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Recession fears are rising. Why are people still quitting their jobs?

Interest rates are rising, inflation is lingering at four-decade highs, the economy appears to be slowing and experts fear a recession is on the way. But Americans are still quitting their jobs at near-record rates in the face of growing economic uncertainty. 

The percentage of American workers who quit their jobs set a record earlier this year and has only dropped slightly as the economy slows from two years of torrid growth. After reaching 2.9 percent this spring, the quits rate dropped to 2.7 percent in July, according to data released Tuesday by the Labor Department.

The idea of quitting a job amid an increased cost of living and a dubious economic future may seem counterintuitive. But the labor market has remained stacked in favor of workers, who see ample opportunities to boost their earnings to supplant increased costs from inflation.

“Despite recent declines, job openings still outnumber unemployed workers by a sizable margin, illustrating just how tight the labor market remains,” wrote AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at Indeed Hiring Lab, in a Monday analysis.

There were roughly two open jobs for every unemployed American, according to Labor Department data, giving jobseekers ample opportunities to find new jobs with better pay or working conditions. Businesses are still scrambling to find enough workers to keep up with consumer spending — which is well above pre-pandemic levels — from a workforce that remains smaller than it was before COVID-19.

“It seems possible that employer demand would need to cool significantly more before recruiters start to notice an easing in recruiting conditions,” Konkel wrote.

In other words, employers still have too many open jobs and not enough candidates to avoid boosting wages and other perks to find talent. And that means workers still have ample incentive to quit for a better-paying job, particularly with inflation still high.

Jobseekers on Indeed.com are looking for ever-higher wages, Konkel explained. The number of Indeed users seeking jobs with a $20 per hour wage rose above those seeking $15 per hour in June 2022, and the number of jobseekers looking for $25 per hour is up 122 percent over the past 12 months.

Konkel attributed the spike in job seekers looking for more money to the steady increase in advertised wages and the inflation they’ve helped to feed.

“Once job seekers know it’s possible to attain a higher wage, their expectations may shift and act as a pull factor in searching for a higher dollar amount. In this case, the shift in jobseeker expectations from searching for $15 to instead $20 is clear,” Konkel explained.

“On the flip side, inflation continues to take a bite out of workers’ paychecks,” she continued, noting that only 46 percent of workers saw wage gains that outpaced inflation.

The pressure to quit for a higher paying job has been highest in the private sector, where 3.5 percent of the workforce left their current employer in July. Workers in industries with historically low wages, tough working conditions, and limited teleworking options have led the charge.

The leisure and hospitality sector posted a whopping 6.1 percent quit rate in July, down sharply from 6.9 percent a year ago but still nearly twice the national quit rate.

Restaurants and bars in particular have struggled to return to pre-pandemic employment levels despite rapidly raising wages. The pressure has also made it nearly impossible for those businesses to fire or layoff employees, even amid usual season turnover.

“Hospitality companies tell us that what was once a ‘one strike, you’re out’ rule for employees who failed to show up at work without notice is now more like a ‘ten strikes, you’re out’ rule. They cannot afford to fire workers because they cannot afford to replace them,” said Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter.

“The decline in terminations in industries like hospitality have been so large, they have more than offset the increase in layoffs in the tech sector,” she explained.

Quits have also remained high in retail (4 percent) and the transportation and warehousing sectors (3.5 percent), with both industries facing threats from a decline in goods spending and rising interest rates.

Even so, there are some signs of waning worker confidence, which may lead to a decline in quits.

ZipRecruiter’s job seeker confidence index dropped 4.5 points in August to an all-time low of 97.8, Pollak said, with a greater number of applicants looking for job security over higher wages.

“Since the pandemic, job seekers have been looking for higher pay, less stress, and greater flexibility. In August however, job security rose to the second-place spot in their priority ranking,” Pollak explained.

“One in four employed job seekers say they feel less secure about their current job than they did six months ago. Rising risk of a recession, paired with a wave of recent tech layoffs, has made employees more concerned about the precarity of their jobs.”

