President
Obama
and Democrats have been at great pains to insist they knew
nothing about IRS targeting of conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofits before
the 2012 election. They've been at even greater pains this week to
ensure that the same conservative groups are silenced in the 2014
midterms.
That's the big, dirty secret
of the omnibus negotiations. As one of the only bills destined to pass
this year, the omnibus was—behind the scenes—a flurry of horse trading.
One of the biggest fights was over GOP efforts to include language to
stop the IRS from instituting a new round of 501(c)(4) targeting. The
White House is so counting on the tax agency to muzzle its political
opponents that it willingly sacrificed any manner of its own priorities
to keep the muzzle in place.
And now back to our previously scheduled outrage over the
Chris Christie
administration's abuse of traffic cones on the George Washington Bridge.
The fight was sparked by a new rule that the
Treasury Department and the IRS introduced during the hush of
Thanksgiving recess, ostensibly to "improve" the law governing
nonprofits. What the rule in fact does is recategorize as "political"
all manner of educational activities that 501(c)(4) social-welfare
organizations currently engage in.
It's
IRS targeting all over again, only this time by administration design
and with the raw political goal—as House Ways and Means Chairman Dave
Camp (R., Mich.) notes—of putting "tea party groups out of business."
Congressional
sources tell me that House Appropriations Chairman
Hal Rogers
(R., Ky.) had two priorities in the omnibus negotiations. One was
getting in protection for groups that morally oppose ObamaCare's
contraception-coverage requirement. The other was language that would
put a hold on the IRS rule.
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