Required Reading

George Will:

Terry, who came to Michigan from Iraq in 1970, soon did what immigrants often do: He went into business, buying Schott’s Supermarket in Fraser, Mich., where he still works six days a week. The Internal Revenue Service, a tentacle of a government that spent $3.5 trillion in 2013, tried to steal more than $35,000 from Terry and Sandy that year.

Sandy, a mother of four, has a master’s degree in urban planning but has worked in the store off and on since she was 12. She remembers, “They just walked into the store” and announced that they had emptied the store’s bank account. The IRS agents believed, or pretended to believe, that Terry and Sandy were or conceivably could be — which is sufficient for the IRS — conducting a criminal enterprise when not selling groceries.

Read the whole thing, of course.

It’s been a long time since Washington worried about actual revenues. They spend whatever they want, borrow what they can with declining ability to repay at a low interest rate they set themselves. Anything more Washington needs is printed up out of thin air.

So when you read stories like today’s about IRS persecution of a small business owner, understand that the IRS’s actions aren’t about collecting revenue — they’re about persecuting the citizenry.

Or as a better writer put it, Washington “has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”