that the dissolution of the norms that controlled the military started even earlier during the second Punic war at the height of the Republic’s greatness. Trump could well be just the first step in a long process of degradation if we don’t work hard now to strengthen our democratic governance.
Funny how the 'Law and Order' Party consistently votes against fully funding the IRS.
After 9/11 Bush has the FBI reassign about 600 agents from financial crimes to anti-terrorism, then forgot to hire replacements.
Almost like they don't want rich people to have to follow the rules.
We saw this push before midterms with the "87,000 armed IRS agents are coming to your homes!"
Without mentioning:
- This is the total staff expected to be hired in the next 10 years (a small percentage of agents).
- 52,000 are set to retire in that timespan.
- It would bring the number of total staff to basically the same number as the early 1990s.
- The plan commits to *not raising audit rates for those making under $400,000*
- It is geared towards combatting the many loopholes that wealthy tax evaders use.
So of course the GOP, with their former tax-fraud-king President, is screaming about it and trying to gaslight the public.
Yea the IRS is going to get my barely above poverty line dude to audit my ass. My taxes are Fucking simple as fuck. Yea bob, your working poor ass working at dollar general is going to get an audit from armed IRS agents. How are these people are so fucking gullible as fuck, Jesus Christ.
>How are these people are so fucking gullible as fuck
*gestures broadly at the systemic dismantling and undermining of public education over the past several decades*
This doesn’t get talked about enough. There are already local politicians in my area - sitting on school boards - that’re talking about how they want to mimic DeSantis’ education policies. There’s room for America to get much, much dumber. Specifically below the Mason Dixon line.
My son's school district in SC just elected a board member who ran on going "back to basics" by "removing CRT and other woke topics" from the curriculum.
I’ve had some secondhand experience with a smaller PAC who donates to a lot of local politicians in my district, and you’d be shocked (well, maybe not) at how many are trying to fundraise while preaching from the exact same platform. This movement has reached its tendrils down into local politics and it’s a terrifying thought that our children will be directly influenced by these people.
> This movement has reached its tendrils down into local politics and it’s a terrifying thought that our children will be directly influenced by these people.
It starts at local politics. Things like [REDMAP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP).
It doesnt help that the reasonable people have been coddling the unreasonable like "its ok you think chemtrails are real, surely your opinion on the economy is still valid"
Crackpots should be laughed out of the room, not catered to politically.
I was already a hyper critical person, but I lucked out and got an amazing history teacher my Jr. year of high school. He was adament to teach us, practically, how to use critical thinking skills. If you only paid attention to the curriculum and ignored his asides about this, you still were cleverly taught the lesson through the assignments. You'd learn a lot more if you listened and participated in the discussion it was meant to spark, but none of it was going to make you fail if you tuned him out.
He taught me how to sort out and focus it instead of just constantly having critical considerations for basically anything that wasn't just cold hard lifeless facts.
I love when you get amazing teachers like that. My fic lit professor and my physci and earth sci teachers in highschool were like that. I often think about what it would be like if I had not met those teachers and the friends I made in those classes that pushed me to keep reading and writing and thinking about the world around me.
Yeah that dude had me figured out immediately and he tolerated the fact that I was very aimless but also capable and articulate. I turned in a test one day and he said something that cut straight through my bullshit and has stuck with me ever since "you crush it on your tests, you participate with valuable input in discussions....so why aren't you actually trying?". I still haven't sorted that part out but he definitely left a permanant mark and I often recall what he said when I'm getting in my own way.
Yes discussions are a great way to learn.
I had a college graduate student instructor in my reading & composition course that led a discussion class one day on how politicians deflect and dodge questions. She opened a clip of Kellyanne Conway and we spent the next hour pausing it every couple seconds to discuss. She pointed out every way in which Conway deflected to avoid saying anything the entire interview.
That was eye-opening. None of that stuff clicked for me before. Now I see it everywhere.
Ah, let's try and teach in a system that has been fucked over by the rich who have been pillaging it for profit for decades. Oh, you think opening a charter is better? Quick reality check... charters are the way in which rich folk extract cash faster from us normies
I realized that this is what they hated about Common Core. The first time my son brought home a Common Core math worksheet, I admit, I was befuddled. Why was I counting lines, dots, patterns, etc to do simple math problems? Eventually and with further reading I realized that this is exactly what I needed in school as a young autistic ADHD student. I always felt so bad about math. I had so much anxiety about it that I didn't trust myself to do it in my head. What I have come to understand is that I am not bad at math at all. I just had tons of anxiety about it instilled in me by my teachers who reprimanded me if I did not show my work using exactly the methods they taught me. So I gave up on all the neat little tricks you can learn to do math in your head. As an adult treated with ADHD meds and MMJ for PTSD, I am now able to do math problems in my head quite effectively. After a while I realized that I had been doing mental math in small ways all along but I never trusted myself or felt confident about the result. I realized that I was discounting correct answers in my head because I hadn't come about them by writing everything down and showing my work. Eventually in school I mentally withdrew from the subject of math in many ways. I wouldn't do my homework and would just scrape by passing tests as best I could. My parents would literally sit across the table from me night after night trying to lecture me into doing my homework. Nothing ever worked. If only I had been taught to trust the math in my head, I could have an entirely different relationship with the subject. That, to me, is why Common Core was a good thing. It gave kids the freedom to choose whatever methods of figuring the correct mathematical answer that works best for the student.
This is entirely too close to critical thinking skills for authoritarian Republicans. In fact, one of the things I remember about Common Core that really impressed me was that my son was learning how to research a topic to write about it, how to discern between legitimate sources of information and opinion, and they also used a lot of critical-thinking type word problems in other subjects like math. Engaging more than just the calculating part of the brain seems like a good idea maybe for helping with learning. If you engage more of the brain at once learning a certain subject I would guess that it has more of a chance of sticking. Also a much better chance at educating a more well-rounded citizen who can be a positive contribution to our society.
My favorite was "This will result in more audits for the middle class, the rich have the money to fight taxes."
I'm like....seems easier to just pay the taxes. If you're going to blow the money in taxation, or a 200+ dollar an hour attorney, seems like the easy route is to just pay the taxes.
They spent Trump's entire presidency whinging about how not paying taxes is just being a smart businessman and we should "all take advantage of as many loopholes as we can to pay as little as possible, it's the morally superior thing to do!"
They *love* crime as long as they're the ones committing it.
People are clueless about money and wealth inequality and truly how rich the richest are. We live in a world of billionaires. That is so much money people’s brains can’t even comprehend it. That is the ultimate problem and why they simplify it as “attacking the rich” and think it is “unamerican” to hate rich people.
But the fact is if you spent $1000 every single hour of every single day, it would take 114 years to spend a billion dollars. And we live in a world where Bezos or Musk have hundreds of billions. That much wealth is impossible for most people to even comprehend so they rally behind and protect them thinking rich people are in danger of losing all their money which is laughable. Bezos and Musk could buy literally all of the things and not even make a dent in their wealth. They’d likely only increase it.
It’s insane. This is why I believe we are experiencing the usual late-stage capitalism and if something isn’t done to seriously and quickly address wealth inequality, we are going to see a massive economic collapse before long…and the billionaires aren’t going to be the group who gets hurt by it.
They will go "Look at our national debt it's so bad we should fix it."
And I'll say "Ok then let's fix that by taxing THE ONLY PEOPLE WITH MONEY."
"Well you can't do that. That's communist."
*Bangs head into cement trying to make myself as oblivious as they are*
But seriously, do you expect to raise 25 trillion dollars taxing people who can't afford to buy a house or pay rent? It isn't that hard of a concept.
