AZ Central – The Arizona Republic
Rep. Andy Biggs spews Kari Lake-like delusion from Washington, D.C.
EJ Montini, Arizona Republic – January 11, 2023
Based on her ongoing unhinged behavior there is no doubt Arizona dodged a bullet when Republican Kari Lake lost the governor’s race.
Knowing the state won’t have a person in a position of power who is motivated by a bizarre, single-minded sense of revenge based on moronic or (even worse) mindful delusions affords us a sense of relief.
That is … until we recognize that the spinning barrel of Arizona politics has more than one round in the chamber.
The first Lake-like politician to come out blasting after the election, bent on destruction and with little or no grasp of reality is U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs.
Beginning by burning down the House
First, Biggs tried to metaphorically burn down the House of Representatives by putting himself up for speaker, making his own party look like a bunch of buffoons during days of ridiculous recriminations and deal-making, only to have the guy Biggs said was unfit to be speaker, Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy, wind up as …speaker.Then, on Tuesday, Biggs tweeted:
Last night, my Republican colleagues and I defeated the Democrats’ 87,000-person IRS army. We are working quickly to reverse the Democrats’ negligent policies. This is already a very good start to the 118th Congress!
Essentially, none of that is true.
Biggs and his Republican colleagues “defeated” nothing. To claim they did is not even wishful thinking. It’s close to hallucination. And Biggs knows it.
Last year, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which included roughly $80 billion for the Internal Revenue Service to be spent over 10 years. But, as numerous fact checkers have pointed out numerous times during the election cycle, claims of an IRS “army” going after middle class families are fiction.
The IRS, which had been underfunded by Congress for years, plans to use the money to update its technology systems, to hire and train new technology specialists and customer service representatives, to replace some of the tens of thousands of retiring agents and to hire some news ones.
No ‘army’ and nothing was ‘defeated’
The “army” claim comes from the fact that agents within the IRS’s Criminal Investigation division can carry firearms. In context, there are roughly 82,000 IRS employees. About 2,000 of them are CI agents. And they don’t go after regular folks.
Biggs’ claim that he and the new Republican-controlled house “defeated” the original bill is a fantasy. It’s shocking – or is it? – to think that he and his Republican colleagues believe their supporters are stupid enough to believe that.
The Inflation Reduction Act is law.
The new Republican-controlled House passed legislation to eliminate the IRS funding in that bill, but the House proposal must first get through the Senate and be signed by President Joe Biden.
Neither of those things will happen.
Biggs knows this.
That is reality.
You are equipped with body armor. Use it.
Biggs also knows that fashioning such legislation then pushing it through the House was a colossal waste of time, all designed to send a false message filled with false bravado to gullible constituents who, in turn, might be conned into sending money back to the campaigns of the politicians who, in essence, did nothing.
We have plenty of other elected officials like Biggs – Rep. Paul Gosar, most of the GOP state legislative caucus and more – all with an unlimited supply of conspiracies and misleading information.
Don’t duck for cover, however.
Don’t run from the oncoming barrage.
There is widely available, impenetrable body armor at your disposable: Truth.