Taxpayer advocate: The problem with the IRS is it needs more funding

And this is the person who's supposed to work for the taxpayer?

The problem with the Internal Revenue Service is that it needs more money, said one taxpayer advocate to Congress on Wednesday.

Nina Olson, who works on behalf of taxpayers who have problems with the IRS, said Congress ought to stop trimming back the agency’s budget, CNN Money reported. In a mid-year report, she said that the agency wore many hats: It was responsible for collecting more than 90 percent of revenues for the federal government, it had to keep track of and administer business tax incentives and credits, and it had to oversee numerous government policies on health care, housing, retirement and education. On top of that, the agency will now have to help implement the massive Obamacare, she said.

Meanwhile, the IRS has already lost 8 percent of its budget – a $1 billion since 2010. And it has seen its full-time staff reduced from 86,000 to 79,000, she said, CNN Money reported.

As a result, Olson said, CNN reported, the IRS has a backlog and is hard-pressed to fully investigate its identity theft complaints.

“If the IRS is not properly funded to collect the revenue, there will be fewer dollars available for the military, for social programs, for intelligence and embassy protection, for infrastructure maintenance, for medical research – or simply for deficit reduction,” she said, in related remarks to a Senate subcommittee a few weeks ago, CNN Money reported. And on Wednesday, she reiterated the view.

“In my view,” she said, CNN Money reported, “the real crisis is not the one generating headlines. The real crisis … is a radically transformed mission coupled with inadequate funding to accomplish that mission.”

White House climate change adviser: ‘War on coal is exactly what’s needed’

The White House’s own climate change adviser said in a New York Times interview that the administration should launch an outright war on coal.

His statements come as President Obama is due to address major climate change policy at Georgetown University on Tuesday. Daniel Schrag, the climate adviser for the administration and the director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, made clear his views of the matter – that the White House should not shy from brutal policy reform.

“Everybody is waiting for action,” Schrag said, the Weekly Standard reported. “The one thing the president really needs to do now is to begin the process of shutting down the conventional coal plants. Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they’re having a war on coal. On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what’s needed.”

Schrag is a member of the presidential panel on science that offered guidance on climate change, the Weekly Standard reported.

Illinois mayor leaves Bloomberg’s anti-gun group, citing agenda

Finding sanity ... 

An Illinois mayor said he’s dropped his membership with Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the group started by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, because its title doesn’t match its agenda. It’s too anti-Second Amendment, he said.

“I’ve dropped out of a group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns,” said Larry Morrissey, an independent mayor from Rockford, Ill., The Daily Caller reported. “The reason why I joined the group in the first place is because I took the name for what it said. Against ‘illegal’ guns.”

He made the announcement at a Rockford Tea Party town hall meeting over the weekend. And his remarks were met by loud applause, The Daily Caller said.

“The challenge that we see day in and day out in the city of Rockford is not dealing primarily with assault weapons or machine guns, automatic weapons,” he said. “It’s dealing with a typical handgun. All of those typical weapons are usually in the hands of people who are prohibited from having them.”

Morrissey said he the original mission of the group changed over time.

“So that’s why I dropped out,” he said, in The Daily Caller. “The focus should not be against law-abiding citizens. We should be focusing our enforcement on folks who have no right to carry a gun, concealed or otherwise.”

Read original here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/24/illinois-mayor-leaves-bloombergs-anti-gun-group-ci/

Jimmy Carter tells John Kerry: Ease sanctions on terror groups

Jimmy Carter needs to stick with hammering for Habitat for Humanity ...

Former President Jimmy Carter has signed on to a petition to Secretary of State John Kerry urging the United States to back off certain sanctions on groups that are deemed terrorist organizations, so that peace workers can go in and work.

Specifically, the petition signed by Carter requests that Kerry exempt peace groups from laws that “make it a crime to offer negotiation training and humanitarian law classes to terror groups,” Breitbart said.

The petition states: “The Secretary of State can, and should, exempt peacebuilding activities from this counterproductive application of the law. Doing so would open the door for professional peacebuilders to fully engage in helping to end armed conflicts and suffering around the world, while making the U.S. safer.”

The petition drive was started by the Charity and Security Network. Group members told The Hill that they’ve been concerned with their inability to complete bridge-building projects with the Taliban in Afghanistan and with Hamas in the Palestinian territories.

See original here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/20/jimmy-carter-john-kerry-ease-sanctions-terror-grou/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

Nancy Pelosi proves last straw for Hollywood actor, who wants Obama gone

Now this doesn't happen very often ...


A Hollywood actor raised with what he described as blue-collar values that included working hard for one’s own money has remained largely quiet about his conservative principles – until the day he heard Nancy Pelosi speak of the need to pass Obamacare.

“That day when Nancy Pelosi said, ‘Let’s pass this bill and then we’ll find out what’s in it,’ I actually choked on [my coffee],” actor Ken Wahl said, in The Blaze. “But what was even more astonishing after that was that there was no push-back in the media about that. I was Godsmacked.”

He said he had never involved himself in politics, but then “something just clicked and I thought, something’s going terribly wrong in America now if this is what it comes to. That moment flipped the switch for me,” The Blaze reported.

Wahl has since become vocal about his denouncement of the Obama administration and about the Kermit Gosnell abortion trial. He’s even mulling a run at public office, The Blaze said. One of his comments, in The Blaze: “I’m not going to call [Obama] a communist or a socialist. There’s so much hypocritical stuff going on. I just don’t like this guy and what he represents.”

The actor gained in fame with numerous Hollywood roles and productions in the 1980s and 1990s.

See original here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/17/nancy-pelosi-proves-last-straw-hollywood-actor-who/