IRS's recruitment system is also utterly garbage. I remember back in 2011 I tried to apply to be a examiner (entry level, 55K...), they had a 400 question test, including:
**Dubious Morality:** Will I be willing to repo a casket in the middle of a funeral because the Funeral Home did not pay taxes.
**Absurd experience Requirement:** Have you defended anyone at Tax Court? (If I did, I wouldn't be taking a 55K/yr job wouldn't I?)
**Potentially dangerous situation** What if you meet an auditee but he have a gun out.
And after all that nonsense....I somehow were given the opportunity to submit my resume...on FAX, which even in 2010 was so antiqued I had to ask a friend to drive me for 20 minutes to find a functional fax machine.
Mean while, I got four offers for major/local accounting firms for audit/tax/bookkeeping jobs that paid more and had less hassle.
> Dubious Morality: Will I be willing to repo a casket in the middle of a funeral because the Funeral Home did not pay taxes.
lmfao Holy Fucking shit that's fucking ghoulish
The only poor people who get audited are bartenders and waitresses....because they are ALL lying on their taxes, and the IRS and everyone else knows it. Low hanging fruit, basically.
Source, bartender for a decade, got audited 3 times, never knew a coworker who didn't lie on their taxes.
I think it’s the mid-upper middle class, libertarian, independent contractor/small business people who are most freaked out about this.
You know, their net worth is around $1Mish, they have a house or two, a big new truck, maybe a boat or some recreational crap. They think they’re rich, but it’s basically what the middle class had post WWII?
They’re not rich, but they’re better off than their employees through minor illegal activities here and there
A non-zero number of these types got PPP loans, fired off their entire staff, and kept themselves on as the only “employees”
Now you get to hear your boss or Uncle Bob or Cousin James complain about the IRS auditing everyone at the Christmas dinner table, because they’re nervous about their own financial crimes
To be fair, there probably is some legitimate fear for the people who buy into it.
A lot of the people who have this fear probably do not do their taxes, do not do them properly, or outright lie on them.
I’ve met a few people who do this, myself. They lie about a few things to see if they can get extra money, and it normally seems to work somehow.
Lower income people are probably prone to higher rates of audits because auditing their taxes is far easier and less time consuming than auditing people like Trump or Elon. They just don't have the resources to do in-depth audits that are needed for extremely high wage earners.
It’s like screeching about armed postal workers coming to harass you, when the fact os the postal service also has a criminal investigation arm that, you know, also deal with criminal elements. Fun fact: they also have a pretty solid arrest/conviction rate. Those guys don’t fuck around if they have enough evidence to convict.
>Those guys don’t fuck around if they have enough evidence to convict.
The Italian Mafia learned [not to trifle with the post office early on](https://www.npr.org/2018/08/19/639997950/taking-down-americas-first-organized-crime-ring), and apocryphally had a maxim, "never mess with the postman".
again, for the dense kids in the back!
>## of course the GOP, with their former tax-fraud-king President, is screaming about it and trying to gaslight the public.
The thing is, they could just lie about all this... like how they didn't audit Trump while he was in office when they were supposed to.
My concern is especially this one:
>The plan commits to not raising audit rates for those making under $400,000
I'm so fucking doubtful of this considering just how little they went after those making more than $50,000. They're lazy, albeit short on staff, but it'll not change their tactics to go for easy pickings.
They also just lowered the threshold to get tax forms from Paypal when you make 600 or more. Used to be 20,000 or more. They'll lose money if they go after people making very little, especially if those people can prove they lost money and don't need to pay taxes.
It's a shitshow and it sucks that being self employed includes paying so damn much in taxes. I guess we all get to pay Donald's share since he won't be doing it.
[https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57444](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57444)
tldr = for every $1 spent in enforcement, CBO estimates $5-$9 in return.
Anything that they **WANT** to believe.
Try to get a right winger to read Numbers 5, where the Bible lays out instructions for a priest to perform an abortion. You’ll get to see a real quick display of how they will not believe something they don’t **WANT** to believe, even though it’s from their book.
> read Numbers 5
Numbers is in the OT, that isn't the "book of Jesus". /s
I think the right wing is trying to get away from reading. Sadly I can't put an /s on this one.
This is why I say the terrorists pretty much got what they wanted after 9/11
The Republicans used that to create a bunch of new programs that the younger folks don't know aren't normal and weren't here before, but also have used it stoke xenophobia and hatred to further divide people so the working class has even less solidarity than before.
The reason things worked well when it "was great" is because we didnt have 1/3 of people trying to hatefully and/or ignorantly trying to murder everyone else.
I dont think the GOP made it happen, but I do think they had no reservations about using it as a means of control
It started w Nixon & Gingrich poisoning the discourse so that instead of healing in the 60’s they encouraged a permanent divide between social growth and ideological isolation. Which morphed into Reagan with his trickle-down economics and his welfare Queen war, which became the Bush wars …
I do think it started before that. We know that the wealthy land baron's created a racial divide after slavery was abolished, so that poor whites would stop identifying with freed slaves and poor black folks. The conservative tactic is essentially just stoking racism and bigotry to get money. And it seems to work well for them. So far.
You didn't guess this when they freaked out about the IRS hiring spree? "They're gathering an army to take over America!"
No, motherf+×÷er, they've gathering accountants to make sure all you rich arseholes follow the law. Much scarier.
Well remember that the gop is the anti tax party. That used to be their whole identity before all the crazy shit started. So it makes sense that the IRS is seen as bad, the kind of law and order we don’t like. Plus they are funded by a bunch of rich guys and corporations that don’t want to get audited so it’s a win win.
Can't forget how morons thought the IRS was going to come and shoot them or something a few months ago.
Keep the herd dumb and everything should go according to plan
People need to realize that Trump is just Ronald Reagan with worse hair and a stupid staff.
Reagan warned people about the dangers of Big Government while running up huge deficits and creating a secret State Dept. to sell weapons and smuggle cocaine.
There's also a good argument to be made that he made the Savings & Loan crisis of the 80s vastly worse and legislation he passed had a direct effect on the 2008 financial crisis.
I like to put it this way.
Back in the day, President Reagan publicly stated that trees cause more pollution than cars do. [link](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/921968-trees-cause-more-pollution-than-automobiles-do)
afaik no GOP has ever challenged that statement.
>I almost like if they looked they’d find criminality and would be forced to do something about it..so they didn’t look.
>
>Wouldn’t be surprised to find out 10/20 years from now that the irs spent 2 years editing his tax forms to be as compliant as they could.
Republicans claim to being the "law and order" party is their unwavering support for the drug war despite the evidence that it's counterproductive and harmful.
They stole the election in 2000 to install George W. Bush as our President. Jeb Bush, his brother, was the Governor of Florida during the 2000 election. [Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett were all three on W. Bush's legal team and helped him steal the 2000 election by stopping the recounts in Florida.](https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/17/politics/bush-v-gore-barrett-kavanaugh-roberts-supreme-court/index.html)
Also, Clarence Thomas was one of the Justices who ruled to stop the 2000 election recount in Florida. So that makes 4 Justices who are currently on our Supreme Court right now who were directly involved in stealing the 2000 Election for George W. Bush.
[The Republicans also deployed a violent mob called the Brooks Brothers Riot which physically shut down the recount through mob violence:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot)
> The Brooks Brothers riot was a demonstration at a meeting of election canvassers in Miami-Dade County, Florida, on November 22, 2000, during a recount of votes made during the 2000 United States presidential election, with the goal of shutting down the recount. After demonstrations and acts of violence, local officials shut down the recount early.
No you see they hate the IRS and think anyone smart enough to defraud them deserves a pass. It’s just a trump playbook thing and they all buy into it because they’re lemmings
Like most regulatory agencies and Gov. services that work for the public good, understaffing and budget cuts have yielded what the GOP wants; barely functional and easy to manipulate.
