George Will is rightly critical of the politics played – I believe inevitably – by the I.R.S. A slice:
The idea that politicians should write laws restricting people critical of them is as perverse as the idea that the sprawling, opaque IRS bureaucracy should be assigned to construe and apply such laws. It is bad enough that there is the misbegotten Federal Election Commission to do what the First Amendment forbids — government regulation of the quantity, content and timing of political speech.
He’s correct. In light of Jim Gwartney’s and Rosemarie Fike’s message yesterday to members of the Public Choice Society, it’s foolish in the extreme to suppose that politicians will create government agencies that will not be used politically. To assume that politicians can give birth to agencies (and regulations, and statutes) that are non-political makes no more sense than to assume that tigers can give birth to bunny rabbits. It might be a pleasant thought for those who fancy romance over realism, but it ain’t realistic.
David Henderson is enjoying Peter Schuck’s new book, Why Government Fails So Often. (Hey, we have again reason to heed the lessons of public choice!)
Gary Chartier reviews David Rose’s The Moral Foundations of Economic Behavior.
Mish isn’t impressed with yesterday’s jobs report.
Reason’s Peter Suderman on the continuing calamity that is Obamacare.
