September 18, 2024

Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.

The IRS Must Be Awfully Excited About A Potential Kamala Harris Presidency

By Rick Manning

Vice President Kamala Harris told the American people that her values have not changed. Unfortunately, given the penchant for the Biden-Harris administration to use government resources against their political opponents, that is a scary thought.

With the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) political targeting and intimidation scandals from the Obama-Biden administration still fresh and the use of the Justice Department to engage in lawfare against their political opponents by the Biden-Harris administration still happening, it is hard to conceive of a worse idea than to expand both the size and scope of the IRS. Yet, that is exactly what has been done.

As vice president, Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for the administration’s so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA) in 2022. A hallmark of this legislation was an expansion of the IRS in unprecedented and unilateral ways. Democrats allocated an astounding $80 billion to grow the IRS, enabling the agency to hire 87,000 new enforcement agents and expanding the agency’s reach into taxpayers’ lives.

This seems like a strange priority, especially when you look at the IRS’ long history of failure and mismanagement. President Trump’s Department of Justice held the IRS accountable for unfairly targeting conservative groups for audits and enforcement during the Obama administration. Old-timers will remember that the potential of using the IRS against his political enemies was one of the House impeachment charges against President Richard Nixon back in the 1970s.

It was Harris’ tie-breaking vote that paved the way for the “Direct File” tax filing pilot program. This initiative, championed by far-left progressives like Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren compelled the IRS to develop its own tax preparation software, adding yet another layer of government control over taxpayers. This expansion is not only a blatant conflict of interest but also a severe threat to taxpayer privacy, as it requires the agency to gather even more personal data than it already has.

Beyond the obvious expansion of power and information held by the IRS, the “Direct File” tax filing pilot program is designed to disconnect taxpayers from the actual amount of taxes they pay. It is important that taxpayers see how much of their money the federal government is taking out of their paychecks rather than just having a refund check instantly deposited in their bank account as if it was a gift from Washington, D.C.

So, Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote in the Senate is pouring $80 billion into the IRS, supersizing one of the most unpopular and abuse plagued federal agencies. Giving the IRS more power was one of Harris’ values that have not changed, even as she ignored her job by failing to limit the flow of illegal immigrants into our country through the southern border.

In fact, Harris was first given a border-security role by President Biden in early 2021 – almost a year and a half before the IRA was signed into law. From 2021 to 2023 — as the IRA was being pushed by the Biden-Harris administration and touted as a success — there were about 8 million migrant encounters at the border – 3.5 times higher than the rate during the Trump administration.

Harris makes claims that she supports hiring more Border Patrol agents. If that is the case, you would think that she would have used the $80 billion in taxpayer dollars that went to the IRS to actually secure our border.

She would have prioritized hiring tens of thousands of much-needed enforcement agents at our border — not 87,000 new enforcement agents at the IRS to go after American families who are actually trying to follow the law.

Due to Harris’ vote and actions, the IRS now has unprecedented access to sensitive taxpayer information, creating a dangerous concentration of power in an agency known for data breaches. President Trump himself experienced the dangers of an unchecked IRS when, in 2019, his own private tax information was leaked.

Additionally, two recent independent reports, from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), called out the IRS for failing to keep accurate records of the Direct File program’s true cost and for overstating taxpayer interest in such a system.

As of August 2024, the IRS is, unsurprisingly, the least popular federal agency, with half of Americans having an unfavorable opinion of the agency. That’s why leading Republicans have been working hard to undo this IRS expansion and dozens of conservative groups have rightly criticized “Direct File” programs for years.

At the same time, nearly half of Americans cite illegal immigration as a top problem facing our country. Her record shows that addressing these real concerns has never been a Harris value.

Instead, she chose to use her position and power to spend almost $100 billion to get law enforcement agents where she really thinks they’re needed — at the Internal Revenue Service.

Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.

To view online: https://dailycaller.com/2024/09/17/opinion-the-irs-must-be-awfully-excited-about-a-potential-kamala-harris-presidency-rick-manning/

Cartoon: Media Heal Thyself

By A.F. Branco

Click here for a higher level resolution. 

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/09/cartoon-media-heal-thyself/

The American People Stand with Trump on The Two Most Important Issues of the Election

By Bill Wilson

As the nation reels from a second cowardly attack on former President Donald Trump’s life, it is increasingly clear the radical left refuses to tone down their hateful rhetoric against Trump even if it threatens his life repeatedly. The American people, however, want to put Trump back in charge of the two most pivotal issues facing the country – the economy and immigration.

Just five days after the contentious debate between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris blatantly exposed the mainstream media’s allegiance to the radical left, Trump fended off yet another attack on his life. On Sunday Trump was on what should have been a secure West Palm Beach golf course, only to be threatened once again by a radical extremist with a weapon.

While the spineless and self-serving mainstream media wasted no time insinuating Trump is to blame for nearly losing his life for the second time in two months, one has to wonder if the radical left would be happier with Trump out of the picture.

The despicable action taken against Trump on Sunday is the direct fault of no one other than the man who carried out the act – the radical political activist Ryan Wesley Routh – until proven otherwise. That said, when the entirety of a nation’s media and culture collude to sew hatred against one man who has now faced two assassination attempts, it is worth asking why the mainstream political class are so complicit in these attacks.

Despite a relentless eight-year-long campaign against Trump that includes collusion at the highest levels of government, law, media, academia, and culture, Trump’s support remains strong among the people. Americans are largely witnessing the collapse of the culture, buried under rising inflation, a ballooning national debt, the devaluation of the dollar, and Open Borders insanity, and Trump’s solutions are increasingly popular.

