IRS Scandals Jeopardize Funding for Obamacare Implementation

The IRS’s spending scandals, in which officials spent millions of taxpayer dollars on lavish conferences from 2010-2012 and forgot to properly record the expenses, may jeopardize funding for the implementation of Obamacare. 

President Barack Obama has sought a 14% increase to the agency’s budget next year and “about $440 million would go toward implementing the health care law.” The funds would be used for “hiring nearly 2,000 employees” to “administer subsidies” through the tax code to help people buy insurance or fine individuals who have not purchased insurance.

The IRS is “expected to spend $11.2 billion” this year, and “Obama’s proposed budget for next year is $12.9 billion.”

That was before an audit revealed the IRS spent nearly $50 million on employee conferences from 2010-12 and infamously spent at least $4.1 million for a conference at Disneyland in which employees made “Star Trek” and “Cupid shuffle” videos. Now, Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R-FL), the chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee responsible for funding the IRS, said he did not think the IRS would get the increase in funding.

“I think it’s safe to say they’re not going to get the kind of increase they’re asking for,” he said, according to Fox News. 

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) also said “adding Obamacare under the IRS” will be a “looming disaster”; he was “not sure” if he was “willing” to “give the IRS more money.”

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) said he feared Republicans will use the IRS scandals to “destroy” Obamacare. He said he “expected it from the first day this (IRS) issue came up.”