Having trouble viewing this email?
http://mad.ly/d3e4c3?pact=15507358589&fe=1]click
here.
[http://gingrichproductions.com]
[http://www.gingrichproductions.com/2013/05/a-scandalous-ideology/]
A Scandalous Ideology
With so many big government scandals now implicating the Obama administration, there
is a great effort to tie them personally to President Obama, to discover exactly
what he knew about the IRS targeting conservatives, the AP’s phone records, or
Benghazi security.
Kimberly Strassel’s
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324659404578501411510635312.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop]column
in the Wall Street Journal today details how the 2008 Obama campaign pioneered some
of the very tactics the President now claims to be outraged by, asking for Justice
Department investigations of conservative groups and their donors. If it does turn
out that the President knew about some of the corruption or incompetence under his
watch, he will bear clear responsibility. He already does as the Chief Executive of
the executive branch.
But Republicans should be clear: big government scandals are not about Obama. They
are about big government -- big government that is absolutely out of control whether
under Obama or any other president.
They’re big government scandals because they all arise from the enormous
bureaucratic structures which give unelected people tremendous power with little
accountability. Corruption is completely predictable. As George Will said on ABC’s
This Week recently, “The best construction on the IRS scandal is big government is
impossible to monitor...Any government has to be trusted. But the bigger the
government gets, the bigger the distrust ought to be and will be.”
What better example is there of big government than the IRS?
This is an agency to which every single person, business, and charity must send
intimate financial details every single year.
It employs close to 100,000 bureaucrats.
These bureaucrats administer a tax code that is so big and so complex that it is far
beyond anyone’s ability to understand. They are empowered to audit any person or
group of people they choose, checking for compliance with these often indecipherable
rules, at great expense to the subjects.
It is impossible to ensure all these bureaucrats use their power properly, and if
the public ever does discover impropriety it is virtually impossible to fire them
because they are heavily unionized against the taxpayers whose taxes they collect.
Is it any surprise that such an institution would be susceptible to corruption? That
it would persecute groups it did not like? That it would seek to protect itself, its
bosses, and its workers from accountability?
That’s how you end up with IRS agents investigating the Tea Party breakfasts hosted
by an
[http://washingtonexaminer.com/irs-went-after-83-year-old-tea-party-granny/article/2530131]83-year-old
grandmother who was held in an internment camp during World War II. That’s how you
end up with IRS agents demanding to know from another organization
“[http://www.examiner.com/article/gop-rep-aaron-schock-irs-aked-about-content-of-pro-life-group-s-prayers]the
content of the members’...prayers.”
When corruption occurs in such an institution it is not right to say it was done by
“rogue” employees. It’s the inevitable outcome of creating an agency with vast
powers and little oversight. But agencies with vast powers and little oversight are
what big government is all about.
Columnist John Kass put it best in the Chicago Tribune last week recalling how he
learned the “Chicago way” growing up in the city as the son of small business
owners.
“The city code books aren't thick because politicians like to write new laws and
regulations,” he wrote. “The codes are thick because when government swings them at
a citizen, they hurt.”
James Bovard writing in the Wall Street Journal last week
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324715704578482823301630836.html]recalled
alarming evidence of a culture of corruption that has infested the IRS for some
time: "A 1991 survey of 800 IRS executives and managers by the nonprofit Josephson
Institute of Ethics revealed that three out of four respondents felt entitled to
deceive or lie when testifying before a congressional committee."
The study is old, but has IRS culture changed? Recent reports clearly suggest it has
not
The administration’s handling of the Benghazi scandal shows a similar willingness to
deceive the American people.
Through twelve drafts of talking points for Congress and other public officials,
representatives of the White House and various federal departments whittled down
intelligence presented by the CIA into something unrecognizable and untruthful.
They seemed less concerned about presenting accurate information than about hiding
information that might have made them look bad. The dishonesty continued for months
-- is still continuing -- as Congress is forced to confront officials who want to
mislead them every bit as much as the IRS has.
It certainly matters whether President Obama knew about these big government
scandals or not. But even more important than his prior knowledge is his certain
knowledge today that he presides over a government that is ungovernable at its
current size with its current bureaucratic structures and work rules, out of
anyone’s control including his own, a government whose very condition is a scandal.
He knows abuses of power are common at every level. He knows this government is the
product of his own political ideology. And instead of taking decisive action to
reform these bureaucratic structures, his entire agenda is to expand their reach.
This is a larger, more important fight for America than just a Congressional
skirmish with Obama. These scandals are laying bare what big government is:
structures so vast they are uncontrollable. Conservatives want things to be
governed. They want simple rules to be fairly enforced. The oppressive and
unaccountable bureaucracies we have today are not a way of doing that. They’re just
the opposite.
Your Friend,
Newt
