It’s become too exhausting for me to keep track of, so read this instead:
What a day. It started with Republican water carrier Chuck Todd calling the Republican IRS witch hunt what it is on MSNBC: A partisan stunt. So things aren’t going as planned for Republicans.
And then, as Republicans geared up to pass a resolution calling for a Special Counsel to investigate the IRS — because there’s never too many ways to waste taxpayer money for “small government” Republicans when it comes to their campaign sound bites — a disgusted and fed up Sandy Levin (Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI)) called them out on turning the House into a circus.
Rep. Levin (who’s been ON FIRE lately) started off his floor statement by calling out that Republicans were turning the Institution into a political arm of the GOP.
“This Institution must not be turned into an arm of either political party. That’s what House Republicans are doing here. It’s been a year since multiple committee investigations began into the IRS handling of 501 c 4 organizations – and Republicans are no closer to finding evidence to back up their baseless allegations of a ‘White House enemies list’ or a ‘White House culture of cover-up,’ as Republicans said on Day 1.”
In February, it was determined that the Republicans’ IRS witch hunt had already cost taxpayers at least $14 million. In early May, Speaker John Boehner also announced that he was appointing a select committee to investigate Benghazi, so that’s more money being wasted trying to drum up some Republican campaign ad sound bites. Meanwhile, Republicans have already been busted trying to use their fake, ginned up IRS scandal in order to protect their dark money sources like Karl Rove’s Crosssroads.
Levin laid it out:· More than 250 employees at the IRS have worked more than 100,000 hours and sent nearly 700,000 pages of documents to Ways and Means in response to Republican requests.· More than 60 interviews have been conducted.
· $14 million in taxpayer money has been spent by the IRS responding to the Congressional Investigations.
“And here is what we know:
· Documents show that the IRS used inappropriate criteria to treat progressive groups as they did for Conservative Groups.
· There was never any evidence of White House involvement. Nada.
· There was never any evidence of political motivation. In fact, before the flawed audit was published last May, the IG’s head of investigations reviewed 5,500 pages of documents and determined that there was ‘no indication that pulling these selected applications was politically motivated.’ Instead, the head of investigations said the cases were consolidated due to ‘unclear processing directions.’
“So the Republicans say they want an independent investigation – but they really want to do is to interrupt the investigation going on and pre-empt it with their own political theatre.
And finally…. Levin slammed Republicans for running the House like a political circus, “This is the House of Representatives, not a political circus.”
All of this and Lois Lerner continues to hide behind the 5th Amendment. There oughta be a law. Perhaps she’d talk if they offered her immunity? Let’s talk about today. The House will vote on HR 10. That’s the Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act. The act will provide $300 million in taxpayer funds each year for charter schools. The bill was co-sponsored by George Miller D-Calif., Ruben Hinojosa D-Texas, Scott Peters D-Calif., Jared Polis D-CO.. So it’s not only Republicans who want to screw all of us over with privatized schools.