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Grassley bashed for warning of armed IRS agents 'ready to shoot’ business owners

cigaretteman

HR King
May 29, 2001
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Deplorable:
Iowa’s senior U.S. senator, Republican Chuck Grassley, was called out last week over remarks he made Thursday on “Fox & Friends” speculating whether the IRS would use increased funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to send armed units of agents into small Iowa businesses.
“Are they going to have a strike force that goes in with AK-15s already loaded, ready to shoot some small business person in Iowa with these, because I think they’re going after middle class and small business people, because they think that anybody that has pass-through income is a crook, and they aren’t paying their fair share, and we’re going to go after them,” he said.

Democrats blasted Grassley’s remarks as inaccurate, irresponsible and an incendiary conspiracy theory that incites violence against federal authorities, noting just hours before his remarks a gunman opened fire on FBI agents in Cincinnati.



Fact-checking website PolitiFact called claims that new funding to beef up IRS enforcement included in the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act would militarize the IRS was “outlandish.”

The IRS purchases guns and ammunition for special agents in its criminal investigation division who investigate crimes ranging from major drug and money laundering operations to illegal gaming operations and corporate fraud. The typical IRS auditors that Americans would encounter in a routine audit are unarmed and the vast majority of those audits are done by mail, PolitiFact noted.
The fact-checking website also reported the division has been armed for more than a century and its spending on ammunition this year is on par with previous years and less than what was spent a decade ago.

Grassley’s office said the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law Tuesday by President Joe Biden includes an additional $80 billion to beef up IRS enforcement, including hiring 87,000 additional IRS employees.

“In that context, he was asked about an IRS job posting that listed as its major duties the ability to ‘carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force,’” according to Grassley’s office. “Senator Grassley answered with a rhetorical question, with his point being: Why do we need more armed IRS agents? The IRS is being flooded with taxpayer dollars to boost audits targeting American small businesses — at their expense. If anything, Senator Grassley believes Congress should be focused on providing more IRS services so people can get the return faster instead of going after small businesses.”

 
2 questions. Did he really say AK-15s? And is that actually an obscure gun I haven't heard of but gun nuts might know about? 1 comment. Chuckles determined to ruin his legacy.
Pretty clearly a mix up between ak47 and ar15. So do you get hung up on Biden and kamala mis speaks?
 
Pretty clearly a mix up between ak47 and ar15. So do you get hung up on Biden and kamala mis speaks?
Perhaps, but when you're taking huge political donations from the NRA and gun manufacturers, one would think Chuckles could keep them straight.
 
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He ain’t walking anywhere near a stage/auditorium that has Frankenstein there. He would be an embarrassment to all Iowans in a “one on one”……
Maybe one of his demands in a debate setting would be a demand that a curtain be present in the event of a tough question?

Grassley loves a place to hide.
 
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What did Kennedy’s amendment do exactly?

According to the text from the amendment, $3.1 billion would be redirected from the US Treasury “for making payments to federally-qualified health centers for purposes of covering direct costs incurred by “such centers for making discounted insulin and epinephrine available to qualifying center patients, as described in subsection (b).”

That doesn’t sound bad! What’s the issue?

Well, there are a few. For starters, you have to meet certain criteria to be a “qualifying center patient” to even get the discounted insulin under Kennedy’s amendment. You have to qualify as a patient at a federal clinic AND have an income equal to less than the 350% of the federal poverty level; have a high unmet deductible under a health insurance plan, or have no health insurance.

That doesn’t seem to cover a lot of people, but getting some people cheaper insulin seems better than nothing, right?

So there are nearly 1,400 federal health clinics in the US—96 are in Iowa—and they serve about 30 million Americans annually. But, there are about 37.3 million Americans—232,000 of whom are Iowans—with diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease and Control. So there could still be millions, if not tens of millions, of Americans who would still be price-gouged for insulin under the Republican plan. But, to be fair, there are also about 28 million Americans without health insurance out there, so the diabetics among that group could benefit from the discounted insurance.

