IRS - Constituting America

2008, Barack Obama: Forty-Fourth President of the United States

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2016, Juliette Turner 6. Presidential Elections and Their Constitutional Impact, 13. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 17. Topics, 2008 Barack Obama Forty-Fourth President of the United States, Great Depression, Juliette Turner, Supreme Court

Guest Essayist: Juliette Turner

Barack Obama: Forty-Fourth President of the United States

Nickname: The First African-American President

Terms in Office: 2009-2013; 2013-present

Fast Stats

Born August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii
Parents: Barack Obama Sr. and Stanley Ann Dunham Obama Soetoro
Barack Obama is still living and in office
Age upon Start of First Term: 47; Age upon Conclusion of First Term: 51
Age upon Start of Second Term: 51
Religious Affiliation: Congregationalist (Protestant)
Political Party: Democrat
Height: 6 feet 1 inch
Vice President: Joseph Biden

Bottom Line

President Obama is the current president of the United States and is serving his second term in office. Obama passed his landmark legislation, the Affordable Care Act; oversaw the capture and death of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden; and enforced a multibillion dollar stimulus in an attempt to help the economy. He has struggled with a scandal regarding the surveillance of the American people by the federal government and an ever-growing debt and deficit.

Small Businesses Threatened With $36,500 IRS Fines For Helping Employees With Health Costs – Guest Essayist: Grace-Marie Turner

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2015, Grace-Marie Turner 500 IRS Fines For Helping Employees With Health Costs, Affordable Care Act, Grace-Marie Turner, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Small Businesses Threatened With $36

Small businesses that reimburse employees for the cost of premiums for individual health insurance policies or pay their health costs directly will be fined up to $36,500 a year per employee under a new Internal Revenue Service regulation that takes effect July 1, 2015 (article originally published June 30, 2015).

Another ACA Treasury Regulation That Lacks Statutory Authority – Guest Essayist: Grace-Marie Turner

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2015, Grace-Marie Turner 5. Constitutional Crisis – Executive Overreach, 17. Topics, Affordable Care Act, Another ACA Treasury Regulation That Lacks Statutory Authority, Grace-Marie Turner, Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

New research about implementation of the Affordable Care Act finds that Obama administration regulations are allowing taxpayer subsidized health insurance for some people earning less than the statutory income floor and also for unlawful immigrants.

Examining The Use Of Administrative Actions In The Implementation Of The Affordable Care Act – Guest Essayist: Grace-Marie Turner

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2015, Grace-Marie Turner 5. Constitutional Crisis – Executive Overreach, Affordable Care Act, Examining The Use Of Administrative Actions In The Implementation Of The Affordable Care Act, Grace-Marie Turner, Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

Companies inside and outside the health sector have spent countless billions of dollars trying to comply with the ACA. When the administration makes what some call “minor temporary course corrections,” it causes a new cascade of disruption and expenses for companies and makes it even harder for them to comply not only with the law but with ever-changing regulations. We have a process by which laws are to be enacted and changed, and that process has not been followed in implementing key provisions of the Affordable Care Act, as I have described here. I thank the committee for holding this hearing today to shed light on this issue. If our constitutional system of government is to survive, it must be based upon the rule of law.

The Supreme Court: Paving The Way For Executive Branch Overreach – Guest Essayist: Elliot Engstrom

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2015, Elliot Engstrom 5. Constitutional Crisis – Executive Overreach, 17. Topics, Affordable Care Act, Elliot Engstrom, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), The Supreme Court: Paving The Way For Executive Branch Overreach

Last week, the United States Supreme Court once again opted not to rule a key provision of the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. The case at issue, King v. Burwell, was technically not a challenge to the Affordable Care Act itself but rather the IRS’s implementation of the Act.

Undemocratic: How Unelected, Unaccountable Bureaucrats Are Stealing Your Liberty and Freedom (Part 6) – Guest Essayist: Jay Sekulow

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2015, Jay Sekulow 5. Constitutional Crisis – Executive Overreach, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Jay Sekulow, Unaccountable Bureaucrats Are Stealing Your Liberty and Freedom (Part 6), Undemocratic: How Unelected

During the Watergate scandal, the press went into a veritable feeding frenzy when the Nixon White House reported that slightly more than eighteen minutes of tape recordings of a key conversation between President Richard Nixon and his chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, were erased. The Nixon White House claimed it was an accident. This erasure contributed immeasurably to the perception that the president was corrupt and helped bring down a presidency that only two years earlier had won reelection in a historic landslide. (Ironically enough, one of the articles of impeachment 51 against Richard Nixon cited his attempts to use the IRS against his political enemies, attempts that were insignificant compared to the vast scope of actual IRS wrongdoing during the Obama administration.) Fast-forward to 2014, with the IRS facing allegations of wrong- doing that absolutely dwarfed in scale and scope any of the allegations against the Nixon administration, and it “lost” far, far more evidence than a mere eighteen-minute conversation.