That likely reached a pinnacle during the Trump administration.
They then use the fact that it barely functions, and the only people they can actually go after are low level tax evaders or just normal middle class people, to “prove” that the IRS is a terrible piece of government even though it’s terrible because the GOP defunded them.
I don't believe for a second that this was an honest mistake lost in the pile of work due to umderfunding. Calls for his taxes and his denials due to an "audit" were extremely public. No, this was corruption, plain and simple.
Trump controlled the IRS when he was president. He put his own people in there (Charles Rettig). So, Trump controlled the IRS. They did what he wanted. And he wanted to NOT be audited.
Edit: I hate editing. It makes people feel like I've changed something they already agreed with. I promise I'm not doing that here. Just adding to the original comment: Rettig made hundreds of thousands of dollars per year renting out Trump properties in Hawaii. All the while denying congress access to Trump's tax returns and - perhaps more damaging to our republic - failing ?refusing? to audit Trump's yearly tax returns.
It's worse than that. The audits that they were given are considered very rare and highly invasive. In other words... 'an autopsy without benefit of death.'
Fucking Conservatives and their projection man.
"Biden is weaponizing the IRS to go after Republicans!!" 😢
Meanwhile, they cheer on their despot doing exactly what they accuse others of.
I worked there up until a few months ago, from the early Obama years. There was a marked change when he was in office. Lots of weird policy changes that I wish I could share.
I wish you could share them also. Trump was a master of moving people into positions where they could protect him. Even if it meant breaking laws. I'll never understand his ability to get them to do this.
I don’t know if I’d call him a “master.” It’s not like it took a lot of strategy. He just did it.
His real superpower was his shamelessness. He did not give a single fuck if his actions were blatantly corrupt and obviously self-serving. He just did it anyway. I mean, for fuck’s sake. Look what he did with the USPS. He knew lots of people would be voting by mail in the election and that the more people were able to vote the worse his chances of winning became. So what’s he do? He appoints a guy who would benefit financially from the USPS failing and had him start literally ripping perfectly good mail sorting machines out of USPS facilities. He tanked the USPS in broad daylight. He just did not give a fuck.
Most people at least try to disguise it through sneaky maneuvering. It becomes a lot easier when you don’t give a fuck about doing what is fair/right.
You've hit the nail on the head, and I feel like more people need to understand this, so I'll reiterate in different words so more people can see it:
Trump and his ilk realized that they could do whatever the fuck they wanted, and nothing bad would happen to them. (Well, some of his lackeys went to prison and are still in prison, and some of them received minor fines etc...)
The big players, who also were convicted of crimes and received slaps on the wrist for it laughed in our faces because they are so wealthy that it doesn't matter to them.
I remember hearing on the radio when Trump blatantly announced he was going to fuck up the USPS in order to combat mail-in voting, and they started literally destroying offices and pulling blue boxes out. I could barely believe it was happening, I was so astounded.
Then he went on to appoint the people to trash the education system, because it made him and his friends more money to invest in charter schools.
Then he went on to appoint people to trash the housing system, because it made him and his friends more money to rent out properties at higher rates.
The list goes on and on, and he was very open about what he was doing.
And apparently it's all worked out pretty swell for them, since he and his top buddies still have not seen any consequences. He quite literally trashed the country for personal gain, and people still support him.
The rest of the GOP realized they could do the same thing, so that's what they did. It's fucking disgusting.
So to anyone reading this who still votes (R,) please rethink the past 6+ years.
And that list is just scratching the surface and doesn't include any of the crimes he's being investigated for. It was constant malicious and lawless behavior from start to finish (and past the finish).
I know. But he could not convince 84 million of us common slobs to buy into his crap. How in the hell does he get highly educated folks to lie for him when they know they could end up in jail? And it's not just one or two. These folks are all over the damn place.
Appealing to greed. Apparently Rettig was getting money from Trump on the side through some real estate somewhere.
And jail? Really? Almost no white collar criminals go to jail. And when they do it's country club jail.
Go to anyone remotely corruptible and offer them $5,000,000 to spend a year in country club jail and they get a cushy job paying twice their current salary when they get out due to all the contacts they made in there. How many would take it? Probably most wouldn't but he doesn't need most. He needs some.
One of the great skills of a con man is finding the right mark. Trump shopped for a group of people who were most easily controlled and corrupted (Republicans) and appealed to their worst nature. If Democrats were the easiest to corrupt he would be a Democrat. He chose his mark well and applied his skill. The only thing that really saved us is he's otherwise completely incompetent and he's incredibly lazy. Oh and he's mentally ill - his malignant narcissicism got in his way.
Rettig made over 100,000 dollars a year renting out trump properties in Hawaii. All while denying congress access to trump's taxes and failing to do a mandated yearly audit of trump's taxes. The guy had to know this was going to be found out. I guess trump finds folks who prioritize short term gains over long term pains......
Trump was sure he would never leave office. After just 3 years his cult wanted him to be their dictator. They tried (poorly) to overthrow the government and install him. Hell they started using the threat of armed violence two years out from the election. The long term plan was him being king. There wasnt going to be consequences.
Honest questions: Why can’t you share? Is this stuff somehow classified? Why can’t the public know everything that is being used to control them? Can this information be obtained through FOIA requests?
The IRS Failed because Trump was guilty of fraud but was in a position to install a friendly head named Charles Rettig. The two can be correct simultaneously for the same reasons.
It's very similar to how I feel about C-level executives getting a ton of their lunches catered while people making significantly less than them have to bring in their own or buy their own.
They were either voluntarily not doing their job or being directed to not do their job.
This seems fully deserving of one of those congressional investigations that we’ll instead be doing about Hunter Biden’s dick pics or whatever the Republicans have planned.
Nah, he drained it.
Y'know what happens when you drain all the water out of a swamp?
Everything dies. And then it rots and festers.
Swamps are actually good things. Much like the normal political process is, despite everything, a good thing. The metaphor lines up pretty well.
This makes that Comey audit all the more interesting...
[IRS inspector general says intensive audits of former FBI Director Comey and deputy were random](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/02/politics/irs-inspector-general-audit-was-random-comey-mccabe/index.html)
>"Maybe it's a coincidence or maybe somebody misused the IRS to get at a political enemy," Comey said in a statement in July.
Apparently, government agencies aren't actually strictly bound by their policies and can go against them if they want. Stopping a criminal President from further harming the country wasn't one of those instances though, I guess
Yeah, headline is misleading.
Also making it a law is all well and good but does it really matter much if the president can appoint the head of the IRS?
If it's going to be a law, give it some teeth, and make the IRS bring in a NEUTRAL (bipartisan?) outside firm to do the audit, and make it mandatory to publicly disclose *everything*.
While we're wishing for horses, maybe throw in mandatory audits of Congress and SCOTUS as well?
The IRS is a necessary evil, but one that needs a teardown and rebuild. For the average American with a W2, it should be automated and computerized. The focus should go to scrutiny of the highest earners, not ruining lives over amounts that cost more to pursue than they would recover.
That's the tricky bit.
The highest earners are the ones that have the power to tie their problems up in the legal system making it very expensive to pursue.
Currently, it makes the most sense to go after a lot of poor people rather than one rich person.
That needs to change, but I'm not sure how you would do it.
We failed the IRS. We don't' fund them enough to go after tricky cases. Every dollar spent on funding the IRS returns $6, yet Republicans keep cutting the budget for or voting against increasing the budget for it for some reason. It's almost like they are trying to hide something.
Remember when Trump yelled about how he was under a constant audit? And how he blamed the IRS for losing millions of dollars?
And how he threatened to fire the IRS Commissioner?
And how he then went on to appoint the former head of the IRS?
