Massie Reveals Photos of IRS Recruiting Program, Looks Like Audition for Next 'Police Academy'
President Joe Biden took a few hours between vacations on Tuesday to sign the ironically named “Inflation Reduction Act,” a boondoggle of a bill that analysts agree will not reduce inflation. It will, however, raise taxes on the middle class and subsidize green energy programs.
The bill will also dramatically expand the scope and size of the IRS. In fact, it increases IRS funding by $80 billion over the next 10 years, an increase of roughly 60 percent over its current annual budget of $13.7 billion, and adds 87,000 new auditors to its ranks. Given that the IRS has been stockpiling weapons in recent years, buying up $700,000 in ammunition this year alone, this truly gives new meaning to the phrase “weaponization of U.S. institutions.”
Although there was virtually no Republican support for this reckless legislation in either the Senate or the House, Biden touted the new law as proof that “democracy still works in America.” Right.
Following Biden’s over the top victory lap, Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie took a shot at Democrats by tweeting photos from two IRS recruiting programs, one from 2017 and the other held earlier this year (prior to the passage of the IRA).
These are not auditions for the next Police Academy sequel. This is an actual IRS recruiting program: pic.twitter.com/KUFqxmbDpW
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) August 16, 2022
The photographs, taken during IRS “Adrian Project” events that AFP said have been going on for almost 20 years, were obviously unrelated to recruitment efforts that began after the passage of the IRA, but Massie’s post nevertheless went viral on social media as many Americans saw their tax dollars at work in this program for the first time.
Here’s a fun game: How many safety and basic technique violations are there in this photo? pic.twitter.com/Smx7OhHxYD
— JimmyThomist (@JimmyThomist) August 16, 2022
???? pic.twitter.com/rix0MjzOGj
— kingbean (@kingbean556) August 16, 2022
This is known as the “venti mocha-cappuccino” grip. pic.twitter.com/swGaKIJfMF
— Mike Bouley (@mikey_bouley) August 16, 2022
Practicing deadly force on someone who didn’t report $300 in crypto earnings while ignoring rampant insider trading and fraud by politicians. How nice
— Luke (@LukeJToday) August 16, 2022
Look at those smiles…so…so beautiful. Nothing brings a country together like a fed shooting someone in the back. pic.twitter.com/iuVNTx11C6
— Just a Lightbulb Being Called to the Gallows (@ExConDX) August 16, 2022
Last week, Fox Business reported on an online job posting for “Criminal Investigation Special Agents” for the law enforcement branch of the IRS. According to Fox, one of the “key requirements” was that an applicant be “legally allowed to carry a firearm,” and “major duties” included “Carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force, if necessary” and “Be willing and able to participate in arrests, execution of search warrants and other dangerous assignments.”
Needless to say, the requirement that applicants “be willing to use deadly force, if necessary” went viral on social media.
Fox noted that “a link to the job posting … appeared to have been briefly deleted on Wednesday, following online criticism of the posting’s language, though it reappeared back online after a FOX Business inquiry to the agency.”
But the new posting omits the requirement that candidates “be willing to use deadly force, if necessary.”
An IRS representative told Fox, “The IRS Criminal Investigation special agent job announcement continues to be open on USAJobs and has not/was not taken down. USAJobs is where these positions are posted and where applicants are referred to in order to apply. … The announcement has been opened since February 2022 and continues through Dec. 31, 2022.”
The IRS is hiring new special agents!
Requirements include working min “50 hours per week, which may include irregular hours, and be on-call 24/7, including holidays and weekends” and “Carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force, if necessary.”https://t.co/uvwbrAkIit pic.twitter.com/z0aVX6uoMr
— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) August 10, 2022
Fellow Americans being trained by our government to use deadly force against other Americans over taxes…..
If this isn’t Communism, I don’t know what is…..
— Conservative Momma (@conmomma) August 16, 2022
The annual expenditure of $8 billion to sic 87,000 more IRS auditors on American taxpayers is an outrage. The requirement that the new auditors be comfortable with firearms, however, takes it to a whole new level.
Biden sees the new law as proof that “democracy still works in America,” but many Americans see just the opposite.
CORRECTION, Aug. 19, 2022: There were two aspects of this commentary that may have been inadvertently misleading to some readers when it was first published. First, we wrote of the Inflation Reduction Act that “it increases IRS funding by $80 billion, nearly six times its current annual budget of $13.7 billion.” We failed to note, however, that that increase is over the next 10 years, so it actually represents not a sixfold increase in the IRS budget but more like a 60% increase — still healthy, obviously, but not so much as we implied. We have corrected that statement.
Second, while we included a link to the 2017 source of some of the pictures shared by Rep. Massie, we failed to call attention clearly in the commentary to the fact that the pictures he shared were not of training that had been specifically funded by the additional IRS budget appropriation included in the IRA. That may have led some readers to believe that the photographs were the direct result of the IRA’s becoming law, which is not the case. Other pictures were from a similar event earlier this year, which also took place prior to the passage of the IRA, and we should have called that out as well.
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