Republicans target IRS because it was created to 'end slavery,' former Obama official claims

by ALEC SCHEMMEL | The National Desk

Tue, August 30th 2022, 5:50 PM UTC

FILE - A sign is displayed outside the Internal Revenue Service building on May 4, 2021, in Washington. Conservative politicians and candidates are distorting how a major economic bill passed over the weekend by the Senate would reform the IRS and affect taxes for the middle class. The Inflation Reduction Act, which awaits a House vote after passing in the Senate on Sunday, would increase the ranks of the IRS — but it wouldn’t create a mob of armed auditors looking to harass middle class taxpayers, as some Republicans are claiming. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

FILE - The exterior of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building in Washington, on March 22, 2013. One of Washington's favorite punching bags, the Internal Revenue Service, may finally get the resources it's been asking Congress for if Democrats get their economic package focused on energy and health care over the finish line. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

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FILE - A sign is displayed outside the Internal Revenue Service building on May 4, 2021, in Washington. Conservative politicians and candidates are distorting how a major economic bill passed over the weekend by the Senate would reform the IRS and affect taxes for the middle class. The Inflation Reduction Act, which awaits a House vote after passing in the Senate on Sunday, would increase the ranks of the IRS — but it wouldn’t create a mob of armed auditors looking to harass middle class taxpayers, as some Republicans are claiming. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

WASHINGTON (TND) — A former high-level public official from the Obama administration, Brandon Friedman, recently said Republicans' opposition to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was rooted in racism, claiming the GOP dislikes the federal agency because it was created to "end slavery" and "burn white supremacy to the ground."

Friedman's comments were in response to a social media post by Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who tweeted out "Happy Sunday. Abolish the IRS," to his 2.7 million followers over the weekend.

Republicans don't just hate the IRS because it pays for things like highways and social security. There's history here. They hate what it represents. The IRS was created in 1862 specifically to fund the Civil War, to end slavery and to burn white supremacy to the ground," Friedman said in a quote-tweet of Cruz's post.

'Abolish the IRS' may sound like an innocuous anti-tax message, but it's literally a call to defund the U.S. military. The same military that crushed secessionists the first time. It's a fundamentally anti-government message. The insurrection continues," Friedman added in a follow up tweet.

The IRS has been under heavy scrutiny from Republicans lately due largely to the fact that President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act contained a substantial expansion of the agency, including adding 87,000 new employees to its ranks over the next 10 years.

The Biden administration has claimed the expansion will not impact Americans earning under $400,000 a year. However, a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has indicated audits of taxpayers making under $400,000 will account for roughly $20 billion in revenue that the Democrats plan to collect through the Inflation Reduction Act.

Many social media users balked at Friedman's claim that GOP criticisms of the IRS are not actually rooted in disapproval of increasing taxes.

"When I think of the IRS, I think, 'Dang nabbit, my great-great-great-great-grandpappy lost his eye in the Civil War. We must avenge his eye by not paying our taxes!'" user Ellen Carmichael joked in her response to Friedman's tweet.

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"This is exceptionally dumb, of course. But it's also quite telling that leftists believe the IRS is the one that 'pays' for stuff," responded The Federalist Senior Editor David Harsanyi.

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