{"id":28,"date":"2022-08-22T16:10:16","date_gmt":"2022-08-22T16:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/?p=28"},"modified":"2022-08-22T16:10:16","modified_gmt":"2022-08-22T16:10:16","slug":"lenin-stalin-joe-biden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/2022\/08\/22\/lenin-stalin-joe-biden\/","title":{"rendered":"Lenin, Stalin, Joe Biden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The latest announcement from the Biden administration that the Internal Revenue Service is hiring roughly 87,000 agents should be a terrifying wakeup call for the entire country. This new influx of agents \u2013 nearly half the size of the US Marine Corps \u2013 should be seen as nothing short of an attempt by the President and his cronies to further their war against the middle and working classes. Recent postings online \u2013 since deleted by the IRS \u2013 asked that individuals applying for some of the new special agent roles \u201ccarry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force, if necessary,\u201d and maintain a high level of physical fitness. Do we really need an armed, physically fit individual out there busting some kids trying to make a few extra bucks during the summer cutting lawns, or kicking down the door of a tenant trying to pay his rent via Venmo? Because that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s going to happen.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/105\/2022\/08\/CI_Image-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-29\" width=\"522\" height=\"348\" srcset=\"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/105\/2022\/08\/CI_Image-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/105\/2022\/08\/CI_Image-700x467.jpg 700w, https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/105\/2022\/08\/CI_Image-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/105\/2022\/08\/CI_Image-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/105\/2022\/08\/CI_Image-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/105\/2022\/08\/CI_Image-400x267.jpg 400w, https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/105\/2022\/08\/CI_Image-1300x867.jpg 1300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 522px) 100vw, 522px\" \/><figcaption>The IRS is looking to hire 87,000 new recruits, including thousands of armed agents, in the coming decade<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>And don\u2019t let their rationale that they are only going to be targeting the top 1% fool you either: according to a report released by the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation released last August, the bulk of the money believed to be underreported by the IRS \u2013 as much as 90% of it, in fact \u2013 supposedly comes from people making under $200,000. That\u2019s where this new legion of bureaucrats will be looking first.<\/p>\n<p>And not only that, but tax agents have a proven track record of being used by the government to go after rivals. In 1960, the IRS and the State of Alabama accused the Reverend Martin Luther King of falsifying his tax records. In 1974, the Bill of Impeachment against Richard Nixon alleged that the former President \u201cendeavoured to&#8230; cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.\u201d The list goes on and on, and this latest expansion gives the current administration all-new capabilities to wield the IRS like a cudgel against its opposition with impunity. The Biden administration is fully channeling the ghosts of tyrants past with these new hires \u2013 hires which, again, will inevitably be used to further weaken the American middle class and directly target and intimidate political rivals. They say history repeats itself, and we may be seeing something of an early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century replay here in the 21<sup>st<\/sup>: Lenin, Stalin, Joe Biden \u2013 all empowered government agencies under the auspices of protecting the common person, and all dramatically abused that power.<\/p>\n<p>If Biden and his ilk were truly interested in protecting the American people, they would have taken the money they\u2019re using to hire this army of IRS agents, and instead put it towards armed school guards. It\u2019s no secret that parents across the country send their children off to class every day with a little fear in mind, worrying about the possibility of another Uvalde taking place in their hometown. And when another shooting does inevitably go down, we can be sure that Kamala and Joe will be out there, offering hollow words of condolence while doing nothing at all to actually prevent the problem. Sure, maybe they\u2019ll prattle on about the NRA and promise stricter background checks, but that does little if the assailant is able to get a firearm from less-than-legal sources.<\/p>\n<p>What we should have is a federally funded program that trains outgoing military veterans and sets them up with jobs in schools across the country. For the amount of money we are spending on hiring IRS agents, we could instead work to both make a dent in the issue of veteran homelessness by providing mentally fit ex-service members with solid career opportunities close to their hometowns, and safeguard our children by ensuring that there is a protector in every school.<\/p>\n<p>If there was an armed school security agent in every school building \u2013 an agent who is fully and properly trained in how to react to and engage with a school shooter \u2013 I think that we\u2019d all feel a little bit more at ease when we send our kids off in the morning. Instead of doing something like that, which would make sense, the administration is instead putting a staggering $80 billion dollars over the course of the next decade to investigate what the American people are doing with their money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The latest announcement from the Biden administration that the Internal Revenue Service is hiring roughly 87,000 agents should be a terrifying wakeup call for the entire country. This new influx of agents \u2013 nearly half the size of the US Marine Corps \u2013 should be seen as nothing short of an attempt by the President and his cronies to further their war against the middle and working classes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong><small><a href=\"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/2022\/08\/22\/lenin-stalin-joe-biden\/\">READ MORE<\/a><\/small><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":236,"featured_media":10,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/236"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joann-ariola\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}