Let us, for the moment, ignore Benghazi and Justice Department’s overreach in demanding phone records from AP and focus on the IRS. Let us imagine the president is telling the truth when he says he did not know about the plan to clamp down on conservative leaning campaign groups. This should not tax your imagination, as there is not the slightest evidence that either the president or any of his political appointees did know. The public struggles to believe this, for understandable reasons. If told that someone in government wanted to silence conservatives who would you think more likely to be guilty? Non-partisan civil servants or partisan Democrats? People are right to be suspicious, but what if they are wrong? What if no political appointees were in any way involved in this scandal?
To this columnist, this is a very disconcerting thought. If it turns out that the president is corrupt, and illegally using his power to silence his critics, then there is a well-established constitutional procedure for dealing with this. Sadly, it would make Joe Biden president, but that just reinforces the importance of the vice-presidency. But there is no procedure for dealing with the much more concerning prospect, that government itself is an enemy of free speech.
The United States differs from other western democracies in that a much larger number of positions at the top of government are, theoretically at least, in the gift of the president. There are more positions which change hands when the administration changes. But it remains the case that the bulk of administrative positions in government are part of the permanent civil service. They continue in office whatever the party alignment of the president.
But what if this non-partisan permanent government actually has a partisan or ideological slant to it?
Why might this be the case? It is obviously possible that government jobs attract people of left-wing persuasion or that the psychological factors which incline people to liberal politics also incline them to government jobs. This factor should not be pushed too far. Many people are not especially political and there are many factors which lead people to take particular jobs: availability, location, salary and, of course, the skills required. But, that being said, there may be a tendency for liberals to seek out government jobs while conservatives seek work in the private sector.
The causal link could easily run in the other direction. What if people who work for the government come to see liberalism as being in their interests? This might vary from one area of government to another. Even radical minimal state libertarians want to maintain the police and military. There is no reason for soldiers or cops to see liberals as their defenders, perhaps quite the reverse. But IRS staff might well see conservatives and libertarians as their enemies. This would not particularly apply to social conservatives, but it most certainly would apply to the Tea Party. Tea Party groups take their name from the acronym Taxed Enough Already.
IRS staff might well see any group which argues for lower or simpler taxes as being hostile. For good reason. A smaller, simpler, tax system would need fewer IRS staff.
If this conspiracy is widespread it will be hard to confront. But it will certainly be an additional reason to support simplification of the tax system.
Quentin Langley is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Bedfordshire Business School as well as a freelance columnist published in the UK and all parts of the US. He blogs on social media and crisis communications at brandjacknews.com
Filed under: U.S. Politics
