The Press-Dispatch
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B-6 Wednesday, August 24, 2022 The Press-Dispatch OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break John Stossel See UKR AINE on page 7 Inflation Reduction Act is the problem A central pillar of the just-passed Inflation Reduction Act is $80 billion going to the IRS to hire some 87,000 new agents, doubling the current force, to chase down U.S. taxpayers who allegedly are not meeting their tax obligations. The rationale is we have a large na- tional budget deficit -- that is, govern- ment is bringing in less money than it spends -- so a larger army of IRS agents chasing down tax deadbeats will help solve our nation's fiscal problems. But part of this same new law in which U.S. taxpayers are asked to spend $80 billion to hire more IRS agents to shake down their neigh- bors who are supposedly not paying their fair share, there is $430 billion in new government spending, a large portion of which is earmarked for green energy projects of various shapes and forms. At the same time that we're ex- panding our army of tax collectors, we continue to expand government and spending at an even faster pace. The Congressional Budget Office has just released its latest Long- Term Budget Outlook, and here we get a broader picture of the problem. According to the report, "From 1972 to 2021, total federal outlays av- eraged 21% of GDP; over 2022-2052 period, such outlays are projected to average 26% of GDP." The Congressional Budget Office projects that government will take on average 5% more from our na- tional economy in the next 30 years than it did on average over the last 50 years. Looking at our GDP in 2022, roughly $25 trillion, at 26% of GDP, government spending will be over a trillion dollars more than it would have been at 21%. A trillion dollars more in spending on average per year, with another 87,000 IRS agents running after taxpayers to make sure they pay up. So, the bigger army of tax collec- tors is about helping raise money to finance ongoing expansion of gov- ernment and increasing control of government over the lives of private Americans. Why, as someone whose busi- ness is tr ying to improve the lives of low-income Americans, do I care about this? Turning pages for ward in the CBO report, we get to the really shocking information. From 1992 to 2021, per CBO, the average growth of the U.S. economy was 2.4% per year. CBO projects that from 2022 to 2052 the average growth of the U.S. economy will be 1.7% per year. This should shock ever y Ameri- can, and it's getting hardly any atten- tion. The more our national economy is controlled by government and politicians, the more sluggish will be growth of our economy. It stands to reason. Growth comes from en- trepreneurs, work, creativity. More government means less of all these things and slower growth. Slower growth means lower income and less opportunity. Anyone who cares about helping those who want to get ahead in America should be cheering for faster growth and less govern- ment rather than more government and slower growth. Hoover Institution economist John Cochrane has pointed out that from 1950 to 2000, the U.S. econ- omy grew at 3.5% per year. Real in- come per person went from $16,000 in 1950 to $50,000 in 2000. If the economy grew from 1950 to 2000 at 2% instead of 3.5%, notes Cochrane, income in 2000 would have risen to just $23,000 rather than $50,000. It's why, as someone who cares about helping low-income Americans get ahead and improve their lot, I care about a growing dynamic economy, not a bloated, sclerotic economy con- trolled by politicians and Washington special interests. The so-called Inflation Reduction Act takes matters in the exact oppo- site direction in which we should be going. Pretending to care about the nation's fiscal imbalances while add- ing $430 billion in new spending, all of it driven and defined by Washing- ton special interests, is the problem, not the solution. Volunteers in Ukraine When Russia attacked Ukraine, "experts" said the countr y would fall within days. It hasn't. One reason is that the Russian militar y wasn't as effective as people thought. Another is that Ukrainians sur- prised the world by courageously defending their countr y. A third reason is that volunteers from ever ywhere stepped in to help. People with combat experience joined Ukraine's Foreign Legion. Doctors, nurses and others with medical experience are keeping the countr y's health care system going. Several thousand others do human- itarian work, like distributing food and medicine. Maxim Lott went to Ukraine to re- cord them at work. He rode along with ambulance driver Didrik Gunnestad, a 27-year- old volunteer from Nor way. Gunnes- tad delivered supplies, and then he drove sick people out of dangerous areas. "It was learning by doing," he says. Ambulances were desperately needed. "Most things that happen here are done by volunteers, not gov- ernment officials." Tom Palmer, an American with the Atlas Network think tank, raised more than $1 million in aid for Ukraine. He flew it to Poland and then drove some of it into Ukraine himself. He worked with Ukrainian volunteers to find out where aid was most needed. "It