The headline in the Standard Examiner last Friday read “Blake Moore blasts Inflation Reduction Act”. The article quoted Rep. Moore saying, “Democrats are attempting to find ways to further audit Americans in nearly every tax bracket by sending $80 billion to the IRS to hire 87,000 new agents to conduct audits. Low and middle-income earners will be hit with an estimated 700,000 new audits, which will hurt small businesses and low-income Americans.”

This is a bald-faced lie.

The lie has been propagated by Republican leadership (Kevin McCarthy, Ted Cruz, et al) as a scare tactic. It is not true. The lie has been debunked and pronounced false by, among other organizations, Snopes.com and PolitiFact (two leading non-partisan fact checking organizations), the Associated Press, the Washington Post, Time Magazine, CNBC, the Treasury Department and the IRS itself.

Maybe Rep. Moore voted against this bill because he does not believe in fighting climate change. Or perhaps he is not in favor of lowering health care costs. Or maybe he does not support lowering the cost of prescription drugs for the elderly. Or reducing the deficit. This bill does all of that. But it does not sic the IRS on low and middle income earners.

This same lie has been repeated by other Republican members of Congress — with the added idea that these agents will be armed and carrying automatic weapons. This lie has contributed to threats on the lives of federal employees such as those in the FBI. It is reprehensible that Blake Moore is playing a part in spreading this malicious lie.

I call for Rep. Moore to immediately take back what he said and apologize to his constituents.

Michael Bowcut

Pleasant View

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