Goons and agents and thugs, oh my
Tracking a falsehood through the conservative blogosphere
Goons and agents and thugs, oh my
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
When I heard Newt Gingrich declare on TV yesterday morning that the health care reform law would unleash 16,000 new IRS agents to police the American people, I was reminded of the line, usually attributed to Mark Twain, about how speedily a falsehood can circle the globe.
Gingrich, the former House Republican speaker who, even in his 12th year of exile from elective politics, is still one of the GOP's most prominent verbal provocateurs, actually did his act on two networks. The message was nearly identical. On Fox News, he attacked health reform by claiming that "people are overwhelmingly opposed to hiring 16,000 IRS agents as health police." And on NBC's Today show, he said, "if you say to the average American, 'do you really want to have 16,000 more IRS agents as a brand-new health police,' they're going to say no."
Yet Gingrich, while famous for his wordplay, didn't craft this particular slogan about 16,000 new IRS agents supposedly trampling our freedom. He was merely refining a piece of agitprop that was hatched in a House Republican report back on March 18 and had already spread - with great speed, escalating hyperbole, and finally the imprimatur of gospel - to the blogs and online bulletin boards and cable TV precincts of the farflung conservative media.
And the thing is, the charge is manifestly inaccurate, at least according to the rules of evidence in the empirical world.
In the words of the nonpartisan watchdogs at factcheck.org, the initial GOP analysis was "based on guesswork and false assumptions, and compounded by outright misrepresentations," and that, bottom line, "the scary claim" of 16,000 IRS agents - or, as some scaremongers insist, 16,500 IRS agents - "simply lacks any foundation in fact."
Fact-free scaremongering is hardly new in American politics, of course. Two hundred and ten years ago, Thomas Jefferson's political opponents circulated leaflets warning that he was a Godless heathen who would shutter the churches. But a case can certainly be made that governing in the 21st century is a far more daunting proposition, given the 24/7 digital news cycle, the instantaenous dissemination of untruths, and, all told, the ever-widening opportunities to use technology in the service of ideological polarization.
So let's examine this talking point about "16,000 IRS agents," as yet another Exhibit A.
It all began on March 11, when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said, in carefully hedged language, that the preliminary cost estimates of health care reform "would probably include an estimated $5 billion to $10 billion over 10 years for administrative costs at the Internal Revenue Service." (Yes, that sounds like a lot of dough - until you realize that our war in Iraq has cost us between $5 billion and $10 billion every month.)
Anyway, the Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee took that CBO statement, dropped the word "probably," and seized on the highest rough estimate, a $10-billion increase for the IRS. Then they simply made the assumption that all this money would be poured into hiring new IRS employes - "without any allowance for desks, computers, office rent, utilities, travel, or other overhead costs necessary to run any government enterprise," as the factcheck.org watchdogs wryly note.
The GOP report on March 18 therefore concluded that "IRS may need to hire as many as 16,500 additional auditors, agents, and other employes."
Let's give those House Republicans a little credit; they hedged their own findings, saying that the IRS "may need" to hire "as many as" 16,500 new people. But within hours, all these nuances were gone, and the real falsities commenced.
Various individual congressman sent out press releases declaring that 16,500 new IRS people - the number was suddenly cast in stone - would be hired to roam the land and make sure that every American was buying health insurance. By March 19, all those new IRS workers had morphed into IRS "agents" - in reality, a small minority of the overall IRS workforce. Hence, the headline that day on the blog sponsored by talk show host Laura Ingraham: "16,500 More IRS Agents Needed to Enforce ObamaCare."
It quickly got worse, of course. On March 21, Republican congressman Paul Ryan said on Fox News that the IRS would soon have "16,000 agents to police this new mandate." On March 22, a host on the Fox Business Network talked about "IRS goons" being put in charge of "matters that involve the most personal choices we make regarding life and death." His guest, Republican congressman Ron Paul, upped the ante still further, by warning about "16,500 armed bureaucrats...16,500 thugs coming with their guns and putting you in jail." Fox promptly posted Paul's remarks on YouTube, where it soon began to circulate as virual email.
There were more such incidents, of course - on March 25, Republican Senator John Ensign, taking a break from his sex and payoff scandal, the one currently being investigated by the Justice Department, asked on the Senate floor, "Do we want IRS agents showing up at people's houses?" - but let's pause for a moment to track the hyperbole:
The CBO makes a rough, preliminary cost estimate...A House Republican report takes the high-end preliminary estimate, and comes up with a hedged worst-case scenario for new hires...The conservative media outlets repeat this scenario, and assume that all the IRS hires will be field agents...Then the field agents all become armed agents (in truth, only "special agents" working criminal cases, just three percent of the IRS workforce, are permitted to carry guns)...and then all these armed field "agents" become demonized as "goons" and "thugs."