was just astonishing to see this network emerge," says Palmer. "It wasn't centrally directed ... (Volun- teers) solved a lot of micro problems that big hierarchies can't see." The volunteers also reduce waste. "There is a lot of loss (in big char- ities like the Red Cross)," says Gun- nestad. "Not that someone is skim- ming off the top; it's just the cost of being a big organization." Governments are even more bu- reaucratic. Poland's government does want to help Ukraine, but its bureaucracy often makes it hard. When Gunnes- tad and Lott went to a depot where Gunnestad had previously picked up donated goods, they found that the bureaucracy had changed the rules. Now Gunnestad was supposed to write a letter to the Polish gov- ernment to get supplies. Since they didn't have time to wait, they left empty-handed. Even the Ukrainian government makes it needlessly hard for volun- teers to deliver goods. They force most ever yone to wait in long lines at the borders. When Lott and Gunnes- tad crossed this summer, there were still mile-long lines. Ambulances, at least, are generally allowed to skip the line. "But sometimes there's a guard who doesn't like it," says Gunnestad. "We have had patients almost dying because of guards like that." As he drove past the long line of trucks, he sighed and said, "I feel so sorr y for the drivers of the trucks. Some could be in line for days, or even a week!" Many of those truckers are tr ying to bring in needed supplies, but "they were only allowing 400 Ukrainian trucks per day," says Palmer. "That's just nothing. Why couldn't they bring in more? If you need to inspect them, get more inspectors!" The bureaucracy didn't. "You have maybe seven check- points, but only two are open," com- plains Gunnestad. "They could at least open all seven." Lott notes, "Volunteers can't do ever ything. They don't supply the militar y or provide fuel. But they are saving lives." For example, Gunnestad's team picks up patients at overburdened hospitals and takes them to less busy facilities. They also deliver supplies to neglected Ukrainian hospitals. Gunnestad says small hospitals often get nothing from the government or the Red Cross. "We have a chance to help places that are forgotten," he says. You can help Gunnestad do this work by donating to his GoFundMe page. It's a way to help Ukrainians without taking the risks that Gunnes- tad does. His ambulance has been hit with bullets. Fortunately, no volunteer has been hit. "I always have been the person who runs into dangerous situations," I testified before Congress' Joint Economic Committee last month in a hearing focused on "the economic toll of gun violence." Of course, there's no doubt that gun violence imposes a tremendous cost on society, both financially and in far less readily calculable ways. How does one measure, for exam- ple, the mental and emotional toll of being shot? As I explained to the committee, however, lawful gun owners are not largely to blame for these costs, de- spite many insinuations to the con- trar y by gun control advocates. Most lawful gun owners never will harm themselves or others and never will add a single dollar to the overall bill for gun violence. Meanwhile, lawful gun ownership provides significant but often un- der-acknowledged protective bene- fits, enabling peaceable citizens to defend themselves and others far more effectively than if they were unarmed. Almost ever y major study on the issue has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense be- tween 500,000 and 3 million times an- nually, according to the most recent report on the subject by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For this reason, The Daily Signal each month publishes an article highlighting some of the previous month's many news stories on de- fensive gun use that you may have missed—or that might not have made it to the national spotlight in the first place. (Read other accounts here from 2019, 2020, 2021, and so far in 2022.) The examples below represent only a small portion of the news sto- ries on defensive gun use that we found in July. You may explore more by using The Heritage Foundation's interactive Defensive Gun Use Data- base. July 3 – Surprise, Ar- izona: An armed citizen fatally shot a gunman who opened fire at a n e i g h b o r h o o d Fourth of July gath- ering, police said. Witnesses said the gunman lived in the neighborhood and had engaged in small talk and eaten a plate of food before drawing a handgun and shooting those around him. He killed two and wounded four others before being fatally shot by the armed citizen. Police said they thought the gunman's actions were unprovoked, but didn't know his motive. July 5 – Houston: A woman was bar- becuing with friends when her adult son showed up drinking and acting strangely, police said. The woman and her son went inside, where the son grabbed a rifle and fired more than 20 rounds at his mother before she fled outside. The son chased her, but was fatal- ly shot by an armed neighbor who heard the gunfire and came to the woman's defense, police said. The mother suffered multiple gunshot wounds, but was expected to sur- vive. No one else was injured. July 7 – Pensacola, Florida: A local sheriff told