Source: TEST FEED1

The Pentagon should release dozens of UFO videos

The Pentagon has at least two dozen, and likely far more, UFO videos in its possession. Despite public commitments to transparency, officials refuse to release any of the footage. But the government’s rationale – that disclosure would jeopardize sensitive “sources and methods” – likely holds no water with many of the videos.

In March 2019, amid increasing military encounters with objects appearing to exhibit highly advanced flight characteristics, the Navy instituted a standardized UFO reporting mechanism. Despite heavy redactions, these reports show that fighter pilots are frequently left stunned by such incidents.

Importantly, the Navy’s new reporting procedures allow aviators and intelligence officers to submit video footage and other sensor data. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the Navy confirmed that 24 videos are associated with 19 UFO reports, spanning June through December 2019.

If the Pentagon continued receiving 20 UFO videos every six months, it would have well over 100 videos in its possession by now. Of course, increased awareness of the new reporting mechanism and reduced stigma likely resulted in aviators submitting far more UFO footage. Moreover, with 24 videos accompanying 19 reports, it appears that aircrews are unlikely to submit a UFO report without including corroborating data.

As noted by a former director of national intelligence, the government also possesses UFO data – such as “images and videos” – recorded by satellites.

Of course, the public release of satellite data and radar displays could jeopardize sensitive platforms and capabilities. But many, if not most, of the UFO videos in the government’s possession were likely recorded by infrared targeting pods.

Infrared video technology is not inherently sensitive. At the same time, footage from targeting pods is widely available. Most importantly, three famous UFO videos – all recorded with the Navy’s primary infrared targeting pod – are unclassified (and were never classified in the first place).

These facts make it impossible for the government to claim that the release of UFO footage recorded by such platforms (not to mention cell phones) would compromise sensitive technology or intelligence collection capabilities.

Importantly, since targeting pods are fighter pilots’ technological “eyes” in the sky, such videos likely account for a significant proportion of the UFO data held by the Pentagon.

At the same time, the government has no evidence “to indicate any [UFOs] are part of a foreign collection program or indicative of a major technological advancement by a potential adversary.” Therefore, the Pentagon cannot plausibly claim that its UFO videos can be classified as sensitive “foreign government information.”

For its part, Congress does not appear concerned that UFOs are part of a foreign intelligence effort. According to draft legislation approved unanimously by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a muscular new UFO office must immediately stop investigating any object determined to be “man-made” and turn its analytic attention to another case. If lawmakers are truly concerned that some UFOs are adversarial surveillance platforms, they would not direct a powerful new office to stop investigating as soon as an object is determined to be of human origin.

Of equal importance, officials are confident that none of the 143 unexplained encounters described in a landmark UFO report involve secret American technology. Therefore, the Pentagon cannot withhold UFO videos under the pretext that aviators may have inadvertently captured footage of sensitive U.S. “weapons systems.”

With Congress demanding answers and government officials admitting their own impatience with the slow pace of progress, the public release of non-sensitive UFO videos could quickly resolve several cases. For instance, it took the government “several years” to determine that two UFO videos showed a common camera artifact. Mick West, a prominent UFO skeptic, identified the artifact in a matter of days.

At the same time, verifiable, repeatable geometrical analyses of one of the most well-known UFO videos showed that the object’s flight path matches eyewitness descriptions. This implies that the UFO demonstrated highly anomalous flight characteristics, including controlled flight without any apparent wings, control surfaces or means of propulsion. Perhaps most intriguingly, the analyses indicate that the object thwarted a Navy fighter jet’s attempt to sneak up behind it.

Ultimately, the parameters (approved by a senior intelligence official) under which the government classifies UFO data are at stark odds with that same official’s public promise to declassify information that does not reveal sensitive “sources and methods.”

With infrared targeting pod footage – including three well-known, unclassified UFO videos – widely available in the public domain, the government’s “sources and methods” claim does not hold water. The Pentagon must abide by its emphatic commitments to transparency and release all such UFO footage.

Marik von Rennenkampff served as an analyst with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, as well as an Obama administration appointee at the U.S. Department of Defense. Follow him on Twitter @MvonRen.

