YOU WANTED BIG GOVERNMENT – YOU GOT IT

If Obama’s Rose Parade of scandals gives you a headache, here’s why: This is your brain on Big Government.The deteriorating developments on Benghazi, the IRS, the Justice Department’s Associated Press probe, health secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s Obamacare shakedown, and the “Affordable” Care Act’s unaffordability all offer a vivid, daily tutorial on the costs and pitfalls of unlimited government. The dangers of America’s bloated, bullying state are inescapable.

Big Government often hammers its foes.
As horrified Americans have learned, the IRS targeted at least 471 conservative organizations for tough treatment. As the IRS’s inspector general explained, these included self-identified “Tea Party” and “patriot” groups and those “focused on government spending, government debt, taxes, and education on ways to ‘make America a better place to live.’” The IRS reportedly approved zero tea-party tax-exemption applications between February 2010 and May 2012. Across 27 months of malign neglect, some applicants abandoned their ambitions.

Meanwhile, the IRS inappropriately asked these groups for donors’ lists, their public-policy opinions, and the names of board members’ relatives who might seek public office.

A chilling Politico story explains that a “special unit” at the IRS has scrutinized Jewish institutions. It askedone: “Describe your organization’s religious belief system towards the land of Israel.” A pro-Israel group called Z Street complains that the IRS inquired whether its activities “contradict the Administration’s public policies.”

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