Check out this new WP blog: GOP to Audit the Poor?

[DeepModem Mom]

This guy's new blog in the WP is worth checking out!


WP: Achenblog
GOP to Audit the Poor?
Joel Achenbach

When I go to the Hill later I'll try to ferret out, or weasel my way into, the answer to the burning question of how we are going to pay for Katrina relief. Give the House Republicans some credit for actually specifying what they'd cut in the way of spending. So many politicians hide behind generalities or vague references to pork or waste or earmarks or whatnot. At least you know where some of these House Republicans stand. Which is: We should raise taxes on the poor.

That, at least, is one possible interpretation of the list they produced yesterday. In case you missed it, here are some of the items on their Whack List:

-Delay the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill for One year
-Increase Allowable Co-pays in Medicaid
-Block Grant Medicaid Acute Services
-Reduce Farm Payment Acreage by 1%
-Eliminate Subsidized Loans to Graduate Students
-Increase Medicare Part B Premium from 25% to 30%
-Level Funding for the Peace Corps
-Eliminate the Federal Anti-Drug Advertising
-Eliminate Federal Funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
-Eliminate State Grants for Safe and Drug-Free Schools
-Eliminate the Even Start Program
-Eliminate Teen Funding Portion of Title X Family Planning
-Eliminate Funding for Penile Implants Under Medicare
That's just a sample. Some of these items would save a lot of money, some would save very little. But there's one item that the GOP believes would save $85 billion over 10 years:

"Verify Income of Earned Income Tax Credit Participants"

This appears to be a proposal to audit people who claim to be poor, to make sure they are truly poor and deserving of the tax credit. I'll try to find out more to make sure I'm not missing some essential element of the idea. The GOP apparently believes that massive fraud exists in this program, and that we could ease the federal deficit by aggressively collecting taxes from the not-truly-poor -- people who could be defined as the merely non-affluent, the not-doing-so-well, the just-scraping-by. But not "poor." The GOP wants these posers to pay up. (And then the GOP will eliminate the Estate Tax, but that's another matter entirely.)

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/

[Lasher]

1. Here's a related message string

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2107500

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Thanks, Lasher!

[whistle]

2. That's a great plan to turn the poor, sick elderly in this country....

....into the MUCH POORER, SICKER AND DESTITUTE ELDERLY, plus assure that the young are at even higher risk from drugs, poverty and teen pregnancies. All, so that Bush's rich developer buddies and republican cronies can build million dollar condominium units in New Orleans. Nice plan!:hurts:

[MadHound]

4. Yeah, the hard core conservatives are starting to push this hard.

Hopefully the more moderate Republicans will rein in these heartless bastards, and if not, hopefully the Democrats will grow a spine and oppose this.

There are really only two things we need to do to get the needed money. The first is immediate and complete withdrawl from Iraq(and the majority of Americans are for this). The second is to re-instate the estate tax immediately, and do so at the level set by FDR, 75%. It is high time that the rich stop sucking off the public tit and start paying their fair share.

[Village Idiot]

5. Republicans: "Why repeal a tax cut for the rich...

when you can repeal a tax credit for the poor?"

[punpirate]

6. In a recent appropriations bill...

... they are already doing it. That mandated that the IRS divert its tax collection staff to auditing those applying for EIC. A Republican Congress (taking effect in 1995, I think) passed it, and Clinton signed. (Don Nickles of Oklahoma was trying to gut the EIC, and Clinton offered an additional $100 million for IRS auditing of the poor as a diversionary tactic, which worked.)

In 2001, according to David Cay Johnston of the NYT, the "IRS audited 397,000 of the working poor who applied for the credit..., eight times as many audits as it conducted of people making $100,000 or more."

This has long been an aim of the far right, principally pushed by the Heritage Foundation, as it pushes IRS audit resources in a direction away from the very wealthy.

Perhaps this refers to an attempt to increase auditing to an even greater level, thus preventing even more audits of the wealthy. Or this could be the start of another attempt to undo EIC.

Cheers.

[Norquist Nemesis]

7. I'll bet 99% of the cheaters are GOP supporters. n/t

[delen]

8. I believe Raygun

tried something like this in the '80s. He wanted to audit people making under $10k or $12k a year, the IRS yup thats correct the IRS refused to do it!!!

[Lasher]

9. Has anyone seen Democrats' alternative?

I don't remember seeing any official alternative to this travesty, but certainly think there should be one.