Source: TEST FEED1

UN committee calls on US to address effects of Dobbs ruling on racial, ethnic minorities

A United Nations committee called on the United States on Tuesday to take steps to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in sexual and reproductive health care in the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. 

The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said in a release that the Supreme Court’s June ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which struck down federal abortion protections, will disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minorities, expressing concern that such groups have higher maternal mortality rates, higher risk of unwanted pregnancies and lack means to overcome socioeconomic barriers to accessing safe abortions. 

The committee said the decision could be especially impactful on lower-income individuals. 

A study from Duke University released in December found that non-Hispanic Black maternal deaths would increase by 33 percent if a total abortion ban were enacted nationwide, larger than for any other racial group. 

The NAACP slammed the court’s Dobbs ruling after it came out, saying it would disproportionately affect Black women, who are three times more likely to die in pregnancy than white women. 

The U.N. committee said the U.S. should adopt measures to address the “profound disparate impact” of the court’s ruling on racial and ethnic minorities, Indigenous women and those with lower incomes. 

The committee’s recommendations came as part of a review of racial discrimination in seven countries, including Azerbaijan, Slovakia and the U.S. All 182 members of the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination are required to undergo reviews by the committee, which is made up of 18 independent international experts. 

The committee also expressed concerns about the use of excessive force by law enforcement officials against racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. and the “continued impunity for abuses” by police and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. It said the U.S. should review federal and state legislation on the use of force to ensure they are in line with international standards and law. 

It also said the country should create or strengthen oversight groups to hold law enforcement officials accountable for inappropriate uses of force.

Source: TEST FEED1

Democrats highlight Herschel Walker abuse allegations in new ad

Democrats on Wednesday issued a new attack ad in the hotly contest Georgia Senate race highlighting abuse allegations against Republican candidate Herschel Walker as the former football star remains in a tight race with incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.

“Herschel Walker has repeatedly threatened to kill his ex-wife,” the 30-second ad said. “He held a razor to her throat and threatened to kill her. He’s accused of choking her until she passed out. He threatened a shootout with police outside her home.”

Georgia Honor, a super PAC created by Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC in 2020, released the ad as part of a larger $33 million media blitz ahead of the November election, according to NBC News. With only about 10 weeks left until Election Day, a recent poll showed Walker barely edging out Warnock for the lead in the Senate race.

The Democratic group joins the Republican Accountability PAC, an anti-Trump Republican group that launched a $1 million ad campaign against Walker earlier this month. The group, whose initiative seeks to “defeat anti-democracy Republicans in key battleground states,” also released an ad focused on Walker’s abuse allegations.

Walker’s ex-wife, Cindy Grossman, obtained a protective order against him in 2005, alleging that he repeatedly threatened to kill her. 

“The first time he held the gun to my head … he held the gun to my temple and said he was going to blow my brains out,” Grossman said in a previous interview used in the ad.

The ad also pulled a clip from a previous interview with Walker where he recounted that he had “put a gun to [Grossman’s] head.”

Walker acknowledged the allegations in an interview with Axios in December, saying he is “accountable” for his behavior toward Grossman.

However, Walker has denied allegations from two other women. An ex-girlfriend told police in 2012 that Walker threatened to kill her, while another woman told police in 2002 that Walker had threatened and stalked her. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Extreme heat is forcing students out of the classroom

Not only are schools throughout the country facing challenges thanks to a growing teacher shortage, but rising temperatures due to climate change are now forcing some students in schools without air conditioning out of the classroom. 

According to the Government Accountability Office, around 36,000 schools nationwide need updated or replaced heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems.

This week in Philadelphia, more than 100 schools closed early yesterday and will today, thanks to the heat which is expected to range from the high 80s to early 90s, with temperatures expected to break on Thursday.

All afterschool activities are also canceled for the 118 affected schools, marking a tumultuous start to the school year which officially began Monday. 

In a letter sent to families, officials from the city’s school district explained they reached the conclusion after consulting the organization’s 2022-2023 Extreme Heat Protocols.

