The following will not become law this year, but it’s the kind of law that could be enacted if the Republicans ever get a filibuster-proof majority or eliminate the filibuster unilaterally.
In testimony to a House taxation subcommittee on Wednesday, Thomas Barthold, the chief of staff of the nonpartisan Joint Tax Committee, confirmed that one consequence of the Republicans’ “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” would be to turn IRS agents into abortion cops—that is, during an audit, they’d have to detemine, from evidence provided by the taxpayer, whether any tax benefit had been inappropriately used to pay for an abortion.
The proposed law, also known as H.R. 3, extends the reach of the Hyde Amendment—which bans federal funding for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake—into many parts of the federal tax code. In some cases, the law would forbid using tax benefits—like credits or deductions—to pay for abortions or health insurance that covers abortion. If an American who used such a benefit were to be audited, Barthold said, the burden of proof would lie with the taxpayer to provide documentation, for example, that her abortion fell under the rape/incest/life-of-the-mother exception, or that the health insurance she had purchased did not cover abortions.
“Were this to become law, people could end up in an audit, the subject of which could be abortion, rape, and incest,” says Christopher Bergin, the head of Tax Analysts, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit tax policy group. “If you pass the law like this, the IRS would be required to enforce it.”
When the Democrats had near-unstoppable power, they greatly expanded access to health care and tried to put in some reasonable oversight of Wall Street. When the Republicans have that kind of power, it’s going to be a nightmare.
That is why it is imperative for Democrats to get their collective head out of the corporations ass.
This is the problem with the Dems, in a nutshell.
Yep. That’s why the Republicans are throwing every damned abortion proposal out there. They are setting up a huge fall for Roe v Wade and they have the patience and planning to do it. We can laugh all we want to at the Teabaggers and the new Republicans, but they are going to wreak havoc when they get back into control. This is all just a prelude and we’re sitting on our thumbs.
I have no doubt a unified republican government would rapidly go about destroying the country. But at least some skepticism is called for about this sort of thing. The republicans know this stuff won’t become law and is pure pandering to the base with minimal electoral consequences, just like “repealing” the health care law and many other things.
What you’re missing is the degree to which the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
2002-2006 demonstrated that unified republican gov is capable of almost anything. I’m just saying it’s a different dynamic when everyone knows that they own what happens.
other than Medicare Part D and a bunch of right-wing judges, what did Bush do thru Congress in those years? Basically nothing.
They just handed the store to the extraction, financial, and military industries. They stuffed the judiciary with extremists and corporate lackeys. I wouldn’t call that “nothing”. I wouldn’t call the fearsome consequences of that, in which we now live, nothing.
Plus they got involved in a totally outrageous way with the Schiavo case and probably other similar scandals.
this is who they are. folks need to stop pretending like this type of bullshyt is an ‘ anomaly’ from them. it’s the ESSENCE of who they are.