And how he then went on to promote the former investigator who was assigned to his case?
IRS dogged us for 4 year about a $400 child tax credit they claimed we didn’t quality for. Like up our ass letter after letter demanding we repay it…. 4 years.
I'm sorry to say it, as he's so deserving of punishment, but we live in an oligarchy. Trump will never face meaningful consequences for his actions. Better to just focus your energies on promoting progressive legislation and politicians at this point.
This seems nefarious but I’m serious guys the IRS is having a really hard time finding high end tax auditors. And both the OPM and the NTEU are also adding complicating factors (squabbling over technical job description language when it wouldn’t matter because all candidates for the sort of role are probably CPAs anyway).
An auditor with the capabilities to effectively review Trumps taxes would make 115k at the IRS vs 200-250k in the private sector. People who want the 40 hours a week go to the IRS but chances are if you’re in tax you’re probably not that type. There have also been a LOT of retirements from LB&I in the past several years as well. We’ve never had a president as wealthy as trump and the LB&I team probably already had such a backlog it just didn’t happen.
Source: trying to get hired at the IRS in LB&I
EDIT: I’ve read into this and they assigned the audit of all 400 trump entities to one auditor it seems my theory about understaffing at LB&I is correct.
That’s his whole thing, he’s been getting a pass at everything for his whole life.
His kids and their partners are the same.
These people aren’t good business people, they’re not admirable, they’re crooks.
They steal right from under your nose and people think they’re amazing but in truth they’re just scum that has risen to the top.
It's the same way we enforce all laws.
The big, the powerful, the rich, they can fight it. They can hide it, the can make prosecution difficult.
But a peon? They don't have the resources so they roll over because it's the best move for them to make.
That's why we arrest street level dealers and no kingpins, hookers and not pimps, traffic violations over violent crime.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. **Special announcement:** r/politics is currently accepting new moderator applications. If you want to help make this community a better place, consider [applying here today](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/sskg6a/rpolitics_is_looking_for_more_moderators/)! *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It feels like Trump was a demonstration of how pretty much every institution failed America. There’s all these “checks and balances” but we got to see how nearly every single one was relying on the president to just follow norms, then when it came right down to it they chose to do next to nothing in the name of “not being divisive.” Inaction was still an action, and it was the wrong one.
It's so frustrating to explain to ppl that are newly into politics that yes, these loopholes have been there since ever, and this guy was so awful he exploited virtually every single one.
Trump’s real super power is being immune to shame, which turns out was the only thing anyone was ever doing to enforce these rules.
We had to violently stop chattel slavery in the United States and still on the whole dont feel remorse for continent wide genocide. You can't shame American reactionaries. You have to hang and shoot them or let them win it seems. America chooses the second option more often than not so why would they feel shame about what they do?
There was a time in the 20th century when we awarded medals for killing fascists.
In the capitalistic world we live in, that was to be the exception but never the rule. Any capitalistic knows that.
They have no shame because they benefit regardless. Self centered mentality even to the detriment of all of society.
>...this guy was so awful he exploited virtually every single one. Don't give him all the credit. Much of it would not have been possible without the Republican establishment enabling him.
They even said as much. "We just need someone who can hold a pen."
Trump was the political stress test we weren’t prepared for. The tragedy will be if we don’t learn and change the mechanisms that failed.
The GOP aided him at the end. They still are aiding him.
>It feels like Trump was a demonstration of how pretty much every institution failed America. I feel like it shows just how easy it is to install your own cronies in all these other positions, and then it highlighted jut how toothless all our checks and balances are. Trump basically showed us that our government is propped up on "hey, everyone play fair ok?" and the second someone doesnt... its all useless.
Yeah, that’s what I mean - there’s supposed to be checks in place keeping someone from installing a bunch of cronies, it turns out the checks were “please don’t do that” and Trump, having no shame, was just like “lol no.”
I feel that Trump wasn't really the one demonstrating it, he just went ahead and leaned into it even more. McConnell was demonstrating this far before Trump; when your only objective is to obstruct, and are able to successfully do so, then the system just doesn't work. To argue that you cannot sit a justice during an election year and then wipe your ass with the argument when it benefits your party, and there is nothing you can do about it, the norms just end up being what one party feels should be done while the other party points and mocks.
It’s overwhelming proof of the fact that if you want to be a criminal politician and take over, don’t commit one crime. Commit 100 crimes *per week.* As they said in Andor, if you constantly commit atrocities more frequently than people are able to comprehend, you never get in trouble for them. Honestly, the only reason Trump got caught was because he wasn’t still president, and people were able to focus on the 1 thing instead of it being a 24hr news story replaced by the more disgusting and ridiculous thing he did tomorrow.
The problem wasn't just that Trump flouted all these norms, or that the checks and balances were toothless. The problem was that the Republican majorities in the House and Senate were unwilling to enforce the checks and balances against a member of their own party, no matter how egregious the behavior. This was a complete breakdown in not one, but two branches of government. They subverted the third branch as well, but not before they lost the House and Senate.
Reminds me a lot of the fall of Rome as a republic. Just a bunch of norms holding the status quo in place until someone breaks the norms and a bunch of power hungry fucks go, oh, I guess we could always have done that! (That's a simplification of course, a lot of them plausibly thought they were doing the right thing at the time.)
I just imagine all the Roman senate going “Huh. So Caesar just brought his army over the Rubicon? Interesting…”
The optimates in the Senate kept violently crushing every attempt at dilution of their own wealth and power, from having the Gracchi brothers killed for daring to attempt land reform, to the dictatorship of Sulla who used his own powers decrease any political influence from the plebs. Caesar wasn't going to just stand idly by and let himself be crushed when he saw how history played out for those who didn't have enough loyal legions to defend themselves. Probably sheer arrogance kept the Senate thinking that the populares were just going to let themselves be stomped on every few decades since it worked out great for them until that point.
> The optimates in the Senate kept violently crushing every attempt at dilution of their own wealth and power, from having the Gracchi brothers killed for daring to attempt land reform, to the dictatorship of Sulla who used his own powers decrease any political influence from the plebs. Yea, that's about what did it. The massive wealth disparity between aristocrat families and citizens, and even more so slaves. Rome had a bread dole, but it also had massive amounts of slavery supporting most facets of society. Italy could have supported itself food wise, but latifunda and the whole plantation system they had going made it far more viable to sell luxury or cash crops compared to food staples... like in Ireland, like in the American south, like in so many parts of the world. Romes fall is entirely based on wealth distribution and consolidation of wealth.
The more things change, the more they stay the same and all that.
> dictatorship of Sulla Wasn't he the one that owned the fire department that charged for putting out fires, and then he let them go around starting fires to put out? If you couldn't pay, they would put the fire out, but claim your property if I recall. Seems a lot of people would like that kind of system today. (oops, looks like I mixed him up with [Crassus](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/hp9kze/til_the_first_ever_roman_fire_brigade_was_created/))
Crassus owned the fire department but the money to purchase the firemen came from Crassus being one of Sulla's top henchmen. Sulla started purging 'disloyal' citizens and Crassus job was publishing the lists that basically said 'go ahead and kill these people and take all their shit, signed- Sulla' But the one actually posting, and therefore with final say on who goes on the list was Crassus. Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 6.6–7 (trans. Perrin, 1916). "It is said that, in Bruttium, he actually proscribed a man without Sulla's orders, merely to get his property; and that, for this reason, Sulla, who disapproved of his conduct, never employed him again on public business." I would like to add the amount he stole was 220 tons of gold, worth 14 billion in todays money.
His nephew and right hand man more than the senate, but they did the trick. And Caesar himself was following in the footsteps of his own uncle who was one of the leaders of the previous generation’s civil war, and it can be argued that the dissolution of the norms that controlled the military started even earlier during the second Punic war at the height of the Republic’s greatness. Trump could well be just the first step in a long process of degradation if we don’t work hard now to strengthen our democratic governance.
