Kevin McCarthy promised on his first day as Speaker of the House that Members would “read every single word of the Constitution aloud from the floor of the House.” He also promised to “fight for a strong, fiscally responsible, and free America.”
Neither of those have happened yet.
Instead, during his acceptance speech when he was elected Speaker on the fifteenth try, McCarthy promised, “Our very first bill will repeal the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents.”
There is no funding for 87,000 IRS agents, as The New York Times and others have fact-checked. There is funding to replace retiring IRS agents, upgrade the agency’s technology, and cut wait times in half by hiring more agents to answer consumer phone calls.
In fact, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last August, in writing, ordered the IRS to not use any of the new funding allocated to the agency to increase investigations of any American making $400,000 or less.
“I direct that any additional resources—including any new personnel or auditors that are hired—shall not be used to increase the share of small business or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels,” Yellen wrote, CNN reported. “This means that, contrary to the misinformation from opponents of this legislation, small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in the chances that they are audited.”
Regardless, Speaker McCarthy on Monday night will preside over legislation that cuts IRS funding back to levels before Democrats increased it last year.
And it will cost Americans billions.
The Wall Street Journal’s Richard Rubin, who covers tax policy, writes that the Congressional Budget Office has scored McCarthy’s bill and says it will increase the deficit by $114 billion.
“Says that the GOP IRS funding bill would reduce spending by $71.5B and reduce revenue by $185.8B,” he tweets, with “B” standing for “billion.”
“Net deficit increase of $114B.”
Others agree.
Marc Goldwein, a senior vice president of the non-partisan non-profit Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) says, “rescinding IRS funding will increase the deficit by well over $100 billion, encourage tax cheating, and cut the tax enforcement budget well below what President Trump wanted.”