When the White House's Anita Dunn spoke out against Fox News and called them a propaganda wing of the GOP, the Villagers came to their defense. I believe their motives weren't that they disagreed with the administration, but that they were protecting what they consider to be one of their own -- just in case a Republican administration ever took power again and began to target them. What will they say now that an arch-conservative member of Congress named Tom Coburn states the exact position?
Coburn is better known for the Omnibus Bill that Harry Reid had to put together because of all the holds Coburn placed on so many pieces of legislation. Ryan Grim has more info on it here.
A woman at a town hall meeting was frightened that the IRS would come in and lock her up if she didn't buy health insurance. Coburn told her that she shouldn't be listening to Fox News because he knew that they were helping push along that lie.
As we noted when Newt Gingrich pushed this same lie, Factcheck.org has completely debunked this claim.
Q: Will the IRS hire 16,500 new agents to enforce the health care law?
A: No. The law requires the IRS mostly to hand out tax credits, not collect penalties. The claim of 16,500 new agents stems from a partisan analysis based on guesswork and false assumptions, and compounded by outright misrepresentation.
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This wildly inaccurate claim started as an inflated, partisan assertion that 16,500 new IRS employees might be required to administer the new law. That devolved quickly into a claim, made by some Republican lawmakers, that 16,500 IRS "agents" would be required. Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas even claimed in a televised interview that all 16,500 would be carrying guns. None of those claims is true.
The IRS’ main job under the new law isn’t to enforce penalties. Its first task is to inform many small-business owners of a new tax credit that the new law grants them — starting this year — which will pay up to 35 percent of the employer’s contribution toward their workers’ health insurance. And in 2014 the IRS will also be administering additional subsidies — in the form of refundable tax credits — to help millions of low- and middle-income individuals buy health insurance. The law does make individuals subject to a tax, starting in 2014, if they fail to obtain health insurance coverage. But IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman testified before a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee March 25 that the IRS won’t be auditing individuals to certify that they have obtained health insurance...read on
"One of the things in the health bill is 16,000 additional IRS agents," said Newt Gingrich, echoing the latest GOP talking point. Rep. Paul Ryan joined him, saying the IRS will get "16,000 agents to police this new mandate." But is it true? Well, no
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So let's go back to Gingrich's original sentence. "One of the things in the health bill is 16,000 additional IRS agents," he said. First, that's not a "thing in the health bill." It's an extrapolation from a CBO report. Second, the word "is" is wrong, as even the original GOP spin only used the word "may." Third, the number 16,000 is wrong. Fourth, the word "agents" is wrong. But if the statement gets no credit for truth, it's at least efficient: Not just anyone could pack four falsehoods into 13 words. But Gingrich, now, he's a professional.
