×

Iowa Politics with Jeff Stein — Thu. Aug. 11, 2022

By Jeff Stein Aug 11, 2022 | 5:15 AM

Numbers in Perspective

Much has been made about the number 87,000—that’s the number of new IRS agents that will be funded if the interestingly-named “Inflation Reduction Act” passes the U.S. House this week and becomes law.

It’s been pointed out that you could fill every seat in either Jack Trice Stadium in Ames, or Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, and still need around 20,000 more seats if you were going to gather all those new agents. If memory serves, you’d need to fill Kinnick plus Carver-Hawkeye Arena…and still need more room.

How about this…the population of Waterloo is 67,000—that’s 20,000 short. Or what about Cedar Falls…checking in most recently at 41,000 citizens…you’d need to double the population of Cedar Falls and then some just to equal the number of new IRS agents.

Again, that’s *new* agents…in addition to all the others they already have.

All those new agents are there to make sure people are paying their taxes…frankly, just like a sales person working on commission, there will be extreme pressure on them to earn their keep. And once they get the low-hanging fruit, or run out of supposedly rich people…then what? Those jobs won’t ever go away…but the people in those jobs will go after you.

People fall for the mantra of “tax the rich” because we individually don’t think we’re rich…we always think they’re talking about someone else. But put a definition on “rich”—income level, asset value—and all of a sudden, lots of folks who want to tax rich people wind up being declared “rich” themselves.

Government infrastructure, once built, never is reduced. That’s why this provision is especially troublesome, especially when you look at areas of government—border security agents, as one quick example—that could really use 87,000 new employees. Because it tells you exactly that those in power have in mind.