In the summer of 2009, when popular rage against the Democrats’ efforts to pass ObamaCare boiled over in the streets and at congressional town halls, bumper stickers and t-shirts popped up everywhere with the slogan: “Obama+Care: The efficiency of the DMV, the compassion of the IRS” (i.e., Department of Motor Vehicles, where most have to go to get their drivers licenses).
Proponents of the health care overhaul, which was still a work in progress—for that matter, it still is—claimed such criticisms were over the top. Except, of course, they weren’t, as we are now discovering.
Two issues are raging simultaneously in the media—or at least in the conservative media—and almost no one is connecting the dots.
One is the recent story that President Obama has decided to funnel $500 million taxpayer dollars to the IRS so that it can begin to ramp up its citizen surveillance efforts, required by ObamaCare, to ensure that we all have government-approved health coverage, or fine us if we don’t.
That bumper sticker comment about the “compassion of the IRS” will soon become a reality, unless either the U.S. Supreme Court or the next session of Congress kills the legislation.
The other issue is the outrageous waste of taxpayer dollars at the General Services (GSA) Administration, paying for lavish parties in Las Vegas, including the making of videos that mock U.S. taxpayers and joke about the agency’s ability to take us all for a bunch of chumps.
The president keeps trying to extol the virtues of expanding the government, even as the government keeps proving him wrong. The burden that should rest squarely on the shoulders of the Obama administration is to explain why taxpayers should provide a dime to agencies until we know that they won’t waste the money like the GSA, or for that matter, like the Obama administration.