Highlights: House Republicans are proposing funding $14 billion in aid to Israel by cutting additional money for divisions of the IRS tasked with making sure wealthy people and tax cheats pay their fair share, according to a new bill filed Monday.

The bill would also eliminate a task force intended to design a free direct e-file tax return system that could wind up competing with TurboTaxā€”a change that the company, and politicians, particularly Republicans, have fought. Advocates have said such a system could save taxpayers billions of dollars, and millions of hours of prep time, per year.

The GOPā€™s latest bill matches $14 billion Bidenā€™s funding request for Israel in numberā€”but not in its proposed approach.

The thought ofā€”as my colleague David Corn put it in Mother Jonesā€˜ internal Slack channelā€”ā€letting billionaires cheat to pay for bombs to drop on civiliansā€ is jarring, particularly given the more than 3,500 children that Gaza health authorities say have been killed by the Israeli airstrikes; heartbreaking photos and videos have shown kids covered in blood and dust and collapsing while coping with living through the trauma of war and losing loved ones.

  • doctorcrimson
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    1 year ago

    The large government was the one stopping abortion bans until the right wing SCOTUS overturned ROE v. WADE, tho.

    • Chetzemoka@startrek.website
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      1 year ago

      What? No lol. I donā€™t think you understand how government regulation works. Stopping abortion bans was just a handful of Justice Department lawyers prosecuting lawsuits on Constitutional grounds. Enforcing abortion bans will require any number of absurd bureaucracies - auditors to review medical records, police to investigate reports of illegal behavior, prosecutors to litigate cases, some kind of agency to enforce any fines levied, more prisons.

      Enforcing a ban requires massively more government intervention than filing a few lawsuits did.

      • doctorcrimson
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        1 year ago

        Smaller Governments across the USA have banned abortions after the SCOTUS ruling, so them banning abortions is not an example of them being pro-government. It was just another example of them dismantling the federal government. A better example to make the above point would be drawing attention to the times when state lawmakers took away school districtā€™s rights to teach certain subjects, as the school districts are small decentralized governments being bossed around by the larger state government.

        • Chetzemoka@startrek.website
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          1 year ago

          Lmfao that is not at all what Republicans mean by smaller government. They literally mean ā€œno government regulations of any kindā€

          https://theconversation.com/the-shutdown-drowning-government-in-the-bathtub-111333

          "Many believe that government is at best superfluous and at worst a drag on a free market. It has long been their aim to cut taxes to ā€œstarve the beast.ā€

          Grover Norquist, who founded Americans for Tax Reform in 1985 at the urging of President Reagan, declared in 2001: ā€œI donā€™t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.ā€"

          They want government taxation and regulation at ALL levels GONE (except when itā€™s convenient for their political agenda, we see)

          What youā€™re talking about is their disingenuous pretending that they care about local government and ā€œstatesā€™ rightsā€ to hide their real agenda.

          (Funny enough ā€œstatesā€™ rightsā€ was also used as an excuse to maintain and expand slavery before the Civil War. So never forget that bigots have always been liars because they know theyā€™re wrong and evil.

          https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/causes-of-the-civil-war/#:~:text=A key issue was states,Another factor was territorial expansion.)

          I donā€™t know where you got your information from, but theyā€™re wrong. I lived through the 80s; Iā€™ve been listening to Republicans talk about ā€œsmall governmentā€ for 40 years. They only care about being able to handicap taxation and regulations that cost corporations money.