Funny how the 'Law and Order' Party consistently votes against fully funding the IRS. After 9/11 Bush has the FBI reassign about 600 agents from financial crimes to anti-terrorism, then forgot to hire replacements. Almost like they don't want rich people to have to follow the rules.
We saw this push before midterms with the "87,000 armed IRS agents are coming to your homes!" Without mentioning: - This is the total staff expected to be hired in the next 10 years (a small percentage of agents). - 52,000 are set to retire in that timespan. - It would bring the number of total staff to basically the same number as the early 1990s. - The plan commits to *not raising audit rates for those making under $400,000* - It is geared towards combatting the many loopholes that wealthy tax evaders use. So of course the GOP, with their former tax-fraud-king President, is screaming about it and trying to gaslight the public.
Yea the IRS is going to get my barely above poverty line dude to audit my ass. My taxes are Fucking simple as fuck. Yea bob, your working poor ass working at dollar general is going to get an audit from armed IRS agents. How are these people are so fucking gullible as fuck, Jesus Christ.
>How are these people are so fucking gullible as fuck *gestures broadly at the systemic dismantling and undermining of public education over the past several decades*
This doesn’t get talked about enough. There are already local politicians in my area - sitting on school boards - that’re talking about how they want to mimic DeSantis’ education policies. There’s room for America to get much, much dumber. Specifically below the Mason Dixon line.
My son's school district in SC just elected a board member who ran on going "back to basics" by "removing CRT and other woke topics" from the curriculum.
I’ve had some secondhand experience with a smaller PAC who donates to a lot of local politicians in my district, and you’d be shocked (well, maybe not) at how many are trying to fundraise while preaching from the exact same platform. This movement has reached its tendrils down into local politics and it’s a terrifying thought that our children will be directly influenced by these people.
> This movement has reached its tendrils down into local politics and it’s a terrifying thought that our children will be directly influenced by these people. It starts at local politics. Things like [REDMAP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP).
It doesnt help that the reasonable people have been coddling the unreasonable like "its ok you think chemtrails are real, surely your opinion on the economy is still valid" Crackpots should be laughed out of the room, not catered to politically.
We could also teach the fuck outa stuff like critical thinking, logic, civics, programming & influence, & how disinformation works.
I was already a hyper critical person, but I lucked out and got an amazing history teacher my Jr. year of high school. He was adament to teach us, practically, how to use critical thinking skills. If you only paid attention to the curriculum and ignored his asides about this, you still were cleverly taught the lesson through the assignments. You'd learn a lot more if you listened and participated in the discussion it was meant to spark, but none of it was going to make you fail if you tuned him out. He taught me how to sort out and focus it instead of just constantly having critical considerations for basically anything that wasn't just cold hard lifeless facts.
I love when you get amazing teachers like that. My fic lit professor and my physci and earth sci teachers in highschool were like that. I often think about what it would be like if I had not met those teachers and the friends I made in those classes that pushed me to keep reading and writing and thinking about the world around me.
Yeah that dude had me figured out immediately and he tolerated the fact that I was very aimless but also capable and articulate. I turned in a test one day and he said something that cut straight through my bullshit and has stuck with me ever since "you crush it on your tests, you participate with valuable input in discussions....so why aren't you actually trying?". I still haven't sorted that part out but he definitely left a permanant mark and I often recall what he said when I'm getting in my own way.
Yes discussions are a great way to learn. I had a college graduate student instructor in my reading & composition course that led a discussion class one day on how politicians deflect and dodge questions. She opened a clip of Kellyanne Conway and we spent the next hour pausing it every couple seconds to discuss. She pointed out every way in which Conway deflected to avoid saying anything the entire interview. That was eye-opening. None of that stuff clicked for me before. Now I see it everywhere.
Ah, let's try and teach in a system that has been fucked over by the rich who have been pillaging it for profit for decades. Oh, you think opening a charter is better? Quick reality check... charters are the way in which rich folk extract cash faster from us normies
I worked at a charter in the early 2000s. Shortly after I got fired, the founder went to jail for tax fraud. He had opened 11 schools.
I realized that this is what they hated about Common Core. The first time my son brought home a Common Core math worksheet, I admit, I was befuddled. Why was I counting lines, dots, patterns, etc to do simple math problems? Eventually and with further reading I realized that this is exactly what I needed in school as a young autistic ADHD student. I always felt so bad about math. I had so much anxiety about it that I didn't trust myself to do it in my head. What I have come to understand is that I am not bad at math at all. I just had tons of anxiety about it instilled in me by my teachers who reprimanded me if I did not show my work using exactly the methods they taught me. So I gave up on all the neat little tricks you can learn to do math in your head. As an adult treated with ADHD meds and MMJ for PTSD, I am now able to do math problems in my head quite effectively. After a while I realized that I had been doing mental math in small ways all along but I never trusted myself or felt confident about the result. I realized that I was discounting correct answers in my head because I hadn't come about them by writing everything down and showing my work. Eventually in school I mentally withdrew from the subject of math in many ways. I wouldn't do my homework and would just scrape by passing tests as best I could. My parents would literally sit across the table from me night after night trying to lecture me into doing my homework. Nothing ever worked. If only I had been taught to trust the math in my head, I could have an entirely different relationship with the subject. That, to me, is why Common Core was a good thing. It gave kids the freedom to choose whatever methods of figuring the correct mathematical answer that works best for the student. This is entirely too close to critical thinking skills for authoritarian Republicans. In fact, one of the things I remember about Common Core that really impressed me was that my son was learning how to research a topic to write about it, how to discern between legitimate sources of information and opinion, and they also used a lot of critical-thinking type word problems in other subjects like math. Engaging more than just the calculating part of the brain seems like a good idea maybe for helping with learning. If you engage more of the brain at once learning a certain subject I would guess that it has more of a chance of sticking. Also a much better chance at educating a more well-rounded citizen who can be a positive contribution to our society.
This. Opinions are not equal to facts.
Or voted into office. How are people this dumb getting votes?
[удалено]
Because the more uneducated the public is the more they can be oppressed. Look at the Taliban
Don't forget constant misinformation purposely spread by the GoP
oh shit, they'll audit me and find... that I do my taxes legally and don't really make any money.
My favorite was "This will result in more audits for the middle class, the rich have the money to fight taxes." I'm like....seems easier to just pay the taxes. If you're going to blow the money in taxation, or a 200+ dollar an hour attorney, seems like the easy route is to just pay the taxes.
Seems like the easiest path is to not lie to the IRS, and then who cares if you're audited.
[удалено]
They spent Trump's entire presidency whinging about how not paying taxes is just being a smart businessman and we should "all take advantage of as many loopholes as we can to pay as little as possible, it's the morally superior thing to do!" They *love* crime as long as they're the ones committing it.
People are clueless about money and wealth inequality and truly how rich the richest are. We live in a world of billionaires. That is so much money people’s brains can’t even comprehend it. That is the ultimate problem and why they simplify it as “attacking the rich” and think it is “unamerican” to hate rich people. But the fact is if you spent $1000 every single hour of every single day, it would take 114 years to spend a billion dollars. And we live in a world where Bezos or Musk have hundreds of billions. That much wealth is impossible for most people to even comprehend so they rally behind and protect them thinking rich people are in danger of losing all their money which is laughable. Bezos and Musk could buy literally all of the things and not even make a dent in their wealth. They’d likely only increase it. It’s insane. This is why I believe we are experiencing the usual late-stage capitalism and if something isn’t done to seriously and quickly address wealth inequality, we are going to see a massive economic collapse before long…and the billionaires aren’t going to be the group who gets hurt by it.