Undemocratic: How Unelected, Unaccountable Bureaucrats Are Stealing Your Liberty and Freedom (Part 5) – Guest Essayist: Jay Sekulow

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2015, Jay Sekulow 5. Constitutional Crisis – Executive Overreach, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Jay Sekulow, Unaccountable Bureaucrats Are Stealing Your Liberty and Freedom (Part 5, Undemocratic: How Unelected

Imagine you approach a Hollywood executive with the following script idea: A powerful federal agency goes rogue. It targets political opponents with extraordinary investigations, targets opponents for audits, tries to throw opponents in jail, targets politicians who try to investigate its wrongdoing, and even attempts to monitor the prayers of the faithful. Then, just when investigators close in on the wrongdoers, they suddenly disclose that they’ve “lost” all the relevant evidence. The movie would never be made. Why not? Because it’s too cartoonish, too absurd to be believable. But in the modern IRS, truth is truly stranger than fiction.

Undemocratic: How Unelected, Unaccountable Bureaucrats Are Stealing Your Liberty and Freedom (Part 4) – Guest Essayist: Jay Sekulow

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2015, Jay Sekulow 5. Constitutional Crisis – Executive Overreach, 17. Topics, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Jay Sekulow, Unaccountable Bureaucrats Are Stealing Your Liberty and Freedom (Part 4), Undemocratic: How Unelected

The IRS seems to be replacing “tax collection” with “oppression and censorship” as a key part of its agency mission statement.

Undemocratic: How Unelected, Unaccountable Bureaucrats Are Stealing Your Liberty and Freedom (Part 3) – Guest Essayist: Jay Sekulow

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2015, Jay Sekulow 17. Topics, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Jay Sekulow, Unaccountable Bureaucrats Are Stealing Your Liberty and Freedom (Part 3), Undemocratic: How Unelected

In late May 2013, we’d seen enough. We filed a lawsuit, the largest in ACLJ history.21 Ultimately including forty-one conservative and pro-life organizations in twenty-two states, it represented a comprehensive attack on the IRS targeting scheme and laid out in detail the consequences of the IRS’s misconduct. The ACLJ filed its case with the following understanding:

Undemocratic: How Unelected, Unaccountable Bureaucrats Are Stealing Your Liberty and Freedom (Part 2) – Guest Essayist: Jay Sekulow

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2015, Jay Sekulow Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Jay Sekulow, Unaccountable Bureaucrats Are Stealing Your Liberty and Freedom (Part 2), Undemocratic: How Unelected

“Let’s translate: when evaluating progressive organizations, the IRS singled out only seven groups for additional scrutiny, asked an average of only 4.7 additional questions, and approved every single group.

By contrast, the IRS singled out 104 conservative groups, asked an average of 14.9 additional questions (some with multiple subparts), and ultimately approved fewer than half,” Jay Sekulow.

Undemocratic: How Unelected, Unaccountable Bureaucrats Are Stealing Your Liberty and Freedom (Part 1) – Guest Essayist: Jay Sekulow

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2015, Jay Sekulow 2. The Constitution, 3. The Amendments, 5. Constitutional Crisis – Executive Overreach, Constitutional Amendment I, Constitutional Amendment I, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Jay Sekulow, Undemocratic: How Unelected

By early 2010, two developments were shaking American liberals to their core. The first was the rise of the Tea Party; the second was a Supreme Court case that protected the right of free political speech. Read more

June 1, 2015/1 Comment/by Janine Turner and Cathy Gillespie

Stop Using The IRS As A Bludgeon – Guest Essayist: James D. Best

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2015, James D. Best 4. The Classics that Inspired the Constitution, 5. Constitutional Crisis – Executive Overreach, Declaration of Independence, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), James D. Best, Stop Using The IRS As A Bludgeon

American citizens should never fear their own government. It’s Un-American. The Declaration of Independence directed our Founders to organize government powers “in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” We should be able to go to bed at night feeling safe from hostile pounding on the door. The concept of the home as a safe refuge has been a key principle of Western Civilization going all the way back to the Roman Republic.

Can Congress Stop Federal Agencies From Running Riot Over Your Liberties? Yes. – Guest Essayist: George Landrith

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2015, George Landrith 5. Constitutional Crisis – Executive Overreach, 17. Topics, Can Congress Stop Federal Agencies From Running Riot Over Your Liberties? Yes., Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), George Landrith, Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

News reports of federal agencies abusing the rights of Americans and violating the law have become all too common. It is no longer plausible for defenders of big government to argue that these abuses are simply a few isolated incidents. We have witnessed a veritable parade of lawless abuses from all corners of the federal government. Read more

April 22, 2015/1 Comment/by Janine Turner and Cathy Gillespie

The IRS’ Reach Into Political Speech – Guest Essayist: Andrew Langer

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2015, Andrew Langer 5. Constitutional Crisis – Executive Overreach, 17. Topics, Andrew Langer, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), The IRS' Reach Into Political Speech

The power to tax is the power to destroy. When Justice Marshall wrote these words in 1819 (echoing the words of Daniel Webster) he was expressing what could be considered a prophetic statement–those who have the power to tax wield enormous power over everyday lives, power that is apt to be abused.

This mistrust of those who hold the tax and power is nothing new. Looking back at the New Testament, those who witnessed Christ’s acts noted the skepticism that abounded because among those Jesus surrounded himself by where tax collectors, who were commonly reviled.

April 15, 2015/3 Comments/by Janine Turner and Cathy Gillespie

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