Friday, August 3, 2012

Voter IDs and the IRS

To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald:

Let me tell you about the Republicans. They are different from you and me. 

They are more concerned about virtually non-existent voter fraud than they are about the income tax fraud that costs this country tens of billions of dollars a year. They have passed, in at least 30 states, voter ID laws that may disenfranchise millions of people who are legally entitled to vote. When a commission that, if anything, was tilted toward the Republicans, was formed to look into voter fraud, its statistics found the crime to be virtually non-existent; yet, when the report was made public, its Republican majority defied its own statistics in the public summary. You can find more facts and links at the People for the American Way website. In my attempts to find substantiated accounts of voter fraud, the largest figure I could come up with was under 100 cases, out of tens of millions of votes cast every year in national and local elections over several decades.

Meanwhile, as part of the their strategy to starve the government, the Republicans have voted time and again to cut the IRS budget, especially its fraud division. Although every dollar spent on IRS investigation of tax fraud nets $10 in repayments and penalties, the motive of the Party of The Rich (PTR, formerly the GOP) is clear: most tax tax fraud (in dollars) is the result of wealthy tax payers cheating on their returns. Many claim false deductions or failure to state income from investments clearly, correctly, or at all. The IRS simply does not have the resources to go after these people, and the PTR wants to keep it that way.

It isn't that the PTR just wages a war against women: it is waging a war against everyone who is not wealthy, with special emphasis on women and minorities -- i.e. people who might actually vote against them. 

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