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Americans increasingly support Trump's tariff proposal and proposal to exempt tips from taxation, and most say Trump would be better at handling the economy and inflation than Kamala Harris would.  

According to the poll, voters favor Trump on handling inflation by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent, saying Trump will do better job than Kamala at tackling inflation and lowering the costs of everyday goods.  

Americans say by a broad fifteen points, 56 percent to 41 percent, that they are more likely to support a candidate who imposes a 10 percent tariff on imported goods and a 60 percent tariff on goods from China, proposals Trump has championed. According to the poll, one in three Democrats agree with the tariff proposal on foreign goods and Chinese imports, demonstrating that Trump’s economic agenda appeals beyond partisan boundaries. 

Voters also broadly favor the proposal to exclude tips from taxation, with seventy percent of those polled supporting Trump’s plan. Voters also say by ten points, 47 percent to 37 percent, that Trump would foster a better climate for business than Harris would.

Then there is the issue of immigration, which has become increasingly poignant since the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous Open Borders agenda opened the floodgates to millions of illegal aliens. An increasing share of the public – regardless of political affiliation – are concerned about the immediate and long-term costs of illegal immigration and the border remains one of the top issues heading into November. 

According to the latest YouGov survey, immigration is the third most important issue to Americans, with 23 percent of the country prioritizing inflation, 12 percent prioritizing jobs and the economy, and ten percent prioritizing immigration.

Beyond a bundle of economic concerns, immigration is the second largest issue, and the public favors Trump’s approach to securing the border. Americans say by ten points, 47 percent to 37 percent, that Trump would do a better job than Kamala Harris on immigration. Swing voters largely agree, with Hispanics favoring Trump on immigration by six points and independents siding with Trump on immigration by 19 points.

A detailed YouGov survey from September 10-11 shows over half of Americans (53 percent) believe Trump would handle immigration well, compared to 45 percent who believe Harris would handle immigration well. 

Despite the Democratic elite’s best attempt to shift the national focus this election year to radical abortion and environmental proposals, the top concerns for the American people are inflation and the border crisis. A growing share of the public, including some Democrats, support Former President Trump’s proposals to address inflation, levy tariffs on Chinese goods, and deport millions of illegal immigrants. These policies are popular with the people, but a threat to the self-serving political elite, and therein lies the problem.

Bill Wilson is the former president of Americans for Limited Government.

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/09/the-american-people-stand-with-trump-on-the-two-most-important-issues-of-the-election/

 

Trump polling nationally well above where he was in 2016 and 2020—and that’s not a good sign for Harris

By Robert Romano

Former President Donald Trump has improved dramatically in national polling in 2024 compared to his showings in 2016 and 2020, according to a compilation of poll averages compiled over the past eight years by RealClearPolling.com.

Currently, in the multi-candidate polls, which also include Robert Kennedy, Jr., Jill Stein, Chase Oliver and Cornell West, Trump is averaging 46.4 percent against Vice President Kamala Harris’ 48 percent.

But in 2016, in the multi-candidate polls, Trump only averaged 42.2 percent, but ending up garnering 46.1 percent in the national popular vote. The polls understated Trump’s actual support by 3.9 percentage points.

To be fair, they understated Hillary Clinton as well, by 2.7 percentage points, instead of 45.5 percent in the polls, she garnered 48.2 percent in the national popular vote.

That worked out to a net 1.2 percentage points in Trump’s direction for 2016.

In 2020, as the sitting president, Trump’s standing in the polls improved slightly to 43.2 percent, but his showing in the popular vote was still much higher, at 46.9 percent. Once again, they polls were off by 3.7 percentage points for Trump.

Whereas, on President Joe Biden, the national polls also understated Biden, but not as much as they had with Clinton, by 0.8 percentage points, instead of 50.6 percent in the polls, he garnered 51.4 percent of the popular vote.

So, in 2020, it worked out to a net 2.9 percentage points in Trump’s direction in 2020.

That’s an average of polls overreporting the margin of Democrats’ lead in the popular vote by 2.05 percentage points.

If the same thing happens in 2024, where pollsters once again are having a hard time tracking down Trump supporters, right now, Harris is only leading in the national polls by 1.6 percentage points, meaning a net 2.05 percentage points in Trump’s direction would mean he actually wins the national popular vote — the first time a Republican would have achieved that feat since George W. Bush in 2004.

In the meantime, election forecaster Nate Silver is current reporting that if Harris’ margin in the popular vote is less than two points, Trump’s odds of winning the Electoral College rise to about 78 percent.

In this case, it could that the popular vote is in play, which if Trump wins, no Republican has ever won the popular vote and lost the Electoral College in U.S. history and Silver projects would give Trump a 98.3 percent chance of winning the Electoral College.

Another indicator could be whether Harris is able to above 50 percent in the national popular vote, something neither Al Gore at 48.4 percent and Hillary Clinton at 48.2 percent were able to do in 2000 and 2016, where they won the popular vote but ultimately lost the Electoral College, whereas Barack Obama and Joe Biden got majorities of the popular vote in their victories in 2008, 2012 and 2020.

For Harris, so far, in the multi-candidate polls, she’s well below 50 percent, so that might not be a good sign either. With economic uncertainty still looming, prices still too high and incomes not yet caught up, once the shy Trump voters who won’t talk to pollsters actually show up in the poll that matters on Election Day. Stay tuned.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/09/trump-polling-nationally-well-above-where-he-was-in-2016-and-2020-and-thats-not-a-good-sign-for-harris/