Anti-IRS Diatribes Are Stupid and Dangerous

Let's cool the hatred before someone else gets killed
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 15, 2010 1:48 PM CDT
Anti-IRS Diatribes Are Stupid and Dangerous
An April 15 photo of a tea party rally in Waco, Texas.   (AP Photo/Waco Tribune-Herald, Duane A. Laverty/file)

Watch coverage of the Tax Day rallies and you'll no doubt hear all about the evil IRS and the "jack-booted thugs" who work there. It's way past time to stop the demagoguery, writes EJ Dionne. Anyone remember the nut who flew his plane into IRS offices in Austin in February and killed an innocent man? "We should call this propaganda what it is: a sweeping falsehood that libels the work of committed federal employees," writes Dionne at the Washington Post.

"It's time to tell the truth," he writes. "Our tax system allows enormous leeway for innocent mistakes, that IRS agents often help hard-pressed taxpayers work out reasonable ways of meeting their obligations and that our system provides, as it should, many avenues through which taxpayers can exercise their due-process rights." In a similar vein, Gail Collins suggests the IRS "needs to get way better at marketing" in her New York Times column. Read it here.
(More Tax Day stories.)

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