Jake Tapper clashes with GOP lawmaker over effort to repeal IRS agents funding: 'Why not just be honest?’
Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., insists the $72 billion would fund '87,000 IRS agents,' something Tapper rejects
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CNN anchor Jake Tapper butted heads with Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., over GOP efforts to repeal additional funding for the IRS and whether it would have led to "87,000 IRS agents."
Among the first acts of the 118th Congress now that Republicans have taken control of the House of Representatives is to strip over $70 billion that was allocated for personnel, a bill that will likely face an uphill battle in the Democrat-controlled Senate and vetoed by President Biden.
However, members of the media have challenged the GOP's characterization that the money would have led to the hiring of 87,000 new "agents."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}On Tuesday's installment of "The Lead," CNN's Jeremy Diamond accused Republicans of "going after an army that doesn't exist," citing liberal fact-checks that "debunk" GOP claims, stressing that funding will go to IRS employees, not all necessarily "agents," spanning years.
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One of Republicans' first actions in the 118th Congress is to repeal funding for the IRS. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)
Tapper took aim at Johnson over a tweet, which read that House Republicans are moving to block the Biden Administration from "unleashing 87,000 new IRS agents to go after families and small businesses."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"That's not accurate," Tapper said. "It's 87,000 IRS employees, not IRS agents. It would be over the course of, I think, of a decade, some of them replacing individuals who lose their jobs through attrition. And the Congressional Budget Office says that your bill to get rid of those IRS employees or is going to add to the deficit."
"Only in the bizarro world of Washington, would you get a CBO estimate that says not spending $80 billion is actually going to add to the deficit. It makes no sense," Johnson responded.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Tapper fired back, insisting such IRS funding would target millionaire tax cheats which would help decrease the deficit. But Johnson doubled down, telling the CNN anchor new IRS agents would go after "hard working families and small businesses."
"That is not a Republican talking point. That comes from the Joint Committee on Taxation, which is a nonpartisan group. They've evaluated this and they know that it will be the low-hanging fruit that the IRS will go after first and that's the small business owners and those who are struggling to be entrepreneurs and job creators," Johnson said. "I think if you pull this across the country, I think most of America agrees with us."
CNN anchor Jake Tapper grilled Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., over GOP efforts to repeal IRS funding. (Screenshot/CNN)
"Well, it depends on what you're presenting in the poll," Tapper said. "Are you saying ‘87,000 agents are coming at you, booga booga?’ Or is it this funding for IRS enforcement, 87,000 people over the course of a decade they would be focused on going after individuals who don't pay their taxes, mainly wealthy people and corporations.' I think you probably get two different answers."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Well, maybe," Johnson responded. "But when the Joint Committee on Taxation publishes something and presents it, it's given a lot of weight because again, they're nonpartisan."
"But I quoted the CBO and you went after them! They're nonpartisan," Tapper exclaimed.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"The CBO doesn't have a lot of credibility here right now," Johnson said. "Their analysis is wildly inaccurate in a lot of ways and they don't always do appropriate analysis... I mean, when they come out with an estimate on Capitol Hill right now, there's lots of eye rolling typically. And that's a problem."
CNN anchor Jake Tapper insisted that not all the 87,000 IRS employees that would be hired with the new funding would be agents. (Lloyd Bishop/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
"I mean, I'm just saying like, why not just be honest about what the bill would actually do?" Tapper asked.
"I am honest," the lawmaker pushed back.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"You said 87,000 agents, that's not what it is!" Tapper said.
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"Jake, that is exactly what it is," Johnson tripled down. "That is the Treasury's own published report in 2021, that they said, as you noted, over a 10-year period, they want to add 86,800 and something-"
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Employees, not agents. Employees," Tapper told the Republican, who insisted a "large percentage" of those IRS employees would be enforcing audits.