reporters that a home- owner would "absolutely not" face charges for using an "AK-47-style" rifle to defend his home against three men who broke in and threat- ened him with a handgun. Police arrested two of the three men, one of whom was the subject of several active arrest warrants for violent crimes. Police were looking for a third man, who apparently was wounded. July 12 – Chicago: Po- lice said that the hold - er of a concealed car- r y permit turned the tables on a teenager who started shooting at him in a restaurant parking lot. The man drew his own gun and shot his assailant in the hand and foot. July 17 – Greenwood, Indiana: A 22-year-old man with a concealed carr y permit fatally shot a would-be mass shoot- er who opened fire in a crowded mall food court, police said. The gunman killed three people, but the permit holder saved countless lives by ending the shooting just 15 seconds after it began. Experts roundly praised the permit hold- er's marksmanship after he hit the gunman with eight out of 10 rounds from 40 yards away, with- out any police or militar y training. July 19 – Kansas City, Missouri: Authorities said a man won't face charges after shooting and wound- ing an assailant who attacked him and his mother with a machete in a hardware store parking lot. The man and his mother were sitting in their vehicle when the assailant approached and began shattering car windows with the machete. He then swung the blade at them as they tried to escape. Although in- jured, the man managed to fire at least five rounds at the assailant, who ran a short distance before collapsing. Police charged him with several felonies. July 22 – Billings, Montana: Police The Biden administration has a lot of ner ve proposing to double the budget of the Internal Revenue Ser- vice and add 87,000 employees. This plan is set to become law as part of the soon-to-be-enacted In- flation Reduction Act. And it comes around the same time as the outra- geous FBI raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago com- pound in Palm Beach, Florida. The Biden administration has converted the FBI and the Justice Department into functionaries of the Democratic Party's character assassination cam- paign. Think they will do the same with a Yankee Stadium full of new IRS auditors? They will be on search- and-destroy missions. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) patroniz- ingly dismisses any concerns about taxpayer abuses by saying, "If you're not cheating on your taxes, you have nothing to worr y about." That's the language of tyrants. I personally went through a three-year dispute with the IRS, which cost me tens of thousands of dollars in attor- ney and tax accountant fees — until the IRS snoops did a "Whoops, we're sorr y, we were wrong. Have a nice day." When you are under IRS inves- tigation and the agency places a lien on your bank account, you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent. Conser vatives haven't (or shouldn't have forgotten) the out- rageous weaponization of the tax collection agency during President Barack Obama's ad- ministration. Obama political appointee Lois Lerner target- ed the Tea Party and other taxpayer groups with a conser vative orientation. An acci- dent? By the way, the Obama team never even apologized, and Lois Lerner ducked out on testifying be- fore Congress. She never went to jail. Now, the folks at Openthebooks. com report that the IRS is armed with real weapons — guns, ammuni- tion and militar y equipment. "The Internal Revenue Ser vice, with its 2,159 'Special Agents,' spent $21.3 million on guns, ammunition and militar y-style equipment be- tween fiscal years 2006 and 2019. The agency stockpiled 4,500 guns and five million rounds of ammuni- tion." How many of the new 87,000 em- ployees will be armed? And why does a tax collection agency need guns, anyway? This stor y gets more sordid as we dig deeper. The IRS employee union donates 99 percent of its money to Democrats. This scam to give the IRS tens of billions of dollars will pipeline millions of dollars into the coffers of Democrat- ic candidates. Does anyone believe that an agency that gives almost ever y dollar from its PAC to one party is an unbiased referee of our tax sys- tem? I hope no one be- lieves this is to get more money from Bill Gates or Warren Buf- fett or Mark Zucker- berg. These billionaires have their own armies of tax accountants and lawyers. They have the resources to defend themselves from erroneous IRS tax rulings. The Republicans in the Senate of- fered an amendment to this god-aw- ful bill that would have restricted new audits to those making more than $400,000. Ever y Democrat said no way. This is because the geese they will pluck are the defenseless small business owners and people who make between $75,000 and $250,000 of income. My friend Dan Pilla, who is one of the experts on IRS abuses, has found that the agency is tr ying to discourage taxpayers from hiring an attorney or going to court to get Heritage Viewpoint By Amy Swearer These 11 defensive gun uses show protective benefits of Second Amendment Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore An IRS that's armed and dangerous See PROTECTIVE on page 7 See IRS on page 7