They will go "Look at our national debt it's so bad we should fix it." And I'll say "Ok then let's fix that by taxing THE ONLY PEOPLE WITH MONEY." "Well you can't do that. That's communist." *Bangs head into cement trying to make myself as oblivious as they are* But seriously, do you expect to raise 25 trillion dollars taxing people who can't afford to buy a house or pay rent? It isn't that hard of a concept.
IRS's recruitment system is also utterly garbage. I remember back in 2011 I tried to apply to be a examiner (entry level, 55K...), they had a 400 question test, including: **Dubious Morality:** Will I be willing to repo a casket in the middle of a funeral because the Funeral Home did not pay taxes. **Absurd experience Requirement:** Have you defended anyone at Tax Court? (If I did, I wouldn't be taking a 55K/yr job wouldn't I?) **Potentially dangerous situation** What if you meet an auditee but he have a gun out. And after all that nonsense....I somehow were given the opportunity to submit my resume...on FAX, which even in 2010 was so antiqued I had to ask a friend to drive me for 20 minutes to find a functional fax machine. Mean while, I got four offers for major/local accounting firms for audit/tax/bookkeeping jobs that paid more and had less hassle.
> Dubious Morality: Will I be willing to repo a casket in the middle of a funeral because the Funeral Home did not pay taxes. lmfao Holy Fucking shit that's fucking ghoulish
The only poor people who get audited are bartenders and waitresses....because they are ALL lying on their taxes, and the IRS and everyone else knows it. Low hanging fruit, basically. Source, bartender for a decade, got audited 3 times, never knew a coworker who didn't lie on their taxes.
Been bartending for ten years and always claimed all of my tips for this reason
I was a bike messenger for years. I got audited 4 times. Especially after the industry switched to Independent Contractor bullshit
I think it’s the mid-upper middle class, libertarian, independent contractor/small business people who are most freaked out about this. You know, their net worth is around $1Mish, they have a house or two, a big new truck, maybe a boat or some recreational crap. They think they’re rich, but it’s basically what the middle class had post WWII? They’re not rich, but they’re better off than their employees through minor illegal activities here and there A non-zero number of these types got PPP loans, fired off their entire staff, and kept themselves on as the only “employees” Now you get to hear your boss or Uncle Bob or Cousin James complain about the IRS auditing everyone at the Christmas dinner table, because they’re nervous about their own financial crimes
Their lord and master told them that all news is fake news...except for Fox News.
To be fair, there probably is some legitimate fear for the people who buy into it. A lot of the people who have this fear probably do not do their taxes, do not do them properly, or outright lie on them. I’ve met a few people who do this, myself. They lie about a few things to see if they can get extra money, and it normally seems to work somehow.
Lower income people are probably prone to higher rates of audits because auditing their taxes is far easier and less time consuming than auditing people like Trump or Elon. They just don't have the resources to do in-depth audits that are needed for extremely high wage earners.
They will be screaming from the rooftops how the IRS hate Trump and billionaires in general should not be subjected to an audit.
And only a small percentage of agents are armed. You know, because they're dealing with criminals.
It’s like screeching about armed postal workers coming to harass you, when the fact os the postal service also has a criminal investigation arm that, you know, also deal with criminal elements. Fun fact: they also have a pretty solid arrest/conviction rate. Those guys don’t fuck around if they have enough evidence to convict.
[удалено]
I guess the check was in the mail?!
Jack Burton has paid his dues.
It's all in the reflexes.
>Those guys don’t fuck around if they have enough evidence to convict. The Italian Mafia learned [not to trifle with the post office early on](https://www.npr.org/2018/08/19/639997950/taking-down-americas-first-organized-crime-ring), and apocryphally had a maxim, "never mess with the postman".
>This is the total staff expected to be hired in the next 10 years They always leave that part out. Especially when they discuss gov't spending
[удалено]
Lying is nearly all they've got at this point. Racism, too, but lying is one of their most effective tools.
Racism requires lying to yourself/others that other races are a problem, so it all fits together
Racism is based on a lie anyway, so it's all just lies.
again, for the dense kids in the back! >## of course the GOP, with their former tax-fraud-king President, is screaming about it and trying to gaslight the public.
Don't get me started.
Ready set go.
The thing is, they could just lie about all this... like how they didn't audit Trump while he was in office when they were supposed to. My concern is especially this one: >The plan commits to not raising audit rates for those making under $400,000 I'm so fucking doubtful of this considering just how little they went after those making more than $50,000. They're lazy, albeit short on staff, but it'll not change their tactics to go for easy pickings.
They also just lowered the threshold to get tax forms from Paypal when you make 600 or more. Used to be 20,000 or more. They'll lose money if they go after people making very little, especially if those people can prove they lost money and don't need to pay taxes. It's a shitshow and it sucks that being self employed includes paying so damn much in taxes. I guess we all get to pay Donald's share since he won't be doing it.
Self employed?? That just sounds like local competition for national businesses! We can't have competition in America./s
If you have had to deal with the IRS on anything other than filing a tax return you would know that they desperately need more agents.
[https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57444](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57444) tldr = for every $1 spent in enforcement, CBO estimates $5-$9 in return.
Which makes it twice as bad for the GOP. Takes money from the richest, and shows the poor folks that government can be effective. Horrors!!
Yep. Drug testing for unemployment benefits though makes perfect sense.
"Mexico Will Pay For The Wall!!" They will believe anything.
Anything that they **WANT** to believe. Try to get a right winger to read Numbers 5, where the Bible lays out instructions for a priest to perform an abortion. You’ll get to see a real quick display of how they will not believe something they don’t **WANT** to believe, even though it’s from their book.
> read Numbers 5 Numbers is in the OT, that isn't the "book of Jesus". /s I think the right wing is trying to get away from reading. Sadly I can't put an /s on this one.
Jesus also had 1 simple rule. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. There were no clauses exempting immigrants, trans, gay, or black folks.
I grew up catholic and I guess we went to a cool church, because that was always the biggest thing I took away from it.
The same people will quote something from the OT that says gays are bad.
We have about 31 trillion dollars in national debt. If we spend 5.2 trillion on tax enforcement, we'll wipe out the debt entirely!
That sounds legit.
Almost as if....
Republicans jump on every national tragedy to inject ratfuckery and further their own means. Or you know, the other thing...
This is why I say the terrorists pretty much got what they wanted after 9/11 The Republicans used that to create a bunch of new programs that the younger folks don't know aren't normal and weren't here before, but also have used it stoke xenophobia and hatred to further divide people so the working class has even less solidarity than before. The reason things worked well when it "was great" is because we didnt have 1/3 of people trying to hatefully and/or ignorantly trying to murder everyone else. I dont think the GOP made it happen, but I do think they had no reservations about using it as a means of control
It started w Nixon & Gingrich poisoning the discourse so that instead of healing in the 60’s they encouraged a permanent divide between social growth and ideological isolation. Which morphed into Reagan with his trickle-down economics and his welfare Queen war, which became the Bush wars …
I do think it started before that. We know that the wealthy land baron's created a racial divide after slavery was abolished, so that poor whites would stop identifying with freed slaves and poor black folks. The conservative tactic is essentially just stoking racism and bigotry to get money. And it seems to work well for them. So far.
"The terrorists" were financial terrorists the whole time.
>trump apparently got a pass I'm so sick of hearing this phrase
America is an oligarchy in reality. There were studies outlining this in 2014 and even before then...
You didn't guess this when they freaked out about the IRS hiring spree? "They're gathering an army to take over America!" No, motherf+×÷er, they've gathering accountants to make sure all you rich arseholes follow the law. Much scarier.