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“We are extra vigilant in school buildings that currently have window-based air conditioning units instead of central air conditioning systems that can consistently regulate temperatures in instructional spaces,” the protocol reads. 

“If we expect temperatures inside the school building to reach 90℉ or higher, we then work with the school leader to determine whether a temporary shift to virtual learning is necessary for everyone’s safety. Our goal is to make that decision as early as possible, preferably the day before, to minimize last-minute disruption for our students, families, and staff.” 

Schools were dismissed three hours early, and the call largely affected students who attend class in older buildings not equipped with modern air conditioning. Experts estimate it will take until 2027 for all schools in the city to become fully air-conditioned, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

The move follows early dismissals at nearly two dozen Baltimore City schools without air conditioning on Monday and Tuesday of this week, due to high temperatures in the region, while the sustained heat wave led officials to continue to dismiss students early through Friday. 

On the other side of the country, heat and air conditioning troubles also led to early dismissals in San Diego, a region that today will face an excessive heat warning with temperatures reaching the triple digits. 

Even in regions where heat is not excessively high, lack of air conditioning within schools and rising indoor temperatures resulted in closures and early dismissals. On Monday this week, schools in Cleveland, Ohio held virtual classes for this reason. 

Low-income Americans are at a heightened risk for poor heat-related health outcomes due in part to lower access to air conditioning, a problem that will likely be exacerbated by climate change. Low-income and minority students are also more likely to attend schools that lack air conditioning, and hotter classrooms can impede students’ cognitive capacity, making it harder for them to learn. 

Following the passage of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, the U.S. Department of Education encouraged schools to use the funds to improve indoor air quality by investing in air conditioning.

Source: TEST FEED1

FDA clears updated COVID-19 vaccines ahead of fall booster campaign

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized updated COVID-19 booster shots specifically targeting a subvariant of omicron. 

The move comes ahead of a fall campaign to give Americans booster shots, which is expected to launch in the coming days. 

The move marks the first time the vaccines have been updated since the first shots were cleared at the end of 2020, and the updated shots are designed to catch up to evolutions in the virus.

The shots from Pfizer and Moderna target the omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, as well as the original virus. 

Developing

Source: TEST FEED1

Confidence in economy rises: Gallup

Americans’ confidence in the economy has improved compared to July, but the public still evaluates the economy negatively, according to a new Gallup poll.

Gallup’s economic confidence index improved from -51 in July to -39 in August, returning to the levels seen in March in April.

The index measures Americans’ evaluations of current economic conditions and whether the economy is improving or worsening on a theoretical scale of +100 to -100. 

Sixteen percent of U.S. adults rated current economic conditions as “excellent” or “good,” compared to 14 percent in July. Forty-seven percent of respondents described conditions as “poor,” a five-point drop from when 52 percent said so last month.

More Americans also believe the economy is getting better, according to the poll.

One-quarter of respondents indicated they believe the economy is getting better, up from 16 percent in July, while the proportion saying the economy is worsening dropped from 80 percent to 72 percent.

The increased confidence measure comes as gas prices continue to fall, clocking in at a national average of $3.84 per gallon as of Wednesday, according to AAA. Gas prices peaked at more than $5 per gallon in mid-June and had remained above $4 in July.

The drop in gas prices helped drive a recent decline in annual inflation, which dipped to 8.5 percent in July after hitting a 40-year high of 9.1 percent in June.

To curb price growth, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell last week said the central bank will continue leaning into interest rate increases, which make borrowing more expensive to cool demand.

The poll found a plurality of respondents named inflation as the top problem facing the country.

Eighteen percent of U.S. adults named it as the most important problem, which is on par with the survey’s results dating back to March and the highest level that Gallup has measured since the early 1980s.

The government has generally tied with inflation as the top overall problem since March, Gallup found.

An additional 14 percent of respondents named the economy more generally as the most important problem, and no other issue garnered more than 6 percent when Gallup asked the question.

The poll also found continued splits in economic confidence among partisan groups, although all groups had at least a somewhat negative view.