If you’re looking for a simple bottom-line here, it’s this: Senate Democrats wanted to cap insulin prices for everyone, while Republicans only wanted a fraction of people on private insurance to have set-price insulin.

 
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Watch for Grassley to limit topic discussion to just the important stuff like "best lawnmowers", "ethanol mandates", and "bragging about visiting all 99 Iowa counties".

Of course, that's assuming he can stay awake long enough.
 


What did Kennedy’s amendment do exactly?

According to the text from the amendment, $3.1 billion would be redirected from the US Treasury “for making payments to federally-qualified health centers for purposes of covering direct costs incurred by “such centers for making discounted insulin and epinephrine available to qualifying center patients, as described in subsection (b).”

That doesn’t sound bad! What’s the issue?

Well, there are a few. For starters, you have to meet certain criteria to be a “qualifying center patient” to even get the discounted insulin under Kennedy’s amendment. You have to qualify as a patient at a federal clinic AND have an income equal to less than the 350% of the federal poverty level; have a high unmet deductible under a health insurance plan, or have no health insurance.

That doesn’t seem to cover a lot of people, but getting some people cheaper insulin seems better than nothing, right?

So there are nearly 1,400 federal health clinics in the US—96 are in Iowa—and they serve about 30 million Americans annually. But, there are about 37.3 million Americans—232,000 of whom are Iowans—with diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease and Control. So there could still be millions, if not tens of millions, of Americans who would still be price-gouged for insulin under the Republican plan. But, to be fair, there are also about 28 million Americans without health insurance out there, so the diabetics among that group could benefit from the discounted insurance.

If you’re looking for a simple bottom-line here, it’s this: Senate Democrats wanted to cap insulin prices for everyone, while Republicans only wanted a fraction of people on private insurance to have set-price insulin.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) told a group of his constituents Wednesday that he is “for the $35 cap” on insulin, even though he voted against a measure earlier this month that would have capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month nationwide.
That cap was originally included in Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, the ambitious bill signed into law by President Biden this week that, among other things, tackles rising drug prices. Grassley joined most Senate Republicans in stripping the $35 price cap on the cost of insulin from the Inflation Reduction Act as Democrats moved the measure through Congress.
In a video shared by Iowa Startling Line, Grassley went on a lengthy tangent on how insulin caps don’t do enough to limit the role of pharmacy benefit managers, who play a crucial role in deciding the cost of prescription drugs for patients and pharmacies nationwide.
While the final Inflation Reduction Act passed the Senate through reconciliation — meaning Democrats didn’t need Republican support to get it to Biden’s desk — the Senate parliamentarian ruled before the bill’s passage that part of the Democrats’ cap did not comply with the rules that allow them to advance a bill under reconciliation, giving Republicans an opening to jettison it.
The insulin cap has been a long-running ambition of Democrats, who want it to apply to patients on Medicare and private insurance. Republicans left the portion that applies to Medicare patients untouched but stripped the insulin cap for other patients.
“There was a chance to cap that insulin at $35 for everybody in that bill, and it didn’t pass,” a constituent at the town hall noted to Grassley.
“It would have just capped it for the people that are on commercial health insurance, it wouldn’t have done anything for the uninsured,” Grassley said.
“But that would’ve been something,” the constituent said.

 
You've at least got Sasse, who will call out Trumpists from time to time even though he will vote with them when push comes to shove. and DEb doesn't seem terribly Trumpy.
Sasse is a conservative through and through. Normally I could in no way support him. He has one and only one redeeming quality in that he is a never Trumper. I would support him in a primary if I felt he were the lessor of the 2 evils, but I would need to change parties to do it.
 
The only people who will be harassed are the tax cheats that have something to hide, but carry on in your wingnut alternate universe.
No. Any audit is a difficult experience. Interacting with the gov is a chore. It wastes time. Gov workers are often annoyingly pedantic and lazy. The form interface system. Is obnoxious. This is likely to result in hundreds of millions to billions of dollars of wasted man hours from civilians dealing with the new force of irs agents. This is regardless of cheating or not. How do I know you’ve never been through an audit…

Idiot.
 
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