Echoes of Nixon’s enemies list

The IRS now admits that as far back as 2011 its agents delayed the applications of conservative organizations seeking tax exempt status.

The IRS deliberately singled out applications that included words like “Patriot” and “Tea Party.” And ended up proving the very point these groups have been making: that you can’t trust government.

The IRS apologized, but only after it was clear the agency was about to be outed by an independent investigation.

Members of Congress were outraged.

But now to the bigger issue: this whole idea of the IRS granting its blessing to certain organizations on the grounds that they are primarily engaged in social welfare.

Do these organizations have to demonstrate results, or just write a sincere-sounding application?

What I can tell you without a doubt – is that we have a lot of tax-exempt social welfare organizations in this country. On the IRS website, as of this week there are 827,693 tax exempt social welfare organizations in the United States.

That’s one for every 375 Americans! And yet we still seem to have so many problems. I know there are skeptics who think a lot of these groups are just tree huggers. I hope that’s not true. Because if it is, the trees must be exhausted.