The economic confidence index score clocked in as -3 for Democrats, -43 for independents and -76 for Republicans. But all three groups’ confidence recovered in August, essentially moving back to levels seen in March and April.

The poll was conducted Aug. 1-23 with a random, weighted sample of 1,006 U.S. adults. The margin of error is 4 percentage points.

Source: TEST FEED1

A better strategy than handouts to reduce student loan debt

The student loan program now has more than $1.75 trillion in outstanding debt. Biden’s plan to grant partial “forgiveness” on loan repayments to families with incomes as high as $250,000 is simply a Robin Hood-in-Reverse transfer of $300 billion from the roughly half of American workers who didn’t attend college to those who have had that advantage but have failed to pay back their college loans. 

We used to refer to people who don’t pay the money they owe as “deadbeats.” The Biden proposal rewards bad behavior and blows another massive hole in a federal budget that is already $24 trillion in arrears. Also, if it is allowed to happen, the student loan program is dead. Few will repay their loans to the government in the future and simply wait for the next amnesty.

Fortunately, there are much smarter solutions to solving the student loan debt crisis, and they won’t cost taxpayers a penny.

First, states and the federal government should insist that universities that receive federal or state aid control their tuition. The student loan program began in the 1960s and with these trillions of dollars of loans, college tuition costs have skyrocketed three times faster than overall inflation. So loans have made college less, not more affordable.

At Purdue University the president of the school, Mitch Daniels has frozen tuition costs for students. Any college that receives federal aid should be required to freeze tuition so middle-class families can afford the costs. ​Daniels has shown that any college can cut costs. 

Second, if someone fails to repay a student loan, the university that the borrower attended should pay the cost. How? Universities have $700 billion in endowments that were never taxed. The government should be reimbursed for bad loans from a “tax” on the endowment equal to the amount unpaid. There is no reason why someone who attended pricey schools like Harvard, Stanford, MIT or Northwestern should then ask a schoolteacher to repay their loan. 

This loan repayment policy would incentivize the universities to make sure they are offering a curriculum that will offer a real income to the graduates. Ethnic studies and psychology degrees are not in high demand in this digital-age economy, so steer kids to degrees that make them valuable contributors to society.     

Finally,  we should change the entire culture of how college is paid for in America. My favorite alternative model is the College of the Ozarks. This is a private school located in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. Most of the kids come from working-class families or grew up on farms. Most are the first generation in their family to attend college.

The tuition at College of the Ozarks is … zero.

How do they do it?  Every student on campus works 20 hours a week in a job in the community or on campus. In other words, the students work for their education. Why can’t that be the case at every university? College students have nothing but free time — although this may mean less time for TV or sorority parties or protesting in the streets for ​certain “social justice” issues. At College of the Ozarks, the kids value their education because they pay for it with their hard work. That’s why College of the Ozarks is known as “Hard Work U.” These are some of the most impressive college students I’ve met. 

Kids who attend Ivy League or big land-grant state universities will get far more out of college if, when they are 19, 20, or 21 years old, they work for the privilege of sitting in a classroom. 

Any of these plans would be far preferable to student loan forgiveness. Middle-class taxpayers who responsibly repaid their debts on time, people who earned their college education by serving our military, and working-class families that didn’t even attend college shouldn’t bear the costs of unpaid student debt.  

Stephen Moore is chief economist at Freedom Works.  He is the co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. His latest book is “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden’s anti-MAGA midterm message takes shape

President Biden’s midterm message is taking shape around framing November’s elections as a “continued battle for the soul of the nation,” echoing a similar notion that propelled him to the White House in 2020.

But this time, Biden is further sharpening his attacks on former President Trump and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, with some in the GOP already demanding an apology for labeling the former president’s political movement as “semi-fascism.” 

In a speech in Philadelphia on Thursday, his second visit this week to his home state of Pennsylvania, Biden will continue to draw stark contrasts between the country electing Democrats and risking a slide toward autocracy if it chooses Republican majorities in Congress. 

The rhetoric indicates that Biden will not rely solely on his legislative agenda to campaign for Democrats in November, but will also argue that putting Republicans in power poses a real danger to democracy.

