THE 100 REPORT
Treasurer Fitzpatrick Appears on Tucker Carlson to talk IRS Snooping
State Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick appeared with popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson to talk about the recent Biden proposal to utilize the IRS to snoop through bank accounts.
Defense of Liberty to bring in Donald Trump Jr. in December
This event will SELL OUT! Learn more about the event or purchase tickets here!
Curtman Radio Show: Woke Racists. Psaki Spin Class. Inflation. STL Post Dispatch ‘Hacking’? the Gov’t? & LIBSOFTIKTOK
Defense of Liberty Founder Paul Curtman breaks down some of the hottest issues of the day on his most recent radio show.
Watch, Listen, and Read the Takes Here.
Opinion: New IRS surveillance power would threaten local banks, small businesses
By Kalena Bruce-Candidate for Missouri’s 4th Congressional District
Within the multi-trillion spending boondoggle being debated in Washington is a provision that will allow the IRS to spy on nearly every bank account in the U.S. Banks would be enlisted to monitor, track, and report on every account with $10,000 or more in annual cash flow. That’s up from the originally proposed threshold of $600.
But the so-called “concession” is of little consequence. In practice, the standard will still ensnare the financial records of nearly every American and small business. Even a retiree collecting a modest monthly social security check will clear the benchmark.
Ignoring the blatant privacy intrusion against individuals, community banks will be recruited as the foot soldiers to pay for and carry out the policy. Significant compliance expenses will be associated with monitoring at least 124 million bank accounts. It could easily require banks to purchase new software or hire more staff. And unlike the big banks of the world, community financial institutions are local small businesses with tight budgets — not dissimilar to the café or dry cleaner down the street.
What happens when a bank lacks a sufficient level of resources to hire new people or install new equipment? The bank would be forced to cut services, downsize, or even shut down. And when a community bank closes, it has an outsized ripple effect.
Not only do staff depend on the banks for employment, but individuals seeking a mortgage or entrepreneurs looking for start-up or expansion investment rely on community banks. In fact, despite accounting for a fraction of total banking assets nationwide, local banks provide nearly half of small business loans. Restricting these critical lines of credit will depress new business ventures and plans to expand existing ones. Considering that small businesses employ nearly half of all workers in Missouri and nationwide, the broader economy will suffer.
The Biden administration’s plan to equip the IRS with more teeth is a strategy to squeeze every dollar out of taxpayers it can. In addition to empowering the IRS with financial surveillance capabilities, the budget reconciliation package includes $80 billion to beef up tax code enforcement efforts.
But will the government’s strategy be effective? Not according to the American Bankers Association and its 51 affiliates in every state plus Puerto Rico. They argue the new information will be of little value when trying to target worthwhile tax dodgers.
Gross cash flows can be misleading. For example, the group noted, “[s]elf-employed contractors who buy materials and install them for customers, will commonly have gross inflows and outflows that far exceed the income they earn.” Therefore, the army of IRS auditors will frequently be tasked to investigate false positives, adding to government waste.
On top of saddling small business lenders with what amounts to an IRS “compliance tax,” the budget bill has a number of other tax hikes on the docket. Proposals include raising taxes on nearly 1 million pass-through small businesses as well as some small businesses that are structured as c-corporations. The package would also walk back the 20 percent small business tax deduction that has fueled job creation, wage growth, and economic expansion since its passage in 2017 leading up to the pandemic.
The proposed IRS data collection process and mountain of new tax hikes included in the budget reconciliation bill amount to a declaration of war on small businesses, including the community banks that support little league teams and provide local students with scholarships. Sensible, moderate lawmakers in Congress should stand up and hold the line on behalf of Main Street.
Opinion: Unions have made supply-chain problems worse.
Organized-labor headlines typically offer a zap of top-line shock — UPS is paying some drivers $134,000 a year? Philadelphia is paying a police detective $310,000 a year? — but those six-figure sums don’t capture the true cost. As can be seen with the enormously costly backup at the port complex in San Pedro, Calif. — which handles about 40 percent of U.S. container-ship cargo — the issue is not so much high wages as highly rigid and inflexible labor practices. The problem in San Pedro isn’t that the longshoremen are earning, on average, $171,000 a year ($194,000 for a clerk and $282,000 for a foreman) plus the usual generous benefits — the problem is that the ships are not being unloaded in a timely fashion. Instead, the ships have been sitting at sea. Where there might normally be no more than one ship waiting at anchor for a spot to unload, there recently have been as many as 95. The Biden administration has responded with an initiative that is perfectly Bidenesque: vague and fuzzy about the details, offering the appearance of action but very little of the real thing. The administration says it brokered a deal under which the twin California ports now operate around the clock. The 24/7 operation began “weeks ago,” according to White House flack Jen Psaki. You will not be entirely surprised to find that this is not true.
Jan. 6 Committee tests Congress’s power to force testimony
Congress’s powers to conduct investigations in the face of defiant witnesses have eroded sharply in recent years—a trend once again on display as former President Donald Trump and his associates gear up for a legal battle fighting demands from investigators probing the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The congressional committee investigating the attack has demanded a wide array of Mr. Trump’s presidential records from the National Archives and has subpoenaed the former president’s allies and aides for documents and testimony. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have responded by making untested claims of executive privilege that would bar people outside of government from discussing their conversations with the president. One of those people, Steve Bannon, who was briefly a top White House aide to Mr. Trump but hasn’t had a government job since 2017, has said he won’t comply with the congressional subpoena, citing guidance from Mr. Trump’s lawyers. The standoff leaves the committee—composed mostly of Democrats along with two GOP members who are critics of Mr. Trump—reliant on either a civil lawsuit or the Biden administration’s willingness to bring criminal charges to enforce its demands for material.