So...rich investment bankers nearly destroy our nation's economy, while rewarding themselves with multimillion dollar bonuses, and our government not only doesn't prosecute them for it, but bails them out of trouble, ostensibly to save us all. At the same time another branch of our government, the IRS, is persecuting the poor. Danny Westneat, in a recent Seattle Times article, chronicled the troubles Rachel Porcaro, and her family, faced in a year-long struggle with the IRS. They had decided that she could not support a family of three on her income in the city of Seattle, and were auditing her. The case still hasn't been entirely settled, and has been very costly for her family. They eventually audited her parents, too, with whom she lived. Nor is their story unique. Mr. Westneat had this to say...
"Why did this happen? The IRS won't say, but Congress has been fighting for years about the earned income tax credit for the working poor.
Republicans have called the credits "backdoor welfare" and tried to cancel them. When they controlled Congress, they ordered the IRS to ramp up audits of people who claim the credit.
In 2006, credit recipients such as Rachel were more than twice as likely to get audited as the rest of the 140 million individual tax filers."
It appears that there are different standards for rich and poor, and the standards aren't favoring the poor. What would have happened to this family if Rachel's parents hadn't had sufficient money to fight the Infernal Revenue Service?
America, Land of the Free? Doesn't sound like it to me...
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