Via Dave Neiwert at Crooks and Liars, we get a sneak preview of what at least one influential conservative wants to be a main Republican talking point this fall. While blabbering incoherently talking to Sean Hannity Tuesday night on Hannity’s FOX News show, Newt Gingrich regurgitated the factually untrue and already debunked right-wing myth about the IRS having to hire 16,000 additional agents to enforce the Affordable Care Act. Quoth the Gingrich:
One of the things in the health bill is 16,000 additional IRS agents. Now I think the average American doesn’t think we need 16,000 health police — they don’t think we need a single health police. And it’s interesting that that health bill has more IRS agents than it has doctors or nurses or people who actually do health in the bill.I think, Republicans this fall, if they were to run as one of their planks, that they will never fund the 16,000 IRS agents, and they will block implementation of the $430 billion in new taxes.
And then put it straight to the country — Do you want 16,000 new IRS agents? Vote Democrat. Do you not want 16,000? Vote Republican.
My guess is that, in fact, could be one of the five or six issues that could set the stage for a Republican majority.
Like almost every Republican campaign “issue” of the past couple years, this one could be pretty powerful — if it weren’t for those pesky “facts”. Of course, it’s also open for debate as to whether or not the lack of veracity actually does diminish the power of the assertion. Regardless, this one, like its death panel and birther brethren before it, has no basis in reality. For the best debunking of this blatantly fear-mongering, anti-government falsehood, I direct you to non-partisan FactCheck.org.
In the same mold as many lies before it, this one started as a vague assertion, did a couple rounds through the right-wing echo chamber, then came out as an unassailable “fact”. If you want the whole sordid affair, I strongly recommend the FactCheck article. But to make a long story short, it started with a soft range of how much the IRS’s budget might increase. Conservatives then acted on the assumption that the entire (and high-end) figure would not only be solely devoted to new personnel, but only to “agents”, who make up a small part of the IRS’s force, and not to various other types of employees. Ron Paul even gave them all guns by refering to “16,500 armed bureaucrats”!
Needless to say, almost no part of the “16,000 New IRS Agent” story has any truth to it. In fact, the ACA specifically states that, “In the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure” No need for gun-toting IRS cops. The real lesson to take from this, I think, is just the sad realization that the GOP still has no real platform to run on. It seems as if we’re in for another election cycle of Republicans making wild, false accusations, the press repeating them, and Democrats fighting in vain to educate voters on the facts. Sigh.
Edit: I see that Ezra Klein has a post on this subject, as well.