“I think that traditional kitchen table issues are likely to remain top of mind for voters, but we are increasingly seeing democratic rights discussed at the kitchen table,” said Eric Schultz, a former spokesperson in the Obama White House.

“There is a very direct line between Republican attacks on abortion rights and Republican attacks on democracy,” Schultz continued. “These threats are hitting home for people in a way we haven’t seen before — particularly for young people and for women, two voting blocs that will likely determine the outcome of the elections. I think Republicans are on the wrong side of history, and it’s looking like they’re also on the wrong side of the electorate.”

Biden has been buoyed by a productive late summer thanks to Congress passing a bipartisan bill to boost semiconductor production, a bipartisan bill to fund care for veterans exposed to burn pits and a $740 billion reconciliation package backed by all 50 Democrats in the Senate that contained major climate, tax and health care priorities for the White House.

A recent small uptick in Biden’s approval rating this month, which still hovers around 40 percent, came after stubbornly high gas prices finally declined late this summer after reaching $5 per gallon this spring.

And Democratic voters appear energized by the Supreme Court striking down the right to an abortion in June, which helped tightened some congressional races that otherwise were solidly Republican.

Biden’s upcoming travel will focus on what Democrats say is a strong record to run on, but the president is also not shying away from framing November’s elections in even more urgent terms to help drum up turnout.

Biden campaigned for the White House in 2020 pledging to “heal the soul of the nation.” That message has retained its relevance heading into the midterms, where Trump-backed candidates who cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election populate ballots across the country at the state and federal level. Trump himself claimed this week that he should be installed as president or that the 2020 election should be redone.

The president is slated to speak Thursday in Philadelphia, the same city where he delivered a speech on voting rights last year, to warn that “the core values of this nation” are at stake, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. 

“He will talk about the progress we have made as a nation to protect our democracy, but how our rights and freedoms are still under attack and how we will make clear who is fighting for those rights, fighting for those freedoms and fighting for our democracy,” Jean-Pierre said.

Biden made his starkest comments to date last week during a Democratic National Committee reception in Maryland where he described Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement as “almost like semi-fascism, the way in which it deals.”

On Tuesday, during Biden’s first stop in Pennsylvania this week, he condemned recent GOP attacks on the FBI over its search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. And he invoked the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, when a mob of Trump supporters sought to stop the certification of the 2020 election. Several rioters beat and attacked police officers trying to protect the building. One Capitol Police officer died in the aftermath of the violence, and several others were injured.

“Don’t tell me you support law enforcement if you won’t condemn what happened on the 6th,” Biden said to applause, referring to “MAGA Republican” lawmakers.

Republicans, though, have taken issue with Biden’s remarks, accusing him of hypocrisy given his 2020 campaign pledge to lower the country’s temperature and working across the aisle to help unite Americans after four tumultuous years under Trump.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) on Sunday called Biden’s remarks “insulting” and an attempt to “stir up this anti-Republican sentiment right before the election.”

“And then to call half of America fascists?” Sununu asked. “He owes an apology. That’s not appropriate. That isn’t leadership.”

But Biden allies believe the president’s rhetoric isn’t exaggerated at all and instead accurately portrays the importance of Democrats retaining majorities in November’s elections.

“I think he’s very clear about it, that he’s drawn a comparison to a party that wants to unite us, a party that’s worried about families and what they’re dealing with, and the party that’s still litigating the 2020 election, the party that’s taking away reproductive rights for women, a party that is attacking families and law enforcement and questioning the FBI,” former Biden White House adviser Cedric Richmond said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“And I think the best thing that he can do and what’s appropriate is to draw a contrast between what the two parties stand for,” Richmond added.

Source: TEST FEED1

The IRS will be more like the NSA after Biden’s changes

President Biden and the Democrats are setting up the IRS as the next three-letter intelligence agency, with the rapid expansion of the service’s power and payroll. Changes resulting from the improperly-named Inflation Reduction Act have positioned the Internal Revenue Service as a potent political weapon — one that Democrats may not be the only ones to wield. 

