I had to watch this video twice to make sure I was understanding its implications correctly. Sure enough, here is everyone's favorite IRS Commissioner testifying on Capitol Hill (discussing subjects other than
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The Washington Times summarizes the exchange:
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told Congress on Wednesday that even illegal immigrants who didn’t pay taxes will be able to claim back-refunds once they get Social Security numbers under President Obama’s temporary deportation amnesty...Mr. Koskinen, testifying to the House oversight committee, said the White House never asked him or anyone else at the IRS about the potential tax effects of his amnesty policy. “I haven’t talked to the White House about this at all,” he said...He also clarified his testimony to the Senate last week, where he acknowledged illegal immigrants who had paid taxes using substitute Social Security numbers but who gain real Social Security numbers when they are approved for the amnesty can apply for back-refunds of the Earned Income Tax Credit. On Wednesday, he said even illegal immigrants who didn’t pay taxes will be able to apply for back-credits once they get Social Security numbers. The EITC is a refundable tax credit, which means those who don’t have any tax liability can still get money back from the government.
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Step one: Violate the laws and sovereignty of the United States of America by entering the country illegally. Step two: Find work and get paid (often off the books). Step three: Receive "deportation relief," a work permit and a Social Security Number, courtesy of the president's unilateral policy decree. Step four: Instantly become eligible for hefty future and back tax credits -- ie, checks cut directly to people with no tax liability, in many cases -- all courtesy of American taxpayers. Even to a pro-DREAM Act, pro-reform squish like myself, this is completely indefensible. Our own Conn Carroll, it must be said, saw this coming a few months back. He noted at the time that even though illegal immigrants already collect smaller tax credits ($4 billion from the Additional Child Tax Credit in 2011 alone), the EITC is a much bigger program involving a much deeper pot of money. Some Republican Senators are blasting this scheme as tantamount to an "amnesty bonus," and if you believe Koskinen, the White House apparently didn't bother to ask how the president's power grab might open a fire-hose of new benefits for illegal immigrants via the tax code. Think about that. Then again, they probably don't see it as a problem at all. Remember, Obama's Attorney General nominee recently asserted that non-citizens have the "right" to work in the US. The IRS can't say how much this little wrinkle will cost taxpayers, but Conn's back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest we could be looking at tens of billions in back payments over the past three years alone. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats
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Lawmakers also raised concerns Mr. Obama’s amnesty could open a window to illegal immigrants finding ways to vote, despite it being against the law. “While we may disagree about whether your deferred action programs were lawfully created and implemented, we are confident that we can all agree that these programs cannot be permitted to impair the integrity of our elections,” Republican members of Congress from Ohio wrote in a letter to Mr. Obama Wednesday, ahead of a hearing on the issue in the House on Thursday.
I'd like to see more details on the basis for this specific worry, but before Democrats laugh off questions regarding illegal voting by non-citizens as a paranoid Republican fairy tale, they should read this. I'll leave you with a few questions: Since the media and Democrats seem so interested this week in Scott Walker's side-stepping of a
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Re: the POLITICS of evolution: @TheFix flags Pew survey showing only 19% of voters believing in Darwinian evolution http://t.co/ZMvAj6z5Lr
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) February 12, 2015
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