Washington, D.C. -- While the Bill and Monica show was playing to packed houses, a breakthrough story managed to slip by practically unnoticed.

The Internal Revenue Service, under heavy fire from Congress in recent months, announced that it is
reprimanding some of its managers and reassigning others. Further, a new disciplinary office will
investigate another 132 managers for misuse of enforcement statistics or seizure of property. While
these developments are of interest, the real story was what did not happen. IRS thuggery is far from new.

Hearings for a "taxpayers’ bill of rights" were held more than 10 years ago by Sen. David Pryor, a Democrat.
The testimony proved a horror story worthy of Steven King. The agency promoted its employees based on how
much money and property they seized from taxpayers. IRS field offices stuck up banners proclaiming SEIZURE
FEVER, CATCH IT! Fueled by that perverse incentive, the agents became a kind of American KGB, terrorizing the
weakest, most vulnerable taxpayers, many innocent of any offense. Their assets seized or frozen, some found
themselves living out of automobiles and scrounging for food, their lives destroyed.

The 1988 Taxpayer Bill of Rights forbade the IRS to use enforcement statistics for promotion purposes, but
reviews found the agency has consistently violated that policy. This is an agency that considers itself above
the law. In one of many more recent accounts, the IRS tried to force a seriously ill man to sell the home in
which his wife and daughters lived. They backed off only when the man finally died.

Such predatory behavior, worthy of a street gang, would land a private citizen in jail. Clearly, nobody who
practices such abuse and violation of basic rights should be in government service at any level. But
here’s the story: _not a single IRS agent lost his or her job_, a fate which most if not all deserve, along
with those in charge who allowed the abuses to continue. All the offenders got were reprimands,
admonishments, and reassignments.

Who, exactly, are these people and where do they work? We don’t know because not a single IRS manager was
publicly named or even had their salary reduced. This failure to punish amounts to bad policy and tells the
agents they can abuse the populace with impunity. But the root cause of this problem does not lie with the
agency itself but our elected representatives.

Democrats and Republicans alike may show anger over the abuses, but are really comfortable with the status quo of the welfare state. For decades they have been busy creating multi-billion-dollar boondoggles called
"entitlements." They have kept in place an immoral and incomprehensible tax code that punishes people for
working hard. In their quest to wring every possible penny out of the populace, freespending Republicans and
Democrats avert their eyes to all but the worst abuses of their enforcement squads. Citizens have every right
to remain cynical.

When those guilty of massive violations against innocent citizens start losing their jobs and going to
jail, then we will know that Congress is serious about reforming the IRS. When they eliminate the current tax
code, and when all Americans pay the same tax rate, we will know that they are serious about justice and
committed to the principles of a free society.

-- K. Lloyd Billingsley