McConnell calls on Obama to order government-wide review after IRS admission.

McConnell calls on Obama to order government-wide review after IRS admission.(Politico).By Donavan Slack. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is calling on President Obama to order a top-to-bottom review of the administration after the IRS admitted Friday that it had targeted conservative groups during the 2012 election.

“Today, I call on the White House to conduct a transparent, government-wide review aimed at assuring the American people that these thuggish practices are not underway at the IRS or elsewhere in the administration against anyone, regardless of their political views," he said in a statement. "Last year, amid reports that the Obama administration was using the levers of executive power to harass conservative political groups in Kentucky and elsewhere, I issued a very public warning to the administration that the targeting of private citizens on the basis of their political views would not be tolerated.

"Today’s apology by the IRS is proof that those concerns were well founded. But make no mistake, an apology won’t put this issue to rest.
Now more than ever we need to send a clear message to the Obama Administration that the First Amendment is non-negotiable, and that apologies after an election year are not an sufficient response to what we now know took place at the IRS. This kind of political thuggery has absolutely no place in our politics."

IRS officials said Friday that the agency singled out for extra scrutiny groups who used words such as "tea party and "patriot," and though the IRS contended that "mistakes were made," the agency maintained "they were in no way due to any political or partisan rationale.” POLITICO's Byron Tau, Lauren French and Tarini Parti have the full story over on the home page.

Hmmmm.......Flashback 2009 - A president shouldn't even joke about abusing IRS power.
Paul Caron, a professor at the University of Cincinnati who writes the TaxProf blog, noted in response to Mr. Obama's remarks that the law calls for the termination of IRS employees who make audit threats for illegitimate reasons. He suggested that Mr. Obama's "joke" might be grounds for firing if he were an IRS employee.

The notion that people who are audited are probably just "enemies of the regime," coupled with the idea that big shots get a pass -- that, as Leona Helmsley is reputed to have said, "taxes are for the little people" -- is a recipe for widespread tax evasion.