It's difficult for the truth to play catchup, but let's give it a try. Despite the claim of yet another Fox Business Network host, this time on March 23, that the IRS will hire "17,000 new agents and spend $10 billion so that they will check that you have the insurance you're supposed to have," the IRS' role in health reform is actually far more benign. For starters, its prime task this year - for the desk jockeys who comprise most of the IRS work force - will be to tell small-business owners about the new tax credit that comes their way as a reward for contributing to their workers' health insurance.
And what about this rumor of 16,000 - or 16,500, or 17,000 - armed thugs banging on doors to enforce the health care mandate? IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman already shot that one down, in sworn congressional testimony on March 25. When asked, point blank, whether IRS agents will be out in the field enforcing that mandate, he replied:
"No...It’s probably worth me being very clear because I think there have been some misconceptions out there." Under the new law, he explained, the insurance companies will send out forms certifying that people have health coverage that meets the mandate - much the way lenders certify to the IRS the amount of interest that somebody has paid on a mortgage. In Shulman's words: "We expect to get a simple form that we won’t look behind that says this person has acceptable health coverage. There are not going to be any discussions about health coverage with an IRS employee."
And that Ron Paul line about the IRS sending people to jail? The law itself waives criminal penalties for non-compliance ("such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution"). Nobody is going to jail.
All told, it would be nice if the world turned on the truth, but we know of course that the gut often trumps the intellect, that fear often crowds out reason. Besides, it's election season, when hyperbole is ascendant and partisan emotion runs high. But until Newt Gingrich, or some other messenger, surfaces anew to spook the public about an IRS "health police," I'm just offering this modest corrective - and not for any partisan purpose, by the way. The most infamous whopper of our era, after all, was uttered by a Democrat who insisted, "I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."
As the late, great political columnist Lars-Erik Nelson once said, "The enemy isn't conservatism. The enemy isn't liberalism. The enemy is bulls--t."
Comment removed.
This is a test. My posts are appearing.— NigeltheMastiff- Republicans accuse us of being and doing what they already are. In poker it's call a "tell." If FOX's Rupert Murdoch accuses the NYT and CNN of being stooges for Democrats, he's actually admitting that he's a stooge for the Republicans. Not to mention, that's some real chutzpah for Murdoch - who hired a former GOP consultant, and a man who wrote a strategy memo for President GW Bush, to run FOX News (Roger Ailes) - to accuse CNN and the NYT of being biased. Murdoch doesn't get it. He thinks CNN and the NYT are his competitors. They're not. They're media. He's a propagandist. – J. Aravosis, right again— WinsomeOne
- still, I posted the exact numbers of the poll. How is that disingenuous? I was responding to morgans nonsense, that the Tea Party is nothing but repubs. I also see in the poll that the members of the Tea Party almost match the general population demographics exactly. Interesting isn't it? You would think from the media reports that they are nothing but fringe elements of the GOP, but the poll tells a totally different story from the narrative put out by its opposition.— NEPhilly
- Not sure if PicassoArt meant to address me or not, but I did go and read Mark Blumenthal’s column and the post at the Monkey Cage. Funny how a rather extensive analysis of the Tea Party poltical affiliation/ideological views reveals what I had said – they are nearly all Republican identified, whether by Party affiliation or ideological leaning. I will stand corrected that it was actually a CNN/Opinion Research Corp poll and not the Gallup, but what I was referring to was a further in depth research than Gallup’s “demographic poll”. Um, the Demographics might be “more reflective of the US General Pop.”, but the political identification of the Tea Party is undeniably almost pure Republican: “ … and that brings me back to the CNN poll. Remember the 52 percent of Tea Party activists who initially identify as independent? It turns out that virtually all of them lean Republican. According to CNN, 88 percent of the activists identify or lean Republican, 6 percent identify or lean Democratic and only 5 percent fall into the pure independent category.” Oh yes – “nonsense”. Insert coin. Turn Handle.— MMorgan83
- I have tried to post several times and can't. I wanted to answer SMike's post, but seem unable. I definitely haven't used any questionable language.— NigeltheMastiff
- NEPhilly, let me explain why it is disingenuous. You might be tempted to think that the 42% independent represent a more moderate contingent, but couldn't we make the argument that many of them are Beck-heads who do not identify with Republican because they want to be *more* conservative?! You are trying to sell this percentage as mainstream, but it is not. That is where you are being disingenuous and playing it off as just numbers. Proof? Well, isn't the tea party backing primary candidates in Arizona and Florida who are much further right than McCain and Crist respectively. To reiterate, your 92% might not be mainstream America, but 49% Republican and 43% *more* Republican; otherwise how do you explain their support in primaries for *more* conservative candidates?— puttinonthefoil
