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U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) last night joined Mike Emanuel on Fox News to discuss the successful passage of his amendment to the Democrats’ reckless tax-and-spending spree, which eliminated a new $35 billion tax hike on small- and medium-sized businesses, and how the bill, among other things, will be used to hire 87,000 new IRS agents to target middle-income Americans.
On the Democrats’ plan to hire 87,000 new IRS agents:
“Mike, I think the takeaway from the passage of this bill is there is an IRS agent coming to a neighborhood near you. 87,000 new employees at the IRS, only 4 percent of them are going to be, you know, committed to helping improve taxpayer service. Most of them are going to be harassing middle-income taxpayers.
“There was a study done by the Joint Tax Committee, which showed that up to 90 percent, up to 90 percent of any revenue the Democrats think they're going to raise from the so-called addition of these IRS tax agents is going to come from people making less than $400,000 a year.
“So there's going to be a lot of people, middle-income taxpayers in this country, who are going to have to get used to having the IRS looking over their shoulder at every turn. That's what the essence of this is, that's what they signed up for with this bill: 87,000 new IRS agents and $80 billion in new spending, six times the annual IRS budget. That's what this bill is all about.”
On passage of Sen. Thune’s amendment to the Democrats’ reckless tax-and-spending spree:
“It’s a short-term win. We were able to take a $35 billion tax hike on small- and medium-sized businesses out of the bill. And it was nice to get seven Democrats voting for it.
“But as you point out, these are all Democrats who are up for re-election here in just a few months, and they’re scared. I think they’re scared to have to go back to their voters and tell them that, you know, we raised taxes, we had this massive new tax increase on small- and medium-sized businesses in this country. And at a time when most of those taxes, obviously, are going to be passed on to the same people in the country who are already experiencing 40-year-high inflation.”
