LePage: The IRS is like the “new Gestapo”

Even though President Obama’s recently Supreme Court-upheld health care law imposes a whole host of ‘penalties‘ that most definitively are not taxes, or something, it’s just ‘easiest‘ for the IRS to takeover the administration of said penalties. So of course, the IRS is rolling forward with plans to begin implementing the health care law, which in turn requires that they hire thousands of new employees and rewrite a bunch of rules and regulations. Oh, joy (emphasis mine):

The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold most of President Barack Obama’s health care law will come home to roost for most taxpayers in about 2 1/2 years, when they’ll have to start providing proof on their tax returns that they have health insurance. …

Under the law, the IRS will provide tax breaks and incentives to help pay for health insurance and impose penalties on some people who don’t buy coverage and on some businesses that don’t offer it to employees.

The changes will require new regulations, forms and publications, new computer programs and a big new outreach program to explain it all to taxpayers and tax professionals. Businesses that don’t claim an exemption will have to prove they offer health insurance to employees.

The health care law “includes the largest set of tax law changes in more than 20 years,” according to the Treasury inspector general who oversees the IRS. The agency will have to hire thousands of workers to manage it…

But it’s not a tax. Yeah, okay, got it.

The IRS might be getting a head start with implementing ObamaCare, but during his weekly radio address, Maine Governor Paul LePage jumped on the Republican-governor bandwagon of states refusing to even start preparing for the Medicaid expansion, etcetera, before they absolutely must.

LePage said the court decision has “made America less free.”

“We the people have been told there is no choice,” he said. “You must buy health insurance or pay the new Gestapo — the IRS.” …

The governor added that Maine will not move forward the ACA’s insurance exchanges — the marketplaces where individuals can shop for health plans from private companies — until the proposed $800 million tab to pay for them passes Congress.

“With these looming uncertainties circling around this issue, Maine cannot move forward right now with Obamacare,” LePage said. …

“Even more disheartening is that reviving the American dream just became nearly impossible to do,” he said. “We are now a nation which supports dependency rather than independence. Instead of encouraging self-reliance, we are encouraging people to rely on the government.”

I can’t support the Nazi imagery — it’s perhaps just a wee bit hyperbolic for my tastes (and that’s saying something!) — but I understand the outrage. This is shaping up to be the biggest encroachment on personal freedom in America’s history, and if the federal government can take their authority this far, we’d be fools not to question just how far the American people are going to allow the government to go before insisting that enough is enough.

• Quotes of the day
• Obamacare supporter shocked that employers moving to bare bones coverage
• New MSNBC theory: Maybe the IRS commissioner appointed by Bush targeted tea partiers because they’re a threat to the GOP

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