The Patriot Act and post-9/11 surveillance state showed just how swiftly and uncontrollably seemingly good intentions can balloon into a statist’s dream. Combine the expansion of National Security Agency-style collection of data with a supercharged, super-staffed IRS and you get the worst of both worlds. The role of the reformed IRS will be not to squeeze CEOs and eight-figure corporate functionaries, but to get every dime from ordinary people via excessive auditing. 

Bureaucrats at the agency realize that the wealthy and large companies have tax attorneys on retainer or could easily hire one; this is precisely why the IRS audits the poor at five times the rate of the rest of the population. The resulting increased revenue from the working and middle classes is enough for the Congressional Budget Office to assess the IRS’s audit provisions as a $20 billion tax hike on the middle and working classes. The expansion of the IRS’s bureaucratic state will result in the largest tax increase on ordinary people in decades. 

While a beefed-up IRS will disproportionately burden working- and middle-class individuals, this represents just the tip of the iceberg. The massive expansion of the agency will also give it the ability to potentially target political “enemies.” During the Obama years, the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups by denying nonprofit status was effectively swept under the rug by the legacy media. Such targeting could become routine. If Biden truly believes that Republicans are “semi-fascists,” the IRS could transform into a renewal of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The Biden administration could not show proper restraint against an opponent it sees as semi-treasonous.

There will be little to keep the expanded IRS from overreaching its authority. Considering recent abuses of the agency by the Democrats, what is the fine line between what is labeled an “extremist group” versus a parents’ organization challenging the local school board? Strengthening the potential for abuse — including audits, garnishing of wages, and potential jail time — is catnip to big-government leftists. A member of your local hunting club had a brother who participated in January 6 protests? An audit isn’t a big deal, they’ll say, as long as you’re not hiding anything. It’s for the public good, you see. 

The likely ramifications of ballooning the size and scope of the IRS don’t stop at just increased audits or even political targeting. Consider the $600 transaction threshold that financial institutions are now required to report to the IRS. Increased enforcement and more stringent control over our bank accounts also could be used to justify a digital dollar. Americans’ transactions could become public on the government blockchain. Any number of national security and pseudo-patriotic reasons could be drummed up to force individuals to forfeit financial privacy. You don’t want Uncle Sam knowing what you bought? Is it because you’re funding alt-right groups, foreign terrorists, or laundering hundreds of dollars from your Etsy account? 

The definition of extremism can vary depending on political needs. Donations to vaguely conservative causes, such as with GoFundMe and the Canadian truck rally earlier this year, could be severely punished and even result in loss of access to banking. Every tiny transaction, preserved in amber on the blockchain, could be used months or years later to justify running you out of your job or could be blasted all over the media. One thinly-veiled policy letter from the IRS could lead to crackdowns by private banks and transaction services such as PayPal on right-wing causes. 

If you think that “canceling” is a problem now, wait until access to one’s own funds can be restricted or blocked entirely based on old tweets. And as a digital currency takes hold, paper cash will likely be phased out in its entirety, making the population fully dependent on a traceable monetary system that is easily controlled by both central powers and private corporations willing to do the government’s bidding.

Ultimately, as the IRS becomes increasingly powerful and weaponized, many Americans will realize that it is simply easier to comply with the agency’s directives (even when unjust) than to go through a lengthy and costly appeals process. 

Both parties likely will take advantage of this ballooning government power. Democrats are creating a federal apparatus that Republicans could utilize in the destructive manner once they seize control. Just as Democrats did not dismantle the Bush-era growth of government, the GOP will use the new IRS to their own advantage before they successfully dismantle it. 

As our country faces severe issues with trust of institutions, Joe Biden and his allies are creating the eventual end to financial privacy and establishing one of the most frightening applications of federal power of the next generation.

Kristin Tate is a libertarian writer and an analyst for Young Americans for Liberty. She is an author whose latest book is “How Do I Tax Thee? A Field Guide to the Great American Rip-Off.” Follow her on Twitter @KristinBTate.

Source: TEST FEED1