- OK. One more time. SMike, you couldn't be more wrong. I have always been very critical of journalists who really get it wrong (I originally said Sc##w up), including the NYT, which reported without substantiation that McCain had an inappropriate relationship with a lobbyist. That was very poor journalism. I am much more interested in truth and facts than ideology. Yes, of course, I have my ideological leanings. But I will denounce liberals if they are unethical. And I will also denounce journalists who really get it wrong through bad investigation or journalism. I will also give a pass to those whose documents may be wrong, but who are able to substantiate their stories through other means. If they are conservatives, so be it. But there are those who will protect their philosophical leanings at all costs. I am not one of those. There are many who are.— NigeltheMastiff
- Typical republican behavior, and yet another reason not to vote for any of their candidates. On that note, I thought that Corbett might be a good candidate for PA governor based on his corruption investigation, but he has permanently lost my vote by joining in on the pandering AG suit against the new healthcare bill.— johngilb
Obamacare requires insurance companies to pay for treatment of pre-existing conditions. So people can pay nothing, wait until they get horribly sick, and the enroll in an insurance program to pay for your medical care. Insurance companies can only survive this illogical construct if everyone pays in and signs up for insurance. But, as the Pole-man indicates, the Obama administration has no intention of actually enforcing the must-join requirement. Adverse selection will result in unsustainable losses for the insurance companies. When one of the new 16,000 IRS agents identifies illegal non-participants, the confiscated funds go toward growing the federal government, not toward reimbursing the abused insurance company. It's a construct that is intended to dismantle the private insurance industry, and replace it with government bureaucracy.— Mr. Smith- So it's a billion dollars a year then for the IRS to ensure that we pay money to the corporate "health" companies. Thanks for clearing that up. It will make me feel so much better when I have to pay the tax penalty for not buying into the corporate "health" system. I'm so glad you found "the truth."— thefadd
- Gentlemen, I already said that the Tea Party movement is a conservative based group. Obviously their numbers will skew conservative as the group was founded in opposition to the non-stimulus package. My only argument was their demographics almost match the country as a whole down the line, so don't imply that they are a far right fringe group. They are average citizens who care enough about their country to get involved and I applaud them. If their politics doesn't match yours, don't call them names, start your own group or join a group that matches your ideology. Lets have a honest discussion about the role of the federal govt. in everyones lives. Liberal versus conservative and let the movement with the best ideas prevail. Game on:)— NEPhilly
What a dishonest article. Polman says that 16,500 new IRS agents is an overstatement, but doesn't come up with what HE thinks is a more accurate figure. Why? Because 10,000 new IRS agents are almost as scary as 16,500. Polman refuses to put out a more "correct" number, because by simply decrying the 16,500 figure, he misleads his supporters to believe that the real number is zero.
I just got done filing for free, my 1040ez tax return. To my surprise, married and filing jointly, I received an $800 tax credit. That paid all of my taxes still owed with $305 left over for mad money! Thanks President Obama, and thank you Democratic leadership, Nancy Pelosi and Mr Reid, for getting the votes that got me my money, you're the best. And, a tip of the hat to the friendly, fast IRS for getting all of this done so quickly. Government is so much better under the Democrats, it makes such a difference to have a government by people who believe in government for the people.- Provinmg once again that the federal govt.'s support of subprime mortgages & Fannie et al buying the bad notes back supports the notion that the financial crisis was instigated by govt. housing policy, imho:) ***The eight-hour hearings also featured a former Citigroup mortgage lending officer, Richard Bowen III, who testified that he had alerted his bosses to “breakdowns in processes and internal controls.” From 2006 to 2007, Mr. Bowen said that decisions on poorly underwritten loans were changed from “turned down” to “approved,” and that as many as 80 percent of the loans that Citigroup sold to Fannie Mae, Ginnie Mae and other investors were defective. After several attempts to correct the problems, he sent a detailed e-mail memorandum to Robert E. Rubin (yes that Robert Rubin, who made millions while Citi deteriorated and is back now), an influential Citigroup executive and board member, and several other high-ranking officers.*** http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/business/08panel.html— NEPhilly
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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