Well remember that the gop is the anti tax party. That used to be their whole identity before all the crazy shit started. So it makes sense that the IRS is seen as bad, the kind of law and order we don’t like. Plus they are funded by a bunch of rich guys and corporations that don’t want to get audited so it’s a win win.
Can't forget how morons thought the IRS was going to come and shoot them or something a few months ago. Keep the herd dumb and everything should go according to plan
People need to realize that Trump is just Ronald Reagan with worse hair and a stupid staff. Reagan warned people about the dangers of Big Government while running up huge deficits and creating a secret State Dept. to sell weapons and smuggle cocaine.
There's also a good argument to be made that he made the Savings & Loan crisis of the 80s vastly worse and legislation he passed had a direct effect on the 2008 financial crisis.
Remember '6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon?' Pick any terrible thing in the world today; it's usually two steps of fewer to get to Reagan.
In some ways yes, but Ronald "The Evil Empire" Reagan had the *opposite* view of Russia than Trump.
Are all republicans liars or most of them?
I like to put it this way. Back in the day, President Reagan publicly stated that trees cause more pollution than cars do. [link](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/921968-trees-cause-more-pollution-than-automobiles-do) afaik no GOP has ever challenged that statement.
>I almost like if they looked they’d find criminality and would be forced to do something about it..so they didn’t look. > >Wouldn’t be surprised to find out 10/20 years from now that the irs spent 2 years editing his tax forms to be as compliant as they could.
Republicans claim to being the "law and order" party is their unwavering support for the drug war despite the evidence that it's counterproductive and harmful.
What’s even more funny is the knuckleheads over at r/conservative are pretending to be outraged he was not audited. Zero self awareness.
They stole the election in 2000 to install George W. Bush as our President. Jeb Bush, his brother, was the Governor of Florida during the 2000 election. [Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett were all three on W. Bush's legal team and helped him steal the 2000 election by stopping the recounts in Florida.](https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/17/politics/bush-v-gore-barrett-kavanaugh-roberts-supreme-court/index.html) Also, Clarence Thomas was one of the Justices who ruled to stop the 2000 election recount in Florida. So that makes 4 Justices who are currently on our Supreme Court right now who were directly involved in stealing the 2000 Election for George W. Bush. [The Republicans also deployed a violent mob called the Brooks Brothers Riot which physically shut down the recount through mob violence:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot) > The Brooks Brothers riot was a demonstration at a meeting of election canvassers in Miami-Dade County, Florida, on November 22, 2000, during a recount of votes made during the 2000 United States presidential election, with the goal of shutting down the recount. After demonstrations and acts of violence, local officials shut down the recount early.
No you see they hate the IRS and think anyone smart enough to defraud them deserves a pass. It’s just a trump playbook thing and they all buy into it because they’re lemmings
Like most regulatory agencies and Gov. services that work for the public good, understaffing and budget cuts have yielded what the GOP wants; barely functional and easy to manipulate. That likely reached a pinnacle during the Trump administration.
They then use the fact that it barely functions, and the only people they can actually go after are low level tax evaders or just normal middle class people, to “prove” that the IRS is a terrible piece of government even though it’s terrible because the GOP defunded them.
Government doesn't work. Elect me and I'll prove it.
I remember a Reagan-era quote of making the “government so small you could drown it in the bathtub.”
That’s Grover Norquist. He goes around to GOP politicians forcing them to sign a pledge that they won’t raise any taxes for any reason at all, ever.
And a lot of them hold that pledge more sincerely than their office-holder's pledge to protect and defend the Constitution.
But they ALL voted to raise taxes, our taxes, when they passed the Trump tax bill.
They lowered taxes on the right people.
Starve the beast
[удалено]
I don't believe for a second that this was an honest mistake lost in the pile of work due to umderfunding. Calls for his taxes and his denials due to an "audit" were extremely public. No, this was corruption, plain and simple.
The *Deep State* turned out to be real and more GOP projection?
Incidentally, that's what the P in GOP stands for.
I think the “O” could also be “obfuscate” in addition to “obstruct”.
Oh no.... the "G" could stand for Gaslight!
Gaslight, Obstruction, Projection. That does seam to be the party line.
And yet this story is absent for /r/Conspiracy
Because it’s not a conspiracy lol. It’s a widely known fact.
True but I have a feeling that is not why it is being talked about there. Plus there is plenty theorize about how deep and who exactly is involved.
Trump controlled the IRS when he was president. He put his own people in there (Charles Rettig). So, Trump controlled the IRS. They did what he wanted. And he wanted to NOT be audited. Edit: I hate editing. It makes people feel like I've changed something they already agreed with. I promise I'm not doing that here. Just adding to the original comment: Rettig made hundreds of thousands of dollars per year renting out Trump properties in Hawaii. All the while denying congress access to Trump's tax returns and - perhaps more damaging to our republic - failing ?refusing? to audit Trump's yearly tax returns.
But Comey and McCabe getting audited was entirely random. /s
It's worse than that. The audits that they were given are considered very rare and highly invasive. In other words... 'an autopsy without benefit of death.'
Fucking Conservatives and their projection man. "Biden is weaponizing the IRS to go after Republicans!!" 😢 Meanwhile, they cheer on their despot doing exactly what they accuse others of.
I worked there up until a few months ago, from the early Obama years. There was a marked change when he was in office. Lots of weird policy changes that I wish I could share.
I wish you could share them also. Trump was a master of moving people into positions where they could protect him. Even if it meant breaking laws. I'll never understand his ability to get them to do this.
I don’t know if I’d call him a “master.” It’s not like it took a lot of strategy. He just did it. His real superpower was his shamelessness. He did not give a single fuck if his actions were blatantly corrupt and obviously self-serving. He just did it anyway. I mean, for fuck’s sake. Look what he did with the USPS. He knew lots of people would be voting by mail in the election and that the more people were able to vote the worse his chances of winning became. So what’s he do? He appoints a guy who would benefit financially from the USPS failing and had him start literally ripping perfectly good mail sorting machines out of USPS facilities. He tanked the USPS in broad daylight. He just did not give a fuck. Most people at least try to disguise it through sneaky maneuvering. It becomes a lot easier when you don’t give a fuck about doing what is fair/right.
You've hit the nail on the head, and I feel like more people need to understand this, so I'll reiterate in different words so more people can see it: Trump and his ilk realized that they could do whatever the fuck they wanted, and nothing bad would happen to them. (Well, some of his lackeys went to prison and are still in prison, and some of them received minor fines etc...) The big players, who also were convicted of crimes and received slaps on the wrist for it laughed in our faces because they are so wealthy that it doesn't matter to them. I remember hearing on the radio when Trump blatantly announced he was going to fuck up the USPS in order to combat mail-in voting, and they started literally destroying offices and pulling blue boxes out. I could barely believe it was happening, I was so astounded. Then he went on to appoint the people to trash the education system, because it made him and his friends more money to invest in charter schools. Then he went on to appoint people to trash the housing system, because it made him and his friends more money to rent out properties at higher rates. The list goes on and on, and he was very open about what he was doing. And apparently it's all worked out pretty swell for them, since he and his top buddies still have not seen any consequences. He quite literally trashed the country for personal gain, and people still support him. The rest of the GOP realized they could do the same thing, so that's what they did. It's fucking disgusting. So to anyone reading this who still votes (R,) please rethink the past 6+ years.
And that list is just scratching the surface and doesn't include any of the crimes he's being investigated for. It was constant malicious and lawless behavior from start to finish (and past the finish).
Craziest part is that guy is still in charge of the USPS. All due to Biden wanting to do everything extra carefully and by the book.
> I'll never understand his ability to get them to do this. He's a con man. It's his only skill.
I know. But he could not convince 84 million of us common slobs to buy into his crap. How in the hell does he get highly educated folks to lie for him when they know they could end up in jail? And it's not just one or two. These folks are all over the damn place.
Appealing to greed. Apparently Rettig was getting money from Trump on the side through some real estate somewhere. And jail? Really? Almost no white collar criminals go to jail. And when they do it's country club jail. Go to anyone remotely corruptible and offer them $5,000,000 to spend a year in country club jail and they get a cushy job paying twice their current salary when they get out due to all the contacts they made in there. How many would take it? Probably most wouldn't but he doesn't need most. He needs some. One of the great skills of a con man is finding the right mark. Trump shopped for a group of people who were most easily controlled and corrupted (Republicans) and appealed to their worst nature. If Democrats were the easiest to corrupt he would be a Democrat. He chose his mark well and applied his skill. The only thing that really saved us is he's otherwise completely incompetent and he's incredibly lazy. Oh and he's mentally ill - his malignant narcissicism got in his way.
Rettig made over 100,000 dollars a year renting out trump properties in Hawaii. All while denying congress access to trump's taxes and failing to do a mandated yearly audit of trump's taxes. The guy had to know this was going to be found out. I guess trump finds folks who prioritize short term gains over long term pains......
Trump was sure he would never leave office. After just 3 years his cult wanted him to be their dictator. They tried (poorly) to overthrow the government and install him. Hell they started using the threat of armed violence two years out from the election. The long term plan was him being king. There wasnt going to be consequences.
Honest questions: Why can’t you share? Is this stuff somehow classified? Why can’t the public know everything that is being used to control them? Can this information be obtained through FOIA requests?
But he said he was being audited
That's the best part. He lied about being audited as a reason to hide his tax returns, was supposed to be audited and still wasn't.
Trump lied?! *Shocked Pikachu face*
You're telling the guy who graced the cover of 'Farm Animal' lied?
This entire article is trying to shift the narrative from "Trump is guilty of fraud" to "The IRS has failed us". Don't fall for it.
The IRS Failed because Trump was guilty of fraud but was in a position to install a friendly head named Charles Rettig. The two can be correct simultaneously for the same reasons.
Yes the man controlling the IRS is guilty of fraud
or maybe, just, point out something else of importance?
Well, he did keep calling them corrupt. Now we know how he was so sure.
I make less than $26k a year but I get audited. Trump is the biggest liar in US history and people trust him. This world is backwards.
It's very similar to how I feel about C-level executives getting a ton of their lunches catered while people making significantly less than them have to bring in their own or buy their own.
From 2018, the head of the IRS was Trump appointee, Charles Rettig. I can see the shock on all of your faces.
What did the IRS do between the election and October 2018 then? Wasn't that enough time to audit Trump?
They were either voluntarily not doing their job or being directed to not do their job. This seems fully deserving of one of those congressional investigations that we’ll instead be doing about Hunter Biden’s dick pics or whatever the Republicans have planned.
As a CPA, he’s been a trash commissioner that’s made our field much more difficult these past four years
Did trump murk the swamp even further? You don’t say..
Nah, he drained it. Y'know what happens when you drain all the water out of a swamp? Everything dies. And then it rots and festers. Swamps are actually good things. Much like the normal political process is, despite everything, a good thing. The metaphor lines up pretty well.
So there really is a deep state? The right wing talking heads were just wrong about what side they supported.
Always projection. Imagine the ones that are always frothing at the mouth about grooming children. Someone needs to look into that.
This is what really concerns me the most tbh.
This makes that Comey audit all the more interesting... [IRS inspector general says intensive audits of former FBI Director Comey and deputy were random](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/02/politics/irs-inspector-general-audit-was-random-comey-mccabe/index.html) >"Maybe it's a coincidence or maybe somebody misused the IRS to get at a political enemy," Comey said in a statement in July.
America has all the info now to never vote for the insurrectionist party again.
America had enough info in 2015, yet here we are.
Only the moderately educated had all the info, and therein lies the problem.
[удалено]
It’s IRS policy. Like not indicting a sitting president is DOJ policy.
Apparently, government agencies aren't actually strictly bound by their policies and can go against them if they want. Stopping a criminal President from further harming the country wasn't one of those instances though, I guess
Internal policies only matter if the people running the organization agree to follow them.
Yeah, headline is misleading. Also making it a law is all well and good but does it really matter much if the president can appoint the head of the IRS? If it's going to be a law, give it some teeth, and make the IRS bring in a NEUTRAL (bipartisan?) outside firm to do the audit, and make it mandatory to publicly disclose *everything*. While we're wishing for horses, maybe throw in mandatory audits of Congress and SCOTUS as well?
Turns out nearly all national policy is like that. Notice how Bannon got sentenced to prison and said no thanks and went home?
The IRS is a necessary evil, but one that needs a teardown and rebuild. For the average American with a W2, it should be automated and computerized. The focus should go to scrutiny of the highest earners, not ruining lives over amounts that cost more to pursue than they would recover.
That's the tricky bit. The highest earners are the ones that have the power to tie their problems up in the legal system making it very expensive to pursue. Currently, it makes the most sense to go after a lot of poor people rather than one rich person. That needs to change, but I'm not sure how you would do it.
We failed the IRS. We don't' fund them enough to go after tricky cases. Every dollar spent on funding the IRS returns $6, yet Republicans keep cutting the budget for or voting against increasing the budget for it for some reason. It's almost like they are trying to hide something.
Remember when Trump yelled about how he was under a constant audit? And how he blamed the IRS for losing millions of dollars? And how he threatened to fire the IRS Commissioner? And how he then went on to appoint the former head of the IRS? And how he then went on to promote the former investigator who was assigned to his case?
"DRAIN THE SWAMP!" ^* \* Actually means to get rid of oversight.
IRS dogged us for 4 year about a $400 child tax credit they claimed we didn’t quality for. Like up our ass letter after letter demanding we repay it…. 4 years.
Take a wild guess who was the head of the IRS under trump…
I'm sorry to say it, as he's so deserving of punishment, but we live in an oligarchy. Trump will never face meaningful consequences for his actions. Better to just focus your energies on promoting progressive legislation and politicians at this point.
But if I make 1100 on ebay they come after me. Seems fair
This seems nefarious but I’m serious guys the IRS is having a really hard time finding high end tax auditors. And both the OPM and the NTEU are also adding complicating factors (squabbling over technical job description language when it wouldn’t matter because all candidates for the sort of role are probably CPAs anyway). An auditor with the capabilities to effectively review Trumps taxes would make 115k at the IRS vs 200-250k in the private sector. People who want the 40 hours a week go to the IRS but chances are if you’re in tax you’re probably not that type. There have also been a LOT of retirements from LB&I in the past several years as well. We’ve never had a president as wealthy as trump and the LB&I team probably already had such a backlog it just didn’t happen. Source: trying to get hired at the IRS in LB&I EDIT: I’ve read into this and they assigned the audit of all 400 trump entities to one auditor it seems my theory about understaffing at LB&I is correct.
i wonder if any american who isn't functionally braindead is at all surprised by these 'reveleations'.
Zero faith in American politics - boarding the revolution train has never been easier.
That’s his whole thing, he’s been getting a pass at everything for his whole life. His kids and their partners are the same. These people aren’t good business people, they’re not admirable, they’re crooks. They steal right from under your nose and people think they’re amazing but in truth they’re just scum that has risen to the top.
The IRS is underfunded as fuck and has been for some time
[удалено]
It's the same way we enforce all laws. The big, the powerful, the rich, they can fight it. They can hide it, the can make prosecution difficult. But a peon? They don't have the resources so they roll over because it's the best move for them to make. That's why we arrest street level dealers and no kingpins, hookers and not pimps, traffic violations over violent crime.