Vice President Kamala Harris told the American people that her values have not changed. Unfortunately, given the penchant for the Biden-Harris administration to use government resources against their political opponents, that is a scary thought.
With the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) political targeting and intimidation scandals from the Obama-Biden administration still fresh and the use of the Justice Department to engage in lawfare against their political opponents by the Biden-Harris administration still happening, it is hard to conceive of a worse idea than to expand both the size and scope of the IRS. Yet, that is exactly what has been done.
As vice president, Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for the administration’s so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA) in 2022. A hallmark of this legislation was an expansion of the IRS in unprecedented and unilateral ways. Democrats allocated an astounding $80 billion to grow the IRS, enabling the agency to hire 87,000 new enforcement agents and expanding the agency’s reach into taxpayers’ lives.
This seems like a strange priority, especially when you look at the IRS’ long history of failure and mismanagement. President Trump’s Department of Justice held the IRS accountable for unfairly targeting conservative groups for audits and enforcement during the Obama administration. Old-timers will remember that the potential of using the IRS against his political enemies was one of the House impeachment charges against President Richard Nixon back in the 1970s.
It was Harris’ tie-breaking vote that paved the way for the “Direct File” tax filing pilot program. This initiative, championed by far-left progressives like Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren compelled the IRS to develop its own tax preparation software, adding yet another layer of government control over taxpayers. This expansion is not only a blatant conflict of interest but also a severe threat to taxpayer privacy, as it requires the agency to gather even more personal data than it already has.
Beyond the obvious expansion of power and information held by the IRS, the “Direct File” tax filing pilot program is designed to disconnect taxpayers from the actual amount of taxes they pay. It is important that taxpayers see how much of their money the federal government is taking out of their paychecks rather than just having a refund check instantly deposited in their bank account as if it was a gift from Washington, D.C.
So, Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote in the Senate is pouring $80 billion into the IRS, supersizing one of the most unpopular and abuse plagued federal agencies. Giving the IRS more power was one of Harris’ values that have not changed, even as she ignored her job by failing to limit the flow of illegal immigrants into our country through the southern border.
In fact, Harris was first given a border-security role by President Biden in early 2021 – almost a year and a half before the IRA was signed into law. From 2021 to 2023 — as the IRA was being pushed by the Biden-Harris administration and touted as a success — there were about 8 million migrant encounters at the border – 3.5 times higher than the rate during the Trump administration.
Harris makes claims that she supports hiring more Border Patrol agents. If that is the case, you would think that she would have used the $80 billion in taxpayer dollars that went to the IRS to actually secure our border.
She would have prioritized hiring tens of thousands of much-needed enforcement agents at our border — not 87,000 new enforcement agents at the IRS to go after American families who are actually trying to follow the law.
Due to Harris’ vote and actions, the IRS now has unprecedented access to sensitive taxpayer information, creating a dangerous concentration of power in an agency known for data breaches. President Trump himself experienced the dangers of an unchecked IRS when, in 2019, his own private tax information was leaked.
Additionally, two recent independent reports, from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), called out the IRS for failing to keep accurate records of the Direct File program’s true cost and for overstating taxpayer interest in such a system.
As of August 2024, the IRS is, unsurprisingly, the least popular federal agency, with half of Americans having an unfavorable opinion of the agency. That’s why leading Republicans have been working hard to undo this IRS expansion and dozens of conservative groups have rightly criticized “Direct File” programs for years.
At the same time, nearly half of Americans cite illegal immigration as a top problem facing our country. Her record shows that addressing these real concerns has never been a Harris value.
Instead, she chose to use her position and power to spend almost $100 billion to get law enforcement agents where she really thinks they’re needed — at the Internal Revenue Service.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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