Weeks before midterm elections, Republicans warn of an army of 87,000 IRS agents that will harass Americans
CBSN
For weeks, Republicans have been telling voters across the country that President Joe Biden and Democrats will be sending an army of 87,000 IRS agents to audit everyday Americans, to dig deeper into their pockets to pay for unfunded liberal programs like student loan forgiveness. Leading up to the midterm elections, GOP candidates are running campaign ads featuring the claim and vowing to stop the IRS, once Republicans control Congress again. Where did this idea originate and is there any truth to it? Here's what to know about whether the tax men cometh.
The 87,000 figure comes from a Treasury report released in May 2021, which evaluated a proposal to provide the IRS with an additional $80 billion in funding. That amount of money has since been approved, courtesy of the climate, health care and tax law passed earlier this year.
More than 2 million federal employees face a looming deadline: By midnight on Thursday, they must decide whether to accept a "deferred resignation" offer from the Trump administration. If workers accept, according to a White House plan, they would continue getting paid through September but would be excused from reporting for duty. But if they opt to keep their jobs, they could get fired.
More employees of the Environmental Protection Agency were informed Wednesday that their jobs appear in doubt. Senior leadership at the EPA held an all-staff meeting to tell individuals that President Trump's executive order, "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing," which was responsible for the closure of the agency's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office, will likely lead to the shuttering of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights as well.
In her first hours as attorney general, Pam Bondi issued a broad slate of directives that included a Justice Department review of the prosecutions of President Trump, a reorientation of department work to focus on harsher punishments, actions punishing so-called "sanctuary" cities and